The wild duck merganser is an excellent flyer, swimmer, diver and fisherman. Big merganser: description of the breed of ducks Prices for infrared lamps

07.03.2020

Mergus Serrator

Description. A typical merganser is 52-58 cm long, weighing 800-1300 g, with a wingspan of 70-86 cm. - black collar with white spots. The head is dark with a green metallic sheen, a double crest of loosened thin feathers is developed on the back of the head. Long thin beak, iris, legs - red. The female is brownish gray with a streaked pattern and white underparts, with a shorter crest on a rufous chestnut head. Her iris is brown, her beak and legs are reddish. Both sexes have a large white speculum crossed out by a dark stripe on the wing.

During the current, the males almost submerge into the water, putting out their heads and sacrum, raising splashes and breakers, and rush after the females. More often than other mergansers, nests are located not in hollows, but in crevices, niches, burrows, voids under stones. The clutch usually contains 8-12 yellowish, creamy, brownish eggs. Incubation lasts 31-35 days, down coats are dark with a white bottom and spots on the back, reddish heads with white "glasses". On the rivers, broods often break up, mix, being frightened by motor boats, so you can often find small groups of ducklings without females, females without chicks, or a female with a brood of 40-50 ducklings. Young rise to the wing at 60-65 days. These mergansers feed mainly on fish, sometimes they organize flocked driven hunts in shallow waters. Fairly common, especially in the north of its range.

Spreading. North America from Alaska east to the west coast of Hudson Bay, Manitoba, Michigan. North to Kotzebue Bay, mid-Yukon valley, northern Mackenzie, northern Kivatin. South to British Columbia, central Alberta, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, Massachusetts; southern Baffin Island, west coast of Greenland north to south Melville Bay, east coast of Greenland north to Scoresby Bay, Iceland, Aleutian Islands. Eurasia from Scandinavia, Denmark, Holland to the east to the Bering Strait, the Bering Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, Kamchatka. To the north in Europe to the Arctic coast, on the Yamal Peninsula up to the 69th parallel, on the Gydan Peninsula up to the 70th parallel, in the Yenisei valley up to the 71st parallel, to the lake. Taimyr, the mouths of the Lena, Yana, Kolyma, river mouths on the northern coast of the Chukotka Peninsula. To the south to Holland, the southern and western coasts of the Baltic Sea, the regions of Pskov and Vologda, the Belaya and Ufa basins, the Kokchetav region, Balkhash, Markakol, Khamar-Daban, the middle Amur basin. Isolated nesting has been recorded on the islands of Karkinitsky Bay (Black Sea), on Lakes Sevan and Issyk-Kul. Islands: Faroe Islands, Ireland, northern part of Great Britain, Commander Islands, Sakhalin, northern Kuril Islands.

It winters along the sea coasts of the temperate zone and subtropics.

Habitat. It nests mainly along river banks in mountainous areas, in some places along sea coasts, where birds can form fairly dense nesting colonies.

Voice. Very silent. During mating demonstrations, the male emits a muffled two-syllable "yi-yeee", the female in response repeats the monosyllabic "crack, crack ...". The calls of the female when disturbed are a hoarse rough "hrrr, hrrr ...".

Literature

Stepanyan L.S. Synopsis of the ornithological fauna of Russia and adjacent territories M .: Akademkniga, 2003, 808 p.
Koblik E.A. Diversity of birds (based on the materials of the exposition of the Zoological Museum of Moscow State University), h. 1. M.: Publishing House of Moscow State University. 2001. 384 p.
A.B. Linkov Hunting waterfowl of Russia GU "Tsentrokhotkontrol", 2002 - 268 p. from ill.
Ryabitsev V.K. Birds of the Urals, the Urals and Western Siberia. Yekaterinburg: Publishing House Ural. University. 2008. - 634 p.

International Significance:
The species is included in Appendix II2 of the EC Directive on the Protection of Rare Birds, Appendix III of the Berne Convention, Appendix II of the Bonn Convention. Listed in the Red Books of Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland.

