Red-breasted Merganser (Mergus serrator): Photos, Range and Facts

Overview

The red-breasted merganser (Mergus serrator) is a duck species that is native to much of the temperate to subarctic Northern Hemisphere. The red breast that gives the species its common name is only displayed by males in breeding plumage. Individuals fly rapidly, and feed by diving from the surface to pursue aquatic animals underwater, using serrated bills to capture slippery fish. They migrate each year from breeding sites on lakes and rivers to their mostly coastal wintering areas, making them the most frequent species in the genus Mergus to frequent saltwater regularly.

Summary from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Range and habitat

Breeds southern Greenland, Iceland, northern British Isles, and Scandinavia to Sakhalin and Kamchatka peninsulas, and Kuril and Commander islands (southeastern Russia), in south through northern Kazakhstan and northeastern China; western Alaska mainland through mainland Canada from Arctic to northern Great Lakes and eastward to Nova Scotia; winters to coasts of southern Europe, Black and Caspian seas; Japan, Korean Peninsula, and eastern China; to west-central Mexico, Gulf Coast, and Florida.

Range description: AviList Global Avian Checklist.

Sources and further reading

Last updated September 29, 2026.

Red-breasted Merganser

Overview

Range and habitat

Continents

Countries

Sources and further reading