Del Mar Fair

I assure you, there will be birds in this post.  :)

I went to the Del Mar Fair today (actually, it's called the San Diego County Fair).

But, first, I started with the horse show.  I really liked this horse, he seemed so relaxed.  Unfortunately, I think he had problems with listening to commands and they got last place.

This lady and her horse got first place:

I then visited the chicken pens and saw this perfect bantam rooster:

This year, there were ducks!  This is a beautiful Cayuga duck, but he was a bit stressed out:

There were also three call ducks that were fairly relaxed:

Then, it was on to the butterfly tent:

In the nearby lagoon, there were lots of ducklings.  Amazingly, they were growing up relaxed.  I guess the gulls and herons in the area really haven't put a lot of pressure on them in this spot:

This mother duck seemed to be co-parenting with another female, perhaps her mother or sister:

A mom and an older duckling:

And, there were black necked stilt:

He had a family with a little chick (and a killdeer for company).  Actually, they had two chicks:

Hiding from me:

Visiting dad:

The killdeer had her own nest, too, with three eggs:

There was another nest in an area with the ducklings:

There was also a ruddy duck in breeding colors, but he wasn't too keen on me taking his picture:

There was also another killdeer nest (or chicks) and I think an avocet nest.  Boy, those killdeer did NOT like that avocet, though I don't think the avocet is a threat except that it would chase any chicks away from its nest (which it might have been doing when I saw the killdeer have a fit while it was walking around the area).