Hello! Most of my posts take place around San Diego County, (Mostly Lake Murray) unless otherwise noted.
For more posts and photos, I also post on Hubpages, a site that is a bit different than others. Thanks!: Shorebirdie on Hubpages

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Domestic duck update with baby blue duck


Here's another duck update post, but, first, I wanted to mention a few other things.  The Moffitt's Canada goose (probably a gander) above has fishing line wrapped around his leg so bad that it's cutting into it and causing him to limp.  Several people have tried to catch him, so he's wary.  He has a mate and youngster with him, too.  I would suggest not trying to catch him without talking to people at Lake Murray first because he's gotten wary of people chasing him around.  They may decide to wait a little bit until he's less wary.

While I was watching him approach me, I saw several tiny fish jumping around on the surface of the water.  They're the favorite prey of many smaller predators like killdeer, yellowlegs, and egrets.  This egret, though, got a fairly large fish from near shore, but was having difficulty swallowing it.  I didn't see if he got it down (it's fairly likely he did because herons and egrets can eat fairly large prey) or if the gulls took it from him.  He noticed the gulls doing calls and tried to get it swallowed, though.



Now, on to the domestic ducks.  The duck that was dropped off a couple months ago is best friends with that mallard.  They were even head bobbing at each other.




The "blond" duck is trailing behind the ducks above.  I think he wants to join the "boy band".



Bumblefoot was very energetic and is looking good today, but still limping pretty bad.



Now this is the duckling I'm worried about, the baby blue Swedish.  He's still there, but I think he's not getting enough to eat.  Also, I think he might have some body temperature control issues.  While he seemed fine and normal early in the morning, he was found lying out in the middle of the hot sun near the water's edge (right where a hawk could just grab him) when all the other ducks were in the shade.  Two coots were watching over him.  He also gets picked on by all the other ducks, so he can't go near them.


Edit:

We had a beautiful sunrise this morning and I forgot to post the photos!  We're in for some tropical moisture this weekend:




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