Red-breasted Merganser

The red-breasted merganser is a duck native to much of the temperate to subarctic Northern Hemisphere, 51–64 cm long with a wingspan of 66–74 cm. Males weigh 950–1,350 g and females 800–1,100 g. It has a spiky crest and a long, thin red bill with serrated edges, which it uses to catch slippery fish while diving from the surface. The red breast is displayed only by males in breeding plumage (Wikipedia, general species account).

Individuals fly rapidly. They migrate each year from breeding sites on lakes and rivers to mostly coastal wintering areas, which makes this the species of its genus most often found on salt water. Incubation takes 28–35 days. Females, immatures and non-breeding males can be hard to tell from the common merganser. The cached account gives no detail specific to India. SoIB 2023 lists it as a winter migrant of wetlands that eats vertebrates, and does not assign a priority category (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).