Neo's mom returns

Neo

I saw Neo with his mom early this morning, though she didn't seem very interested in Neo.  He does seem to love her, though, and will come running to her if he hears her quack.  I think I see some greening on Neo's bill similar to what older male ducklings have.  Not sure if he is, though.

Neo's mom

Neo is beginning to get his feathers and his head shape is a lot like his mom's.  He will be a month old this weekend:

Fish food mama still has five ducklings, now 11 days old.  Here they are in the very early morning:

Independent duckling

With his brother

 Here they are later.  At first, they settled into this one spot, but then their mom's mate forced them to move further away from her.

Trying to take a nap

There was a red-shouldered hawk nearby, but the king birds chased it away.  Red-shouldered hawks have been known to kill small ducks, but the ones here, so far, seem only interested in the squirrels all over the place.  Mom did a quick "quack!" and they all ran back to her:

Mom keeps one eye open for the hawks while her babies sleep:

I saw this new family today.  The babies are so much tinier than Fish Food Mama's:

A raven decided to go over to where Squeak and Pollux were taking care of their chicks, panicking them.  I think all three chicks got away as I don't even think the raven saw him.  Pollux went after the raven as well as a couple other birds in the area.  But, he stayed a fairly long time.  I went to go look for them, but they stayed quiet and I didn't see them.  I did hear Squeak calling for the chicks later on.

Junior was being a pain to photograph, but his mate was on the other side of the lake, feeding.  Here she is:

In Junior's territory, Killer Jr. and George III were playing "nest scrape and territory ownership" games.  Killer Jr. did his characteristic twitchy jumping around to claim the territory:

His brother, George III, claimed the territory by scraping and doing kill-dees.

Here is a photo of the first two coot chicks I've seen this year.  One of the parents just went under water to get some algae for them to eat:

I also came across this black-crowned night heron trying to eat a fishing lure.  I tried to see if I could get it away from him, but he acted like he would just carry it off if I approached him, so I let him be.

Spoonface (Bossy) duck:

Big Daddy is losing his colors:

And, the gadwall is molting, too: