Crawlies with Cri – Hooded Merganser

photo of two hooded merganser couples swimming in a clear river.
Hooded Mergansers usually hang out in small groups of four to six but will join in with very large flocks of other small diving ducks. Photo by Christy Solo

By Christy Solo – ONPA 1st Place Award Winner for Best Local Column

This week’s crawly is a swimmy, divy, flappy. Meet the hooded merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus). We’ll call them “hoodies” for short.

There are so many cool things to learn about hooded mergansers, it’s hard to know where to start.

Hoodies are the teeny cousins of our common mergansers (Mergus merganser). How teeny are they?

Common mergansers average 23.5 inches…

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