Hooded Mergansers at Balmorhea SP

Today, while checking out the water birds on the small pond at the entrance to Balmorhea SP, I was excited to find a group of Hooded Mergansers. This is a new species for us. We missed out on an earlier attempt to chase a report of one at Meadow Lake in Round Rock. In all we saw three females and two males. They where much more timid than the resident coots and scaups, paddling over to far end of the pond and behind the island when I approached and taking flight the first time I watched them. I observed several interesting behavior including diving for crawfish and then shaking them to stun them and the male courtship display in which the males puffed out their hoods and bobbed their heads.