Final Duckling Report

I'm sorry that I haven't been updating lately as I've been so busy that personal projects have been put aside. I have a ton of photos which haven't been processed yet, including several bird pictures from my trip to a bird festival in Tucson.  In the meantime, I have a few duckling photos from the last of this year's ducklings.

I would have to say that, in terms of survivors, this year has been a great duckling season, except for July. I didn't see a single duckling hatched in late June or July survive, though a few might have in areas that I couldn't reach.

I think in my last post on July 7th, I mentioned this orphaned duckling and the mom who lost all of her ducklings. Well, the duckling finally bonded to this mama. I saw both of them for a few more days before they disappeared. I think the mama took him to a safer place. I am not sure if he made it adulthood, but if he did, he may be the only one to do so.

This mother duck had 13 ducklings to begin with. She hung around the boat docks and was doing really well with her ducklings and managed to keep most of them alive for at least two weeks.

Then, unfortunately, a coyote or dog attacked her and her ducklings, ripped off part of her face and damaged her eye. The eye is still there, but severely damaged. She then began to lose ducklings until, after almost three weeks, none were left.

I saw the mama duck for a couple of weeks after this and she was healing up very well and showed no signs of affliction except she had to compensate for not being able to see on that side. She was even flirting with the males. Unfortunately, I haven't seen her for almost a month now and don't know if she just moved off to a new area of passed away.

The adopted duckling with the older sibling grew up and are really tight best friends. The adopted one is a female and the other one is a male and go everywhere together.

Here is the female one, still friendly.

The other duckling that was raised separate by another female became independent really early and left her mom on her own.

A new mother duck with four ducklings showed up. She looked like one of Miss Una's relatives.

A fifth duckling from her brood was hatched later at someone's house, so the person at that house released him at the lake. However, she released him to wrong mother who attacked him. That mama had an independent duckling and the new duckling bonded to him and was glued to him for a long time. 

Then, he began to follow any adult duck he could find, even the males. I had a feeling that he was part of the mom with four above, so I used his following the other ducks to an advantage. I pretended I was throwing food out to get all the ducks to follow me towards the other mother duck (who was actually coming up from the other end of the beach area). 

The mother duck went up tot he duckling, who wasn't sure about her at first, and he seemed to brace for an attack. However, she began clucking at him and he blended in with the other ducklings. He seemed just fine when I left as seen in this photo. Unfortunately, the next day, I only saw four ducklings in that brood, again, but I think he was still with her.

 Unfortunately, none of those ducklings survived. Here is the mom with her last one, whom, I am almost certain, is the one that was released. At least he lived his short life with a loving wild duck family.

There was one other duckling hatched in early July. He, too, was one of four who were doing very well until they started disappearing. This is his last photo taken in late July when he was almost a month old. Someone told me they saw a mama duck with a young duckling in an area that is difficult to get to, but I never saw him again and I thought I saw his mama alone. I am hoping that she just took him elsewhere.

As of the end of July, there were no young ducklings left, however there were a few older ones around that may have been either ones that were raised in other parts of the lake, or Project Wildlife releases.

RIP Disappearing Ducklings

Sadly, one of the black crowned night herons found the ducklings and even grabbed one right in front of me. He just wouldn't go away. So, ducklings have been disappearing all morning. Soon, there will be none. That's why I like to get out there as much as possible to photograph them.

Peaches had abandoned her ducklings for over 20 minutes and I was watching them when I saw the heron. I couldn't get him to leave.

The last photo of all four together taken about five minutes before the heron got one of them.

This is the heron actually stalking the ducklings before he grabbed one right in front of me:

The final three. Squinty Eye is the one on the right:

The last 2:

One of the last ducklings:

The smallest duckling:

The final 2 after they were, again, abandoned for over 20 minutes:

The six from the other mother this morning:

There were five when I saw them later, but then they were going around the reeds and disappeared. I saw a cormorant in the area, but I didn't see him do anything. When the ducklings reappeared, there were only four left.

The heron stalking the final five ducklings of the other mother:

The four remaining after I left. This mother, however, has been more attentive and has even been fighting off the heron:

Also seen at the lake were these doves who were watching the last five ducklings with me:

Squeaky's mallard boyfriend still hangs out with the other male Pekins even though Squeaky is gone:

The goslings:

Tiny dumped duckling

Yesterday, I got a call about a "gosling" that had hatched at the lake that had spent the night in the freezing cold rain and hail the night before next to his dead friend's body.  I knew that none of the geese were tending a nest or even breeding, so I went over to take a look and found this guy:

When I first saw him, I thought he was a Pekin, but he had a weird shape, thick legs, and a weird shaped head that was triangular like a goose.  He was also found hanging out with the geese and the worker who found him was pretty certain he was a gosling.  I took him over in a crate to the geese and though several were curious about him, none seemed to claim him, so I know he wasn't one of their babies.  He was also the wrong color, all yellow.  There are only three all white geese there and two are male and one is a female bonded to a gray male in which both breeds breed gray and yellow goslings.  So, I knew he had been dumped there.

Before I left to go look at him, I sent an email to several people with my cell phone number attached so that they could call me while I still had them.  There's pretty much a no tolerance policy with animals at the apartment where I live, so I couldn't take him home.  I went to a couple of feeds stores and they couldn't provide a heat lamp.  Consider that he was already hypothermic, I didn't want to leave him anywhere that wasn't warm, so I decided to take him to the local wildlife center to see if they can take him.

Well, on the way there, I got a call for someone who would take him in case the wildlife center couldn't (and they couldn't.  The next step was to bring him to the animal shelter).  So, I brought him to her house. She already has several chickens, ducks and a couple of geese and wanted to get some more.   So, she took in the little guy and kept him warm.

It turned out he wasn't a gosling at all, but a jumbo Pekin duckling, probably about one to two weeks old.  He's just old enough where he would begin to be weaned off a heat lamp, but still way too young to be out in under 40 degree wet weather.  So, now he has a home and is going to be one spoiled ducky from what I could see of his new owner's other animals.

Too bad about his friend, though.  If I had seen them before the storm, I could have saved both.

In other news, Oreo was seen trying to hang out with the 4 "babies", which are actually a group of four Pekin drakes that were dropped off last September.  They are actually not babies, but I call them that.  Oreo still misses his friend and even though he follows Cinnamon around, I think he still identifies himself with Pekins (even though he's a Swedish duck).