Canal Mama duck lives! And, Fish Food Mama with 10 half-grown ducklings?

It appears that "Canal Mama" didn't fall victim to coyotes.  I found her in the canal this morning not far from where the blood and feathers were.  She still had four ducklings.

I think I saw Butterscotch flying around, but did not see her nearly 6 week old ducklings.  It's possible that she has moved to a new area or the ducklings are off on their own.

I saw this brood of ten half-grown ducklings and their mama, now a month old.  I see a few males, but mostly females, so far.  We shall see as they get older.

I think this might be Fish Food Mama as she's the only mother duck I know that can raise ten ducklings to this age at this lake.  Her face and bill markings are a little off.  but, when I saw her looking at me, later, she did seem a lot like Mama.  She also recognized me.

At the time I saw her, it looked like a fisherman in a boat might have been harassing her.  But, I think she was OK as she's one smart mama duck. I don't know if the harassment was intentional or he was just being a jerk.

I also found the black and white duck dumped a couple of weeks ago way across the lake hanging out with the mallards whom seem to like him.  No sign of the gray duck.  Also, Big Daddy has been missing for a long time.  If I don't see him by the end of the month, I may declare him deceased.  Pepper has also been missing for a week or two, too.  The crested female rouen is missing as well.  And, several Pekin ducks are missing, but I think they were all piled up in the reeds.

There's still a mystery as to which duck was caught by the coyotes.

RIP Mama duck and ducklings

This morning, I heard the crows mobbing something near the canal where both Butterscotch and the mother pictured in the photo above were staying.  The mother in the photo was staying in a canal that was above where the lake road was.  Butterscotch was staying in a reed bed below the canal, a third duck was sitting on a nest, and I think Fish Food Mama was seen not too far from there recently.  When I got near that area, I found blood and female duck feathers that looked like they came from the mother in the photo above.

At first, I thought the duck was caught near where Butterscotch was, but when I remembered where the crows were mobbing from, I think it was the mom in the photo above that was caught and carried down to the lake road.  This was the mother, I think, who had the ducklings last year and brought them to the canal after the gulls got most of them and raised them there.  She has stayed in the canal ever since, but not in the area where I usually walk.

I suspect that the ducklings were also caught and eaten as I heard no sign of any ducklings in distress.  I'm sure she died defending them.   I doubt she still had the six, more likely she had two or three left.  They would be just over two weeks old. Or, it might have been a totally different duck with no ducklings whom I don't know.  But, some of the feather patterns look like they came from the mother duck pictured above.

I don't think I saw any ducklings today, except, perhaps, Butterscotch's ducklings who are nearly old enough to be on their own.  I didn't see any sign of Butterscotch, but her males weren't too far away from the ducklings, so she might be there.  I will let everyone know if I see this mama duck and her ducklings again.

I saw Squeak and Pollux with another killdeer whom upset Squeak a lot.

Pollux seemed very excited and did a big nest scrape:

Squeak came over to approve it.  The third killdeer ran off and disappeared.

"That's nice, dear" Squeak says

I thought I saw Pepper chasing after the girl ducks.  I hadn't seen Pepper in a while and was happy to see him.  But, it was not Pepper, but Cinnamon's boyfriend, the one I call "Mr. Rapist", but not aloud.  I think Cinnamon's "boy band" has broken up.  I haven't seen Big Daddy, lately.

Unfortunately, I think Cinnamon's Twin's Twin is deceased.  I saw her boyfriend and "Spot" the Welsh Harlequin without her.  They seemed very sad.  And, another Pekin is gone, too, so there's now 12 there.  I am still hoping to see Big Daddy again as I think he went off on his own somewhere and will show up again.   Oreo is still alive and well.

Louie just loves Jill.  I wonder if they're mating now.

I think the male on the left might be one of Snowie's sons from last year.  The other wasn't too far away.  She seems to not mind this other male at all and the Dad tolerates him well, too.  Mom is very picky and just doesn't accept every duck to be near her.  She's been with the male on the right for years.

Ducklings live!

4 ducklings sleeping

Four of the ten ducklings hatched last month are still alive and here's the proof:

I did not see any sign of the six I also saw in the same area, but I think I saw a new batch of brand new ducklings, perhaps from Fish Food Mama.  I was too far away to get photos of them.  If they're Mama's ducklings, chances are I'll see them again next time I'm there.

Neo and Zippy are very close and Zippy only seems to want Neo around and no other males.

I think these might be Indy and his brother hanging out with Neo, but Zippy chases them off if they get too close.  There were two other male mallards there, but Indy has a super-straight bill, so I think the one in back might be him.

Lots of green herons around.  I saw several babies in the reeds, and several adults flying around.  Here is one adult:

Another adult was sitting nearby and a third or fourth was somewhere else:

And, I saw three spotted sandpipers, most likely a female and two males.  The female was the boss and every time she flew away, she called the others to follow.  I couldn't get a photo of any of them because they wouldn't let me get within 50 feet of them before they flew off.   That's unusual as spotted sandpipers usually aren't that shy.

And, the baby blue herons are just about ready to fledge as are the osprey.

And, I found out that the dumped black and white duck was acting very scared and following people around last week.  That could be why he disappeared.  I'm hoping someone took him and his friend home.  They weren't acting like that when I saw them or I would have gotten them out of there ASAP.  Something must have scared him.

More RIP duckies and where did some others go?

We say good-bye to more ducks at Lake Murray.  The scaup in the photo above was found dead this morning.  It looks like he might have actually starved to death.  It's possible he didn't fatten up enough before migrating and then might have flown too hard and too far to the point where he couldn't fly anymore.  By then, it might have been too late and he couldn't gain the weight back.  Or, he might have been sick.  No sign of injuries or anything else that would have caused him to not be able to walk or gain weight.

