Meet the Hoodies

January 27, 2026

A wing-whistling duck with a regal wardrobe

It’s not the voice that gives away a Hooded Merganser. Their song, such as it is, is a grunting croak that’s barely audible. Their wings are a bit louder—creating a piercing, whistling sound when they get up to speed in flight. What usually gives them away is the dramatic hood of the male when it is raised to its full extent when the bird is in the water. It’s visible at some distance and, to get a good look at it, you either have to be standing, sitting or kneeling perfectly still and/or guess right on where the diving duck will come up for air.

To get a close look it helps to have cover. They have superior eye-sight and will take flight at a twitch. One of my tricks is to study them from afar to see where they are heading so that I can be close, still, and at least partly shielded by brush when they pop up for air.

As you can see in the photo above, the female (to the right) is smaller and darker, and more difficult to locate, especially in wintry shadows if she is swimming without her mate. Hoodies are less common than the larger Common Mergansers and only about a third the size. So it takes a bit more patience to locate them. Hoodies need trees or nesting boxes for their eggs, so you’re more likely to see them in the Spokane-area than in the scablands to the south. They are year-round residents in most of the northwest but I rarely see them outside the winter months where they seem to favor smaller streams, like Latah Creek.

I think of them as a winter duck because that’s when I’m most likely to encounter them. They can be mistaken for Bufflehead ducks, which also have white on their heads, although the white crests on the male Buffleheads are not quite as ornate or prominent as the headwear on the male hoodies, which they can flex open to full disc from the more streamlined version which collapses to a stripe when the duck is in a hurry.

—tjc

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Hoodie pair taking flight

—tjc