Description:
Medium sized duck. Body length 57-70 cm, weight 1-1.3 kg. On the back of the head is a double tuft of elongated feathers. The beak is narrow with teeth along the edges and with a hook at the end. Sexual dimorphism in coloration is well expressed. The male has a black head with a metallic sheen, a white ring around the neck (which is absent in the big merganser), a brown goiter with black streaks, a dark back, and gray sides. Female, juveniles and male in summer-autumn plumage: ashen upperparts with a brown tint, white throat connected to white chest, brown color of the head gradually turning into a whitish neck and chest.

Distribution:
Breeds in Eurasia, North America and Greenland south to 500 N latitude. In Europe, it is common in Iceland, the British Isles, Fennoscandia, Estonia and northern Russia. The southern border of distribution runs from Ireland to the northern part of Poland, Belarus. Isolated populations are also found south of this border in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine. A stable isolated nesting population is also known in Belarus - on the territory of the Naroch system of lakes. In the nesting period, birds were also noted on the Braslav lakes. During the migration, it is regularly observed on large water bodies in different parts of Belarus. It winters mainly along the Atlantic coast, the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, in the Mediterranean and Black Seas.

Habitat:
It settles on relatively deep, poorly overgrown lakes with clear water, with islands and banks overgrown with trees and shrubs, less often on small rivers.

Biology:
Breeding migratory waterfowl. Appears in April-May in spring, leaves in October-December in autumn. The nest is built in hidden places - in niches among stones, dense thickets of nettles, under tree roots, bushes or under the forest canopy. The clutch appears in the first half of June, consists of 7-12 eggs averaging 65.0 - 45.0 mm in size. In the event of the death of the first masonry, there is a second one. Incubation 26-28 days. Feeds mainly on small fish. Aquatic insects also play an important role in nutrition.

Number and trend of its change:
The nesting of a group of birds on the Naroch lakes was first reliably confirmed in 1979. Its number is stable and amounts to 10-20 pairs. In the neighboring Baltic countries and in Ukraine, the number is declining. The size of the European breeding population is 59,000-110,000 pairs.

Main threat factors:
Intensive recreational load in the coastal zone of water bodies is the main limiting factor. Cases of destruction of nests by the gray crow have been noted. Eutrophication of the lakes of the Narochanskaya group can lead to a reduction in the abundance of the species that prefers oligotrophic lakes.

Security measures:
Listed in the Red Book of the Republic of Belarus since 1993. It is forbidden to visit one of the main nesting sites during the nesting period - the island on the lake. Naroch. It is necessary to carry out additional research and develop measures to preserve the species on the lakes of the Naroch group: identify and give the status of "rest zones" to bird nesting sites, install artificial nests for birds in order to prevent predation by gray crows, and conduct explanatory work among vacationers about measures to protect the species.

Compiled by:
Kozulin A.V., Ostrovsky O.A.

There are only 4 varieties of mergansers, but today our focus is on the long-nosed duck. It is distributed in various parts of the world, therefore it deserves a separate description. Individuals are famous for their interesting behavior, as well as overall features and external data. To date, most of the population is dispersed throughout Europe, more precisely its western part, as well as in the Himalayas, Japan and on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.

Description

From the individuals of the presented breed group, excellent dives were obtained. A distinctive feature is the elongated beak, as well as the color of the feathers. In terms of overall features, birds sometimes reach 60 cm, it is also important to take into account the wingspan, which is 70-90 cm. As for weight, one cannot say that the birds are huge. Their mass varies between 1-1.2 kg.
The nose is reddish, the head is black with a greenish sheen. The duck has white feathers in the neck and chest, resembling a kind of collar in its pattern. Individuals of the male sex have a double crest, as well as a sling near the goiter.
The thorax is spotted, tinged red with black. The side parts are gray, the pattern is flowing. In the upper region of the wings there are spots and a patterned outline. The back and cervical region include a stripe of a dark tone (usually black).
The females are almost all identical. Their plumage is grayish, patterned, slightly striped. On the head there is a forelock of a reddish hue with a gray sheen. The ventral section is whitish, the neck is gray with rufous, there are no clear boundaries in the transition of tone.
The upper part of the body is light with a shade of brown. There is a dark line in the mirror area, followed by a white stripe. Females and males practically do not differ in tone, except that in males the back area is black with brown.
A duck has a line between the eyes and nose, but the representative of the male side does not have such a feature. Males are famous for their reddish iris, while females have it brown.
The young growth has not yet formed in terms of its coloring. Its tone of plumage is dark, the forelock is not elongated. When an individual reaches puberty, it will acquire all the features characteristic of this species. The young have grayish paws with a slight reddish tinge. In males up to 12 months old, the color is constantly changing, it either looks like a female or a male.

