146 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
yellow, bill black, legs and feet yellowish brown. Adult male in post-nuptial eclipse 
(only a partial eclipse): Dull brown like the female (Wetmore). Adult female: 
Crest cinnamon, smaller than in male and more bushy; underparts brownish; wing 
and tail dark brown, speculum white with two black bars, neck and breast largely 
brown , median underparts white; iris 
brown, bill black, lower mandible yel¬ 
low or orange; legs and feet dusky. 
Young in juvenal plumage: Similar to 
female but with little or no crest and 
plumage browner. 
Comparisons. —The female Hooded 
Merganser may be distinguished from 
other female Mergansers by her smaller 
size, and darker breast. (See pp. 147, 
149.) 
Range. —Breeds locally in wooded 
regions north to tree limit from south¬ 
eastern Alaska, northwestern British 
Columbia, Great Slave Lake, Hudson 
Bay, Ontario, and New Brunswick 
south to Florida, Louisiana, western 
Nevada, and Oregon; winters from 
southeastern Alaska, southern British 
Columbia, Utah, Nebraska, east to 
Massachusetts and south to Cuba, the Gulf States, Mexico, and Lower California. 
State Records. —The normal breeding range of the Hooded Merganser stretches 
from ocean to ocean in the northern United States and extends south to Florida, 
but in the Rocky Mountain region there is no certain breeding record south of 
Wyoming. The one recorded for New Mexico is probably an error, though the 
species occurs in the State during migration and was noted November 14, 1846, near 
Socorro (Abert), and one taken November 21, 1S55, at Dona Ana (Pope). [A pair 
were taken November 29, 1919, on Lyon Dyke, an irrigation pond on Duck Creek, 
30 miles northwest of Silver City (Kellogg).J The species was found by Henry 
on the Mimbres during the winter and spring and less commonly on the Rio Grande 
near Fort Thorn. On the Carlsbad Bird Reserve, it was found fairly common, 
January, 1915; noted during the winter of 1915-16; and [several flocks seen, Decem¬ 
ber, 1916 (Willett)].—W. W. Cooke. 
Nest. —In hollows of trees or stumps, sometimes in nesting boxes (rarely on 
ground), lined with grass, leaves, feathers, and down. Eggs: Usually 8 to 10, 
white (often nest stained). 
Food. —Small fish, crawfish, crabs, shrimps, tadpoles, frogs, bivalves, snails, 
sand eels, dragon fly nymphs, caddice-fly larvae, water beetles, and other aquatic 
insects; seeds and roots of aquatic plants, and an occasional shrew. 
General Habits. —Like the American Merganser, the Hooded 
nests in a hollow tree or stump near water, but its eggs are whiter than 
those of its relatives. In the plumage of the Hooded drake the striking 
‘secant” gashings of white on black and black on white and the “rup- 
tive” white crest patch in the black fan, cut and break up the form of the 
bird, helping to obliterate him from his landscape. And his landscape, 
From Handbook of Western Birds 
Fig. 21. Hooded Merganser 