Also, it looks like Buffy2 is gone.  He's the last of Oreo the Indian Runner's little flock of ducks and has been there three years.  I found feathers everywhere, but most of them were light.  He was beginning to go through his molt and was very light in color.  I found no sign of him and he and Donald the Pekin were very close.  Donald would never have left his side.

Bigboi and the crested duck were hanging out.  Usually, Buffy2 would sit between the two of them.

Donald was extremely upset about his missing friend and didn't want to associate with any other duck.  He looked very mopey.

In other sad news, the mother with the nine ducklings had no ducklings at all this morning.  I was hoping that she had stashed them somewhere, but she was hanging out with her mate for over an hour and didn't seem anxious to find them.  So, I think they're all deceased.

And, this duck is now missing.  He was dropped off with one other duck last weekend and that duck disappeared before I could get a photo of him.  Now, he's missing.  He was eating and drinking normally and I'm hoping he just went somewhere else on the lake, though I haven't seen anything.  I'm hoping he and his friend are together now and safe.  I saw no sign of predator activity with either of them.

More ducklings

"Snowie's" ducklings

Today, I saw some new ducklings.  First, I got a report that someone saw 5 ducklings about a month or a month and a half old.  The only ducklings that old were the first brood that I saw over a month ago.  So, I went to go look for them, but I found these little guys.  They were moving so fast, I couldn't get a good picture of them.

Here she is hiding from me.  I think she was the mom who had her ducklings, first, last year and lost almost all of them to gulls before she took three of them over to this canal.  I guess she feels this is a safe area as she has decided to raise her brood there from the beginning.  I believe she might be one that had nine ducklings last Saturday.  Now, she has six.

"Snowie" has reappeared with about nine or ten ducklings.  She was re-connecting with her mate.  I call her and her mate the "Snowies" because the look a little like snowy mallards, but obviously have some other type of mallard duck in them.  They could also be part appleyard.

Snowie got disturbed because too many people were starting at them, so she carted off her babies across the lake.

There were two new ducks dumped last Saturday at the lake and today was the first time I was able to get out to make a photographic record of them.  However, one of them, a blue crested Swedish, has already disappeared, leaving his buddy alone.  This duck looks like either a magpie or a black Swedish mix.

Big Daddy, Cinamon's twin-twin, and the Welsh Harlequin are all missing right now.  Big Daddy has been missing for at least a week and it's not too unusual with him this time of year to go missing.  I hope this isn't the final time he's disappeared.

I also did a bird count, but found nothing unusual.

Bossy duck tries to keep a girlfriend.

I guess Bossy was trying to get a certain female to be his mate when she flew over to where several other males were resting.  She then began to do a little ritual which I think was her way to get the males to either chase her or fight each other. She and Bossy got separated, at first.

Bossy, strutting his stuff

 Then, he went up to her and protected her from the other males.  But, alas, I don't think the girl has made up her mind and flew off with Bossy and one other male with her.  Maybe, this year, there will be little Bossys swimming around.

I think the female might be Bluebill,, one of the breeding females from last year.

I found Squeak with Pollux in one of the ballfields.  Immediately she recognized me and ran up to me before laying down.  Then, later, I walked around the entire field and she would follow me the entire time.  When I stopped, she would run up to me and lay down.  Finally, she ran up to me and did a semi-broken wing act.  But, I found no nests anywhere and the act was half-hearted.  I think she's going broody, but not breeding, yet.

Here she is laying down in the grass, watching.

Her mate, Pollux, could care less about everything except he didn't want her to get too far away.


In another field, I think this might be Little Miracle, still mate-less:

This gull seemed to be fairly interested in her, but not overly much.  I think she didn't like the gull.

Young ducks and an injured scaup

I just made a quick trip to Lake Murray and was able to call over this lesser scaup.  He's way overdue for his migration and is the only one there.  That is a sign that something's wrong with him.  When he got close enough, I could see that his entire left side is messed up and he can't seem to use the left leg.  I don't think he can fly, either.  He seems to be hungry and was begging for handouts.  I couldn't get close enough to see if it's a fishing tackle injury or something natural.  He was alert and energetic, so he's OK so far.

Neo, Indy and Indy's brother are all still hanging out together, but Indy keeps chasing and fighting with his brother.  Indy doesn't bother Neo at all.  Neo seems to be a very good-natured male duck and gets along with with Indy's brother.  But, he doesn't seem to want to fly, so I think his wing might be still bothering him.  He also is not oiling his side feathers very well, either.  But, he may have done that on purpose because it's been very hot out.

This is Neo's mother and I believe Neo is the only duckling she has ever raised to adulthood (though 5 were stolen from her a couple years ago and raised by another female).  She was in a very cranky mood today and did not want me to get too close.  She has always had ducklings by this time, but not this year.  Her mate, who could be Neo's dad, is nearby protecting her.

While I was taking pictures of Neo's mom, I heard this duck quacking very loud.  All the males in the area came to her aid, including Neo, Indy, and Indy's brother as well as Buffy's son, who was all in the area.

I thought this was Peaches and was concerned that she abandoned her babies.  But I think it might be Zippy, one of the lake ducklings from last year. 

Zippy seemed to really like Neo and was doing her head-bobbing at him.  She probably knows him from when she was growing up as he also grew up in the same area, but three months before.

I haven't seen any ducklings anywhere near the main Kiowa entrance of boat docks, but I did hear of some across the lake where there is more cover.  The wild Canada geese were sticking around, too.