habitation

Mergansers of this category prefer to settle where there are thickets and some current. That is, they are lured by weakly flowing rivers, lakes with sufficient depth (do not forget that birds are excellent divers). They also love all kinds of streams passing through the wooded area.
You can meet representatives of the breed group in the tundra, as well as water sources with brackish water. They get along well in bays, in shallow water, in straits and bays, estuaries with sand at the bottom. They do not like silt, therefore they refuse such water sources.
Birds will always choose narrowed channels instead of the water surface that is open to the eyes of people. They try to live near rocky terrain, trees, shrubs near the water, grassy plantations. Prefer islets and braids.
When the nesting period comes to an end, the birds go to winter in the sea. They feed in brackish lagoons or bays. Individuals do not like waves, swim only in clean water. During the flight to the wintering place, they stop for a snack in small freshwater springs.

reproduction

The presented mergansers prefer the banks of mountain rivers during nesting. They can also build nests on various islands. Often such manipulations occur in the spring. Birds nest in colonies or in pairs. Individuals begin to build a nest at a distance of approximately 20 m from the water.
Often, birds make their own homes to reproduce offspring in natural depressions that are located in the ground. Nests can be under large stones, in rock crevices, in the roots and crowns of dense trees. They can also be found in hollows and reeds.
The considered individuals always choose secluded and quiet places for nesting. This is done so that the female that hatches the eggs is not visible to the outside world and predators. Birds line the bottom of the nest with dried grass and their own fluff.
In one place, females can nest for many years. In laying often there are no more than 12 eggs. They can be dyed creamy or creamy. The duration of incubation of offspring can last up to 35 days. Already at the age of two months, young mergansers learn to fly.
In the middle of summer, males gather in flocks and move to tundra rivers and shallow bays. At this time, the birds are molting. Also, such a process often occurs in nesting areas, in the forest area. Individuals reach sexual maturity at the age of 3 years.

Food

Often, the individuals in question feed on small fish, invertebrates, plants, larvae, insects, and worms.
The process of feeding in birds occurs in flocks on shallow shores. Overwintering individuals fly to the mouths of shallow bays.

The bird population is significantly reduced every year. The problem is that such game is popular among hunters. In addition, individuals often die in fishing nets.
The bird population is also rapidly declining due to habitat disturbance. People cut down forests, build dams and pollute water bodies. In addition, individuals are susceptible to bird flu.
Ducks have long been listed under protection in European countries. Due to this, the population of the species began to increase on the islands. To preserve the species of birds, people build artificial nests on their own.

Long-nosed mergansers belong to a rather interesting species of birds. In addition, these birds also have subspecies. Unfortunately, the population of individuals is declining mainly due to human activities.

The merganser duck is distributed throughout the world. Many varieties of mergansers, different in color, size, habitats, live in Western Europe, in the Himalayas, in the coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean and in Japan.

The wild duck merganser is singled out as a separate genus of mergansers (Merginae), belonging to the family of ducks (Anatidae), subfamily of real ducks (Anatinae), order Anseriformes.

The genus includes six species:

loot or small merganser;
long-nosed or medium merganser;
big merganser;
scaly merganser;
crested merganser;
Brazilian merganser.

Important. In New Zealand, the Auckland Merganser lived, a stuffed animal of which today can only be seen in a museum. The culprits for the disappearance of this bird are feral pigs, cats and goats brought to the islands.

The basis for the allocation of mergansers into a separate genus was the similarity of the anatomical structure, food preferences, lifestyle and behavior. A characteristic distinguishing feature of ducks of this genus is the beak. It is long, narrow, curved towards the top with a sharp thin horny outgrowth-hook on the pommel.

In most ducks, the beak is equipped with plates designed to collect or strain plant food; in mergansers, which feed mainly on fish, the plates have changed into sharp teeth located along the edges of the beak.

Other anatomical features are also characteristic of mergansers:

A feature of ducks of the Krokhal breed is a large crest on the head.

elongated body shape;
thin, long neck;
crest on a large head;
pointed wing shape;
short legs with a wide leathery lobe on the hind toe;
short, rounded, wide tail;
spectacular coloring;
large dimensions.

Mergansers have a waddling "duck" gait. They are excellent flyers, swimmers and divers. . Depending on the habitat, mergansers migrate or lead a sedentary lifestyle.

Types of merganser ducks

On the territory of the Russian Federation, four types of mergansers are common: loot, long-nosed, scaly and large.

Lutok or small merganser

The Latin name for the loot is Mergus albellus. It nests in the forest zone of the European part of Russia, in Siberia, in the Arkhangelsk region, in Karelia, on the Kola Peninsula, in Kamchatka, the Far East, the Shantar Islands, and in Scandinavia. It often winters in the Black and Caspian Seas, on the rivers of Southern Ukraine, Central Asia, Northern India, Japan, Korea, and China.

Prefers large forest rivers and floodplain lakes with fresh water. In winter, it lives in shallow sea waters near the ice edge, in river mouths.

Lutok is a rather small bird. It is slightly larger than the teal-whistle, weighs from 500 to 750 g, although there were also large individuals that “pulled” in the fall by 800-860 g. The back of the bird’s head is decorated with a wide crest. Tail of 8 pairs of tail feathers, rounded. Along the edges of a small beak are frequent, sharp "teeth".

Krokhal drakes have an interesting white-ash color.

The color of the breeding plumage of drakes is white with a black pattern. The back, part of the wings are black, the body on the sides with ash-bluish streams. Head, throat, abdomen are white. There are blue-black markings on the cheeks, between the beak and the eye, on the back of the head. The wings are dark gray, white in the middle, black at the ends. Beak and paws are lead-gray. The eyes are brown.

The top of the duck's head and the back of the neck are rusty-brown. The back is dark gray, with a burinka on the shoulders. Dark spots under the eyes. The throat, goiter and abdomen are white with gray-brown specks.

Drakes start breeding at the winter hut, so the sluts fly to the nesting place in pairs. Conquering the female, the male swims around the duck in circles, fluffing the tuft, plumage on the sides, on the shoulder blades and throat. Nodding his head, the drake grunts hoarsely.

The female builds a nest in the hollows of trees. Does not make litter; later the dwelling is lined with nesting light fluff. The average number of shiny yellow eggs in a clutch is 8, nests with 10-11 eggs are rare. Drakes take care of the female until the last egg is laid, then fly away to molt. Chicks are born in a month.

Important. Loots often occupy other people's abandoned nests or are combined with. Moreover, the female loot incubates and gogolyat.

The females of the lesser merganser are gray in color, the feathers on the head are rusty-brown.

Long-nosed or medium merganser

The specific name of the long-nosed merganser in Latin is Merganser serrator. He breeds in Iceland, Ireland, Germany, Poland, the Baltic countries, the Faroe, Hebrides, Orkney, Scottish, Danish Islands, Scandinavian and Jutland peninsulas. In Russia, it is distributed in the White Sea, Novaya Zemlya, the Solovetsky Islands, Yamal, Kolguev Island, Murman, Karelia, the Timan tundra, the Urals, and Siberia.

It winters on the coast of the North and Baltic Seas, in the west of the Kola Peninsula, in Iceland, France, and Italy. Arrives in large numbers for winter nesting in Kamchatka and the Commander Islands, the Kuril ridge, the Japanese Islands, Korea and China. The long-nosed merganser is a migratory bird, it rarely leads a sedentary lifestyle.

It chooses different habitats: skerries on the sea coasts, coastal lakes and lagoons, rivers, flowing tundra lakes, open sandy islands.

