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

Sunday, May 29, 2016

New Project Wildlife Ducks at Lake Murray

A bunch of new Project Wildlife ducks were released yesterday at Lake Murray after being raised and rehabilitated. One of them was so cute. He still had a peeping voice and when his friends got too far away, you can hear his little duckling call. They are usually released when they begin to grow their primaries, usually at about seven weeks old. I know they're releases because there are no surviving ducklings that old at the lake right now. In fact, there's been very few ducklings seen so far this season. This is the second group released this year.



That's not fishing line in that one duckling's mouth, it's algae.

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

New Baby Ducks at Lake Murray, Today's Picture 5/25/2016

Today's picture is of a new set of ducklings in the same area where Miss Una and her mother kept their ducklings until they went somewhere else. This may be Miss Una's aunt. In case you're wondering, Miss Una's mom and aunt are probably direct descendants of Fish Food Mama who is also mother to Peaches, Butterscotch, Caramel, Pepper, Indy and about 30 other adult ducks at Lake Murray.

Miss Una's mom and aunt are likely two of the 10 ducklings Fish Food Mama successfully raised in 2013. All the females in that brood look very similar to each other and a lot like their mom.




Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Least Tern, Picture of the Day 05/24/16

Today's picture of the day is of a least tern that was flying around at the Tijuana River Natural Estuarine Research Reserve down by the border near Imperial Beach. I took this on International Migratory Bird Day on May 14th. The least terns nest in this area and this adult was looking for small fish in the river area. It was a cloudy day.



Update on the ducklings in the last post: Unfortunately, they were all gone within a couple of days. 

Monday, May 16, 2016

Mom with Ducklings Today's Picture of the Day 5/16/2016

Today's picture is of this mom with four of her five ducklings. It was kinda a dreary morning, so there's not a lot of contrast. I think a couple of the ducklings got attacked by the gulls as they seem a little wounded. The mom also keeps pecking and knocking over the fifth duckling.



Last Friday, she had 13 babies.


Sunday, May 15, 2016

The First Picture of the Day, May 15th 2016 Dumped Duckies

Hi everyone! I've been so busy that I haven't been able to keep up with any of my blogs. However, I don't want anyone to think I dropped off the face of the Earth or anything. Right now, I don't have time to process a lot of my photos or write the blog on top of all my other writings. So, what I plan to do is post a single picture, or two, at least once a week. I will try to do it as many days as I can, but I didn't want to say that I will be doing this everyday only to let you readers down.

The "picture of the day" posts will say just that "picture of the day," the date and maybe a title. It's going to be hard because I love telling all the stories about all the birds I see, so it'll be hard for me to pick just one.

Today's picture of the day is of two dumped ducks I just discovered at Lake Murray. They appear to be Easter refugees and look about 8 weeks old. The crested Pekin is a female, the mallard is a male.