{"id":21924,"date":"2026-02-11T09:10:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T14:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/?p=21924"},"modified":"2026-02-11T09:10:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T14:10:14","slug":"mergansers-taking-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/?p=21924","title":{"rendered":"Merganser\u2019s taking flight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-attachment-id=\"21923\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/?attachment_id=21923\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/img_3716.jpg?fit=2000%2C2000&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"2000,2000\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"img_3716\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/img_3716.jpg?fit=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/img_3716.jpg?fit=904%2C904&amp;ssl=1\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"904\" height=\"904\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/img_3716.jpg?resize=904%2C904&#038;ssl=1\" class=\"wp-image-21923\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/img_3716.jpg?resize=1024%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/img_3716.jpg?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/img_3716.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/img_3716.jpg?resize=768%2C768&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/img_3716.jpg?resize=1536%2C1536&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/img_3716.jpg?resize=904%2C904&amp;ssl=1 904w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/img_3716.jpg?w=2000&amp;ssl=1 2000w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/img_3716.jpg?w=1808&amp;ssl=1 1808w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 904px) 100vw, 904px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Common Mergansers: Kennebunk, Maine, USA, February 2026 \u2014 Down on the tidal creek just behind the dunes at the mouth of the river, there are sometimes winter ducks\u2026it seems less and less as the years roll on, but still on a good day, you can find several species. Mergansers are still pretty common, though I see way more females (and perhaps immature males) than adult males. All of the winter ducks are skittish. If I walk down to the bridge when they are close, they will just drift further out and away. If I stand and look at them for any length of time, they are up and gone\u2026like this small group of Mergansers. Like most ducks, they need a runway to get airborne, and it is always fun to watch them running across the water. Sony a7CR. Tamron 150-500 at 500mm equivalent (cropped to about 1000mm equivalent field of view). Program mode with bird and wildlife modifications. Processed in Photomator and assembled in FrameMagic. <\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-21924\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/?p=21924&amp;share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\"><span>Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-21924\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/?p=21924&amp;share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\"><span>Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/?p=21924&amp;share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email this to a friend\"><span>Email<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Common Mergansers: Kennebunk, Maine, USA, February 2026 \u2014 Down on the tidal creek just behind the dunes at the mouth of the river, there are sometimes winter ducks\u2026it seems less and less as the years roll on, but still on a good day, you can find several species. Mergansers are still pretty common, though I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-21924\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/?p=21924&amp;share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\"><span>Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-21924\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/?p=21924&amp;share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\"><span>Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/?p=21924&amp;share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email this to a friend\"><span>Email<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Merganser\u2019s taking flight","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[305],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p26ui8-5HC","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21924"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}