Birds of Central Oklahoma

All birds Ducks, Geese, and Waterfowl

Red-breasted Merganser, adult male
Adult male Photo by Channel City Camera Club from Santa Barbara, US. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Red-breasted Merganser

Mergus serrator

Here November to April.

Look for

  1. Males have a dark green head with a messy, shaggy crest.
  2. A white ring around the male's neck, with a dark reddish chest below it. His sides are gray.
  3. Females are gray with a dull brown head. The pale throat blends into the brown.

A little about it

Red-breasted Mergansers are winter ducks here. You can find them from November to April. They may stay later in spring than Common Mergansers do. When they travel, flocks fly in a V or in lines.

They eat mostly small fish. They dive and swim underwater to catch them. They also eat water bugs, and sometimes frogs or tadpoles. The ducklings eat mostly bugs.

To show off for a female, a male stretches his neck up high. Then he suddenly dips the front of his body into the water, with his head up and his bill wide open.

They nest on the ground near water, hidden under thick plants. The mother lays 7 to 10 eggs. Within a day after they hatch, she leads the babies to the water, and they find their own food. They can fly about 2 months later.

Fun fact

Sometimes a group of these ducks seems to hunt as a team. They line up and push a school of small fish into shallow water. Then they scoop up the fish without even diving.

When it's here

Taller bars mean more sightings. Most often seen in January.

More winter birds

How big

SparrowRobinCrowGoose

20 to 26 inches. A bit bigger than a crow, and about as big as a Mallard.

Where to look

Big lakes and wide rivers. Most of these ducks spend the winter on the ocean, and only a few stay on lakes and rivers inland.

  • On or by water

People have spotted it at Lake Hefner, Lake Overholser.

Could it be something else?

  • Common Merganser

    The male is mostly white, with a black back and a green head. The female looks a lot alike, but her brown neck meets her white chest in a sharp line. Up close, a Red-breasted Merganser's bill is thinner.

  • Mallard

    A male Mallard also has a green head, a white neck ring, a reddish chest, and a gray body. Look at the bill. A Mallard's bill is yellow. The merganser has a thin bill and a shaggy crest.

More photos

Red-breasted Merganser, female
Female Photo by Irene. CC0, via iNaturalist.

Where these facts come from