Photos: Look! Hooded mergansers at Miller-Showers Park

On Saturday (Feb. 7), paddling through the partly open water in a detention pond at Bloomington’s Miller-Showers Park, was one male hooded merganser and two females. 

The warming trend over the next few days, which will put the daily high temperature easily above the freezing mark, will melt the rest of the ice soon enough. It’s hard to say how long the hooded mergansers will stick around. 

For real birders, the hooded merganser is not all that rare or special, even if the spotters who contribute to Cornell University’s eBird list have never logged a sighting at Miller-Showers.

They’re more commonly seen at places like the Paynetown Recreation Area on Lake Monroe where there have been more than a half dozen sightings already this year. 

But for ordinary folks who don’t get out much, the hooded merganser is the kind of duck you photograph just to prove you actually saw it. It looks like a cartoon come to life!

It has been a while since The B Square has documented at Miller-Showers Park a bird as fancy as a hooded merganser. In late January 2022, some redhead ducks made a return visit to Miller-Showers. 

Enjoy the photos below.

Photos: Fancy birds at Miller-Showers Park (Feb. 7, 2026)

[Click on any photo, to arrow or swipe through all the images at full-screen size.]