The long-nosed merganser is a large duck. The weight of a winter drake reaches 1400 g, ducks -1200 g. A distinctive feature of the average merganser is a bright red beak compressed on the sides with a narrow nail in the form of a bent blunt hook.

Ducks of the medium or long-nosed merganser breed are excellent swimmers and divers.

The head and top of the neck are black in the drake, brown in the duck, and there is a double crest on the back of the head. In the male merganser, the lower front side of the neck is white, the goiter is rusty-brown. The white folded wing stands out clearly against the gray flanks and black back.

The bird swims and dives well. It can stay under water for up to 25 seconds.

The mating ritual of the long-nosed mergansers is more complex and noisy than that of the loot and the greater mergansers. Starting the game, the drake deeply immerses the body in the water, raises the tail, stretches its neck at an angle of 75 ° to the water, bows, opens the tail like a fan, presses the crest to the neck, opens its beak wide. He splashes water with his wings on his back, flaps his wings loudly.

For the nest, the duck chooses crevices, caves, dense thickets of shrubs and reeds, washed tree roots. The primitive nest is a shallow hole with flimsy plant litter and an abundance of nesting dark down. Females lay 8 to 12 pale olive eggs and incubate nests alone for 31-32 days.

The meat of ducks of the Krokhal breed has a bright fishy flavor.

Important. The meat of all types of mergansers should be eaten with caution. Mergansers are often infected with a tapeworm that can grow up to several meters in the human body. In addition, the meat of mergansers strongly gives fish.

Mergus merganser or the big merganser is popularly known as the red-bellied bison and cormorant duck. Its habitat extends to Iceland, the northern part of Europe, and Central Asia. There is a bird in the Himalayas, in Tibet, in North America.

In Russia, the goosefoot lives on the Pacific coast, the Southern Urals, in the basin of the Northern Dvina, in Altai, in Transbaikalia, the Amur region, the Ussuri Territory, on Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, and Kamchatka. The bird gives a clear preference to flat rivers, clean lakes without dense vegetation. Avoids sea water.

The big merganser is really very big. Drakes sometimes weigh more than two kilograms.

Unlike other species, the drake is completely devoid of a crest. The color of the head and upper neck of the drake is black with a metallic sheen. The base of the neck, sides of the body, abdomen, upper part of the main part of the wings are pure white.

A feature of ducks of the breed big merganser is the absence of a tuft on the head.

The duck has a double wide crest on its red head. The throat and goiter are white.

Mating behavior and arrangement of nests is the same as for loot. The duck lays 8 to 13 smooth, creamy white eggs.

Important. There are three subspecies of the greater merganser: common merganser, North American and Himalayan. In Russia, an ordinary large and Himalayan live.

There is little reliable information about the scaly merganser (Mergus squamatus). Presumably, the bird nests on the coast of the Bering Sea, the Commander Islands, in the mountains of Sikhote-Alin, Manchuria, China, Korea, Burma, leads a sedentary lifestyle.

This is a medium sized bird. In anatomy, it is closest to the long-nosed mergansers. A distinctive feature is a very long tuft of a drake. The head, tuft and neck of the duck are brown-olive. The body on the sides and the base of the neck are reddish, the throat is white. The wings are ash-bluish, the back and undertail are in alternating gray and white stripes of "scales".

In drakes of the breed Scaly merganser, the crest is longer than in other species of merganser.

On the abdomen, goiter, the inner side of the wing, the plumage is white with a purple sheen. On the sides of the goiter, on the chest, lower back, abdomen, on the transverse stripe on the back of the abdomen, there are feathers with clearly defined wide stripes in the form of an arc along the edges, forming a kind of scaly pattern. The wing mirror is pure white.

The mating drake is distinguished by black plumage with a green sheen of the head, neck, neck, shoulder blades and shoulders. The "scaly" back and loins of drakes are grey. Uppertail pockmarked, gray-black. Sides with obvious black scales, on the undertail the pattern is blurred. The top of the wing is black, the middle is white, the middle coverts are black and white.

The beak of both the female and the male is red with a dark longitudinal stripe in the center and a dark tip. The iris is white or greyish.

