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News

  • Acclaimed Cottrell-Baldwin Environmental Lecture Series Starts in March

    Anna Berry
    February 22, 2021

    The series explores topics from trout streams and New England Cottontail rabbit habitat restoration to foraging for edible native or invasive plants and the protection of freshwater resources.

  • Cold is Cool Speaker Series Continues

    Anna Berry
    January 20, 2021

    Plug in to watch and learn from expert speakers and then unplug outside.

  • A New Way to See the Merrimack Watershed

    Anna Berry
    January 12, 2021

    Thanks to the Clean Water Act of 1972, the Merrimack has been cleaned up considerably over the last 50 years. But there is still work to be done.

Merganser Feeding Frenzy

Early birds get the fish at the Merrimack River Education and Conservation Area
Ellen Kenny
October 1, 2015
Wildlife
Clean Water
Recreation
A great blue heron gets in on the action of a flock of feeding mergansers. All photos by Ellen Kenny.
 
September, 2015 - On my morning walk along the trails of the Merrimack River Outdoor Education and Conservation Area in East Concord, the river was placid and covered with mist , but when I came to the oxbow, I noticed that there were waves and whitecaps, even though there isn’t more than two feet of water back there.  The commotion  was from a flock of common mergansers --  about 25 or 30 ducks, half of which were under water at any given time -- and they seemed to be working together to herd the fish toward the sandbar.  They were totally caught up in the fishing and oblivious of me—wish I had had more time to watch.
 
 
The next day, the merganser flock was at the same place at 6:30 a.m. or so, but when the fishing and preening ended, they headed up the river with a kingfisher and a heron closely following.

 

 
 The kingfisher followed them from snag to snag chattering all the while as they made their way upriver,  and the heron buzzed over them like a helicopter. 
 
The mergansers all stopped for a riotous feed at the first beach, and the heron landed right along beside them with the kingfisher making a racket in a tree above.   The heron and kingfisher seemed to be cashing in on the mergansers’ fishing strategies. 

 

 

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Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests54 Portsmouth St.Concord, NH 03301
Phone: 603.224.9945Fax: 603.228.0423info@forestsociety.org
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