pecohen Loc: Central Maine

A shot from this afternoon. I think this is a pair of hooded merganser ducks but I welcome correction on that identification.

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

Good catch!

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

Very nicew

J-SPEIGHT Loc: Akron, Ohio

Nice shot

hettmoe Loc: Rural ND

Very nice!

Bubalola Loc: Big Apple, NY

SunBeach1962 Loc: Syrscuse, NY

I believe you are correct, the one in the foreground is a Drake, the other is an in-mature hen.

Scruffy Loc: North Ridgeville

Head and beak overall shape, along with crest, might suggest a Common Merganser pair? Curmudgeon will know!

pecohen Loc: Central Maine

Thanks to everyone who looked and commented, but especially to Sunbeach1962 and Scruffy for helping me with identifying these birds. I looked through a lot if bird pictures and I did find one that looked quite like the birds in my picture which identified one of them as hooded mergansers. However, most pictures of hooded merganser males have a very distinct and noticeable hood; and most pictures of the female show a distinctive comb of hair standing up. The possibility their looks changing according to season did occur to me, but this is the breeding season where you would expect the gender characteristics to be particularly pronounced. The possibility of these being juvenile did occur to me but I do think ducks mostly mature pretty quickly with last years new-born being, when they survive, mature by the next spring.

Common merganser pictures should have shown up in the search I did but maybe I should search again, specifically looking at common merganser pictures. Thanks, Scruffy, for that lead.

joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA

Beautifully tranquil 💙💙🏆💙💙