I've been reading with great interest the thread on Common Mergansers and thought I'd add a few addl obs (which I submitted a while back to Ray Kiddy, AL Co. coord but I must confess I've been sitting on otherwise)... 

"On 6/23/02, while on a Potomac canoe trip with our kids, Dan Feller and I observed an adult female Common Merganser with 5 ducklings along Potomac River, AL Co., Paw Paw quad, SW block.   On 6/22/02, we also saw on two different occasions a hen, then a drake Common Merganser flying along the river, Oldtown quad, SE block."

It appears this species has established a foothold along the Potomac as a breeder, and is experiencing a significant southward breeding range expansion.  I'm not aware of any recent published breeding records for PA, WV or VA, besides what was mentioned below.  Whether or not these are "MD breeding records" will of course require more concerted effort but, as Todd indicated, the growing number of obs are nonetheless of regional significance.  Pretty cool and glad to see Dan and I are not the only ones who've seen the mergies.

Jim McCann


-----Original Message-----
From: Todd Day [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, June 11, 2004 2:46 PM
To: 
Subject: [MDOSPREY] VA and MD Common Merganser breeding


Greetings,

Following up on the sightings of Common Mergansers on the Potomac River.
Dave Czaplak reported one Common Merganser chick with no adult present on the
Potomac River at Violette's Lock, Montgomery County, MD on 30 May (on MDOsprey).
He described the size of the bird as being rather small, with no length to
the body.  The bird was seen on a stony beach, mid-river, before disappearing
downstream.  This seems to fit well with Christie Huffman's 8 June report of
half-grown Common Mergansers with an adult just upstream of Riverbend Park,
Fairfax County (on VA-Bird).  This was just a few miles downstream of Czaplak's
sighting.

There are few breeding records for Virginia and Maryland.  The Field List of
the Birds of Maryland (The Yellow Book) has no breeding records indicated.
Virginia's Birdlife and Annotated Checklist (The Blue Book) has two records from
Rockingham County (Mountains and Valley) of an adult with young, from 1953
and 1954, as well as a 1965 record of an adult with young from Dyke Marsh,
Fairfax County (Coastal Plain).  In June of 2003, Suzie Leslie and Peggy Speigel
observed a hen with eight young 4 June and again 21 June on the Little River in
Montgomery County, VA (Mountains and Valley).  I'm unsure if all eight young
were still present on the second date.

The Potomac River birds were seen on the Piedmont.  It'll be pretty tough to
figure out where these birds were born (I'm nothing if not a master of the
obvious).  Regionally it's a pretty significant find.

Cheers,

Todd

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Todd Michael Day
Jeffersonton, Virginia, USA
Culpeper County

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