It nests in mountain rivers. Nests are arranged in hollows of trees.

The bird is so peculiar that it is considered a separate genus - crested merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus). It lives in the boreal zone of North America between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It nests along the shores of forest lakes, in floodplain meadows, swamps, on the banks of lowland rivers. It winters near its main habitat, on the American ocean coast.

The crested merganser is an unusual and peculiar duck.

The average crested merganser is 500-650 g. In brown-brown ducks, the head is decorated with a red-brown tuft. The male in the mating season has a black-and-white crest and is very wide. Tokuya, the drake fluffs it up so that the head becomes twice as big. Ducks and drakes are easy to distinguish by the color of the iris. The eyes of females are red-brown, those of males are yellow.

Brazilian merganser

The Brazilian merganser (Mergus octosetaceus) is a rare species, whose habitat is limited to the Brazilian Serra da Canastra National Park. By 2013, the population did not exceed 350 individuals.

Small (550-700 g) birds feel good on land, but they eat what they get in the water.

What do merganser ducks eat

Regardless of the species and habitat, the basis of the diet of mergansers is fish. Large species prey on salmon, trout, eels, graylings, pikes, herrings and barbs. Smaller mergansers catch small fish.

Additions to the diet are:

aquatic insects, their larvae and pupae;
small crustaceans;
shellfish;
worms.

Looking for a school of fish, toothed ducks lower their heads into the water, having found prey, they dive. They move rapidly underwater, capable of making sharp turns.

The basis of the menu of merganser ducks is fish, but these ducks also eat other marine life.

Mergansers in the Red Book

The number of loot, large and long-nosed mergansers is stable. On the territory of Russia, hunting for them is allowed everywhere.

The scaly merganser is listed in the Red Books of the Russian Federation, China, North and South Korea. It is listed as Endangered (EN) on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

The Himalayan subspecies of the large merganser is classified as a rare species. Work on the safety of the population is carried out on the territory of the Zorkulsky reserve in the Gorno-Badakhshan region of Tajikistan.

The endangered Brazilian merganser is being taken seriously by the Brazilian government. A plan has been developed to save the merganser, including monitoring, the creation of national parks, breeding birds in captivity.

The crested merganser is out of danger in the USA. The population is growing steadily.

On the video you can see beautiful ducks of the Krokhal breed.

Class: Birds Order: Anseriformes Family: Anatidae Genus: Mergansers Species: Long-nosed Merganser

Long-nosed Merganser - Mergus serrator

Appearance.

Sizes are average. On the head is a crest of fine feathers. The male's head and back are black, the neck, abdomen and base of the wings are white, the goiter is brown with black streaks, the sides are gray with a small transverse pattern, the beak and paws are red.

The female is gray with a brown head and neck, a light belly, and white spots on the throat and wings; the border of the brown color of the neck and light goiter is blurred.

Lifestyle.

Inhabits sea coasts and islands, tundra and taiga reservoirs, mountain lakes and rivers. Migrant. Common. Breeds on wooded or open sea islands, along lakes and rivers - Duck's nest (2) builds in rock crevices, in voids under stones, in fins, in dense bushes, in reeds, rarely completely open, usually near water.

The nest is richly lined with dark down. Clutch from mid-May onwards (in the north) consists of 7-12 pale olive eggs. The female sits so tightly on the nest that it is sometimes possible to catch her with her hands.

It does not form large flocks even on migration. The flight is fast, with frequent wing beats, but the bird rises from the water with a run, noisy and heavy. Dives great. The voice is a hoarse quack of "crack... crash." It feeds mainly on fish. The commercial value is small.

It differs from the large merganser in its brown goiter and gray sides, the female in a blurred border of the color of the neck and abdomen, and from the scaly merganser in a brown goiter and a transverse pattern on the sides (females are almost indistinguishable).

Reference books of the geographer and traveler V.E. Flint, R.L. Boehme, Yu.V. Kostin, A.A. Kuznetsov. Birds of the USSR. Publishing house "Thought" Moscow, edited by prof. G.P. Dementieva. Image: Author Andrew Bossi