Feeling stressed? This wildlife video may be just the trick to calm the nerves.
Squamish's Cliff Jennings captured this footage this week of what he called a "daycare" of mergansers on a Brackendale pond.
According to All About Birds, a website that is part of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, mergansers are identifiable in that they are smaller than a Canada goose and slightly larger than a mallard.
Unlike other types of ducks, the merganser's bill is straight and narrow.
Females have a sort of 1980s mullet — crests — on the backs of their heads.
Here are some more All About Birds facts about mergansers:
• They dive underwater to catch fish
• After the chicks leave the nest in summer, the female stays with them as they grow up while males gather in flocks
• In winter, mergansers form large flocks on inland reservoirs and rivers
• They stay in these tight flocks to feed and court during the cold months.
• In migration and winter, they mix with other fish-eating, diving ducks such as bufflehead, goldeneyes, and other species of mergansers.
