Duckling and Gosling Days

Just as I thought would happen, the ducklings are all starting to appear en masse at Lake Murray. I think the next few weeks will be the peak of duckling season. Hopefully, more will survive this year than last year.

So, I found a mama mallard with eight babies:

Sadly, though, this one appears to be badly injured in the head. I think he might be bleeding out of both ears. However, he is acting mostly normal. He even runs the fastest of all the ducklings in this group. I'm thinking he either got snagged by a gull or another duck.

Here he is with his other siblings, doing what ducklings normally do.

More ducklings:

Another mama nearby had two babies.

She was surrounded by 5 drakes, 3 of whom I chased off. However, she did not appreciate me for doing that and it appears that I added to her stress.

So, I backed off to give her some room and she moved her babies to the water:

Sadly, there is only one tiny gosling left and I think this one might be a female. She has actually grown a lot in the last few days. It looks like she's all legs.

Mama goose was throwing her head up because she was both nervous about me and about the other family of five swimming nearby. I backed away because she's a nervous one.

The other goslings are shedding their baby down:

They all came onshore to go across the road to feed on the soft grasses. Here is the mom of the tiny one following behind the other family. She wasn't being too nervous here, but instead, communicating to the other family about where they were going and how much space they need between them and the other family.

 I think four of their last year's babies flew off with the large group of visiting geese a couple of weeks ago.

In other news, I found this coot family with three chicks. The parents were very busy.

New baby geese and 2 new geese marriages

For those of you who have been trying to do some fishing on the north side of Lake Murray, San Diego, your wait is over. The goslings have hatched and the parents introduced them to the other family today far away from the nesting site. Right now, the two geese families are not mingling, but are keeping an eye on each other. When the two families met, both parents had a long discussion about something. I think they were telling each other which way they were going. The geese parents of the older goslings seemed a bit more demanding about the right of way. It's probably because they have more goslings, which makes them the more dominant family.

The new family has four bitties who possibly hatched yesterday or Monday:

One gosling was having a bit of a problem like it wasn't feeling well and sometimes lagged behind:

The older gosling parents were watching the younger ones as they walked away:

It looks like we have two new geese marriages or engagements. I think this is Squeaker and her older husband or fiance:

I couldn't get a photo of the other couple which seemed to include Grumpy, the sulking teenage gander which someone grabbed last weekend. Today, he seemed happy and was flying around with another, older goose. I think he was showing her his favorite spot near the dam. The other four are still milling around, begging for food. I'm hoping some of these guys will move to another area as the grass here is drying up with the drought.

By the way, I call them marriages because once geese pair up, they stay together for life and almost never cheat on each other.

Killdeer shocked at egret's breakfast and baby updates

The killdeer above, at Lake Murray, was extremely upset after he flew up to check me out yesterday. He didn't notice the great egret when he first arrived, but after a few seconds, I could hear an angry trill. I don't know if he was trilling at me or at the heron who was noshing on a squirrel it had just drowned. Later, the egret had a live squirrel and swallowed it whole before the squirrel was dead. Then, the egret had that look that one gets when they've eaten too much. I hope those two squirrels meant that he was done eating for the day.

Even though those two squirrels died a horrible death and will never experience life again, it doesn't mean that there will be a squirrel shortage. For those who like the squirrels, you can rest assured that plenty of babies are growing up to replace those adults. And, these babies are super quick, too.

There are at least two baby osprey in the osprey nest and they're almost ready to go. I think this is mom waiting for dad to get home with breakfast in the morning:

This California quail is one of at least three quails making a lot of noise. I love to hear the sounds of quail. Most of the quail live in Coyoteland. Even though coyote do eat quail, they also eat a lot of the things that eat quail and quail babies. So, I guess the quail feel it's worth the risk living with the canines:

Pied-billed grebe babies making lots of noise, demanding to be fed:

Even though Peaches and the other mother lost all their babies, Miss Whiteear was seen across the lake with three bitties of her own. She was being harassed by the males, but seemed attentive to her youngins. A heron was over there looking for them, but she was keeping her babies moving and hidden under the cover.

The baby geese are doing well despite the brown grass:

This female domestic duck was dumped about a month ago. She's in poor condition, probably from not being cared for properly. I couldn't get a photo of her until now. She looks a lot like Ducky Ducky who passed away a few months ago:

Mr. Squeaky is still having trouble with his eyes. Otherwise, all the male Pekins are looking very healthy.

Peaches's Ducklings and Uno

I made a surprise visit to the lake and discovered that Peaches had a brood of about ten ducklings.

She also still had almost as many eggs still on the nest.

She had mostly mallard, but one black and yellow duckling, too.

This drake is, most likely, the father of most of them:

Back on her nest for nap time.

Sadly, as of last Tuesday, Snowie only had one duckling left. I didn't think he would survive much longer. However, today, he's still there and getting bigger. He's now over two weeks old and almost too big for the gulls and already too big for crows. Still small enough for herons. I've named him Uno, but really want to hold off on really naming him until I make sure he's makes it a couple more weeks.

He's always losing sight of mom:

Wandering away, once again:

Sad update on the family of six goslings. It appears that one went missing just like last year. I don't know if someone took him or something got to him.

And, Miss Squeaky was rescued today. She was sick and injured from the males. Here's a photo I took of her last Tuesday. She looked much worse today.

Something is wrong with eyes. They keep foaming up and the membrane seems to be sticky.

New young goose dropped off

About a week ago, a new young goose was dropped off at the lake that was the same age as the other youngsters.  She even follows people around making baby noises, so she's probably under a year old.  Someone overheard them say that they were releasing a goose that was injured back to the wild.  But, many speculate it might be the 6th baby goose who went missing at about a week or so old.  We don't know where it would have been all this time, though.

I think it might be a girl and she was following around people at the lake, including fishing boats.  I witnessed a pair of men possibly hitting her with one of their oars when she wouldn't leave them alone.  She seems fine and uninjured and I'm not sure if they hit her or hit the water near her.

The family doesn't want her around.

She was following me around far from the family when the outcast gander, Picked On, came over and led her back to the others.  She seemed to like him, but he showed no interest in her.

Here she is near the rest of the other geese, trying to get herself into the group.  I didn't want to get any closer so as not to ruin her chance to get accepted.  Later, though, I saw that she left on her own again.

Little trouble is still around and is changing his body feathers.  Here he is about five days ago:

Here he is, yesterday.  I can tell it was him by his bill color, body shape, and his fuzzy butt.  He's starting to get a green head.

I had a hard time finding him.  There are a lot of males in various stages of molt.  Here is another male:

Here is one with no gray on him at all, but a black bill.

Here is a video I put together on Trouble: