Common merganser replaced Eurasian golden oriole
In 2006-07, the many municipalities in Denmark were united, creating a smaller number of municipalities. In our area, the joining municipalities were Gråsten, Sundeved and Broager on the mainland and Nordborg, Augustenborg, Sydals and Sønderborg on island Als. The Danish government decided that each municipality should have assigned a bird species to protect and help progress in numbers.
Sønderborg Municipality were assigned the Eurasian golden oriole and this was not an easy task – at the time, the bird had not been observes in the area for the last 10 years. The mayor of that time, Jan Prokopek Jensen, sent a nice letter to the minister of environment asking if it was possible to switch to the Common merganser, a bird found in the area, the request was granted.
Like many other bird species in Denmark, the Common merganser is threatened by extinction and today the breeding popularity is still low.