Merganser piette

The Harle piette ( Mergellus albellus ) is a piscivorous Canard of the family of the Anatidé S.

Mergellus albellus is only the species kind Mergellus Selby, 1840.

Identification

It is smallest of the group of the Harle S. It is easily identifiable because of its size, its silhouette and its plumage. The male is almost very white with some scattered black spots. The black central part of the back is prolonged by gray breeches. A black circular mark surrounds the eye right with the lower part of crested white. The neck of the female gray is surmounted by a broad brown cap. The chin and the throat are white.

The merganser holds its name of its practice to swim the submerged body (Mergus, of mergere, to submerge).

Song

Usually discrete, the male emits weak whistles in the event of danger and the female sound a karr kokokok rolled.

Habitat

For the bridal period, the merganser piette attends the wet and Scandinavian forests of the Scandinavia provided in large trees for the hollow trunks favourable with the nesting. For the period of wintering, one rather finds it on banks of the interior lakes or the artificial tanks but also along the sheltered coasts with not very deep water like in the estuaries and bays with the accessible climate.

Behaviors

It belongs to the category of the plunger ducks. Its total immersions last from 15 to 45 seconds, sometimes until under the ice when that is necessary. The merganser piette is migrating which at the beginning of the autumn, leaves Scandinavia and the north of Russia to come to be installed on the dimensions of the the North Sea and of the English Channel. Previously, it was a visitor of our areas only at the time of hard winters where the lakes and rivers of the east of the Europe were taken by the ices. These last years, it seems that modifications intervened in the practices and in spite of less rigorous winters, the mergansers piettes became regular visitors including in the estuary of the Loire.

Flight

The merganser piette takes off most of the time of water surface. Its flight is fast and the beats of wings are precipitated.

Nesting

Like the red-breasted merganser, it affectionate particularly the wet forests of which he uses the cavity of the large trees. But it also accepts without reserve the artificial nesting boxes which are sometimes installed. The female lays on average from 6 to 9 eggs of which the duration of incubation rises from 26 to 28 days. No accurate information was collected on the date of emancipation or take-off of the young people.

Mode

It is a carnivore which nourishes primarily fish, insects watery and their larvae.

Reference

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