merganser ducks

[jackdaww]

a few months ago saw a red breasted merganser on the river teifi near cardigan.

today saw about a dozen , and four gooseanders on the river tame near tamworth west midlands.

are these getting more common ?

[Slarti]

I've certainly seem them at RSPB reserves here in the East and RSPB shows them as winter visitors https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildl ... merganser/

Goosanders are resident in northern areas and I've also seen them over here in autumn, winter and spring,

Slarti

[bionichamster]

are these getting more common ?

Not sure about the areas you quote since the distribution, especially in the lower half of the UK is patchy and also varies quite a bit from year to year. As it happens I see the data from a lot of Goosander and Merganser counts every year and in a weird coincidence I had a set of them sitting next to me as I came across your question. Certainly here in Scotland I'd suggest that the long-term pattern can be quite different between rivers. The two I'm looking at the moment are quite steady over the long-term but and have fluctuated about the same mean for many years. My general understanding is that UK wide the populations of both Goosander and RB merganser peaked in the mid- to late 1990's and have declined a bit since then, so they may be more common than they were in the 1980's but less comment than the late 90's... thus it depends on your point of reference (i.e. more common than when?).

Interestingly I saw 12 goosanders last week on a duck pond in Perth eating bread beign tosssed by a family! This is a behaviour that was considered so unusual that a few years ago it was recorded as a note in the journal British Birds whereupon a number of people wrote in to say they had seen it elsewhere. Personally I've only ever seen it once before on a pond north east of Glasgow but I suspect it's probably quite common it's just that the type of person who writes to British Birds typically doesn't hang out at duck ponds with a stale loaf.

BH

[jackdaww]

many thanks for responses.

my brother and i have seen only a few red breasted merganser over the years , and we had never seen the big white male gooseander,

it was quite a surprise to see them in the heart of the midlands.

ps highlight of this year was a montagues harrier at seaton devon.

.

[bionichamster]

Best I've found to see RBM's is coastal estuaries, they are much more common in the tidal parts of rivers than further upstream, where in contrast goosanders are more common, although both species can be found anywhere on the river system.

Nice birds, not too popular with the fisheries managers though, particularly during the smolt run.

BH