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.

Duckling News and Bad News

Well, I have some very bad news about some of the Lake Murray favorites. The bad news is that the coyotes have been extremely active in the area around the fishing pier and have killed several domestic birds and perhaps a wild one or hybrid. But, before I give you more details about that, I would like to say that this has been a very good duckling season. So I will give you the duckling news first, then the bad news about who is gone.

First, I put together a slideshow. Below the slideshow, I will give you an update on some of the individuals in the video.  Here is the slideshow:

This photo was taken today. Two moms had a single duckling in the area. However, I think the mama to this little one has disappeared. This female is the mother of the other duckling who has also disappeared. She is trying to adopt the one without a mom, but he is making it difficult to her. His future does not look good unless he lets her get close to him.

These are the two ducklings which used to go across the lake in deep water at least two or three times a day. They are nearly independent and their mama can't keep up with them. They've wandered off on their own many times.

This is "Little Guy." His mama was raising him near the parking lot. However, this particular mama duck loves to take her ducklings to an inaccessible area around the time they are a month old. Little Guy is about two weeks old here. Last I saw him, he was about 4-5 weeks old and getting very big and feathering fast. I wouldn't be surprised if he was one of the many young ducks whom I've seen hanging out together lately. I don't think I could recognize him now.

This is Leuci, a Leucistic mallard. She's at least seven or eight years old. This is her with her last duckling out of a brood of about six ducklings. This little guy lived a few days longer than this photo, but didn't make it.

These two ducklings and the one in the photo below this one have a strange story. The two mamas look almost exactly alike. At one time, all three of the ducklings were together. There were two older ducklings and an adopted younger duckling. Then, when the bigger ducklings turned about two weeks old, the family split in two. One older one and a much younger one went with one mom and another older one went with the other mom. When the two moms get together, the three ducklings mix and match and are fine. However, the mom with two does not accept the other one, so when the families depart, the one duckling goes with one mom and the others go with the other mom.

Here is a new duck someone dumped at the lake. She has a hybrid mallard boyfriend already and is very shy. She goes way off to the far end of the lake and back to the docks everyday. I'm really surprised she's still alive because she is bright as day and I'm sure the coyotes see her at night.

OK, now for the bad news.

Remember the two new ducks I mentioned in my last post? Well, I don't even think it was a week after they arrived that the Pekin disappeared. The brown khaki duck went off with Blue for a while, then started hanging around Runner Duck and his buff friend. She was fine for about a month, then she, too, disappeared. I'm really hoping that their owners had a change of heart and came back to get them. I haven't seen any evidence of them being eaten, but I don't always see that when it happens.

Miss Grey reappeared and I was really happy. She was fine for at least a week or two, then disappeared again. Today, I found a large pile of feathers that looked exactly like hers. Since she has disappeared for long periods before, I'm hoping that the feathers were not from her and she will show up again.

Eight-year-old Snowie may have also been a victim of the coyotes, too. I saw some speculum feathers and some body and wing feathers that look a lot like her special feather patterns. Plus, her mate, Snowy has been acting very strange and her son seems traumatized. I did not find her on her nest.

Warning, grizzly details in this paragraph: However, someone said they found a head of a "regular mallard" near where I found the feathers, so it might not be hers. They said it was sliced clean off, which makes me wonder if humans are involved, though I have heard that can also happen naturally.

As you can see from this photo, her head doesn't look like a "regular mallard."

Another duck that's missing is the one that nesting near Peaches a few years ago. She was a Project Wildlife duck from a few years ago and hung out in that area. Today I found four duck eggs with holes in them. I suspect that they belonged to the owner of the feathers. Snowie had two eggs in her nest which were abandoned and disappeared a long time ago and these new eggs were still fresh.

Also, I am worried about this white goose. He hangs out with the grey goose and they have been at the lake a very long time. I only saw the grey goose today. This is extremely unusual as they are always together. They're both males, so no one is nesting with this pair. Here's a picture of them in 2012.

Miss Angel has also not been seen for over two weeks, but was not healthy the last time I saw her. Her mates, Little Guy and Big Guy, have also not been seen which makes me think she is hiding somewhere with them.

Rainbows and Rubber Band

Double Rainbow

I got to the lake early in the morning and saw a great rainbow that went from one end of the lake to the other, but I could only get a photo of one end.

Some people in other parts of San Diego got photos of the entire rainbow from end to end.  I also saw some rain to the north of the lake later on.  But, no rain at my house or at the lake, either.

Pat was the first duck I saw this morning, before it was light.  She was scared because she couldn't see me, but later walked up to me when it got lighter out.  Today, she has decided to be a girl duck, some days, she thinks she's a boy.

I found this little duckling hanging out with some other wild mallard ducklings the same age in this one area.  They all seemed to act like brothers, so if they were dumped, they were all dumped together.  However, this one duckling has a rubber band under his tongue on the bottom of the bill.  From the marks on his bill, I suspect that the band had been around his entire bill at one time.  If humans dumped or released him, I don't understand why they wouldn't remove the band from his bill as it poses a choking hazard.  The duckling seemed mostly unbothered by it, except I did see him gulping a lot and acting like he was trying to swallow something at one time.  The band seems to be a bit loose, so hopefully he will lose it or it will break apart, soon.

I'm going to name him Rubber Band, or Bandit when (or if) he gets older.  Here he is with two other ducklings who appear to all be about 7 weeks old, about the age that Project Wildlife releases their ducklings.

There was a female duck with them that was watching over and protecting them as well as talking to them.  Sometimes wildlife rescue agencies give ducklings to motherly ducks to raise and release them all together.

All the ducklings are boys.

Here they are in the daylight and now I can see that the dark duckling is a hybrid mallard-Swedish duckling who will probably look like Pepper when he grows up, perhaps darker like Not-Pepper.  The mama doesn't look familiar, though I have seen females like her at the lake before.  She might be native to the lake, but I find it strange that they would suddenly show up at this age if they were native.  

However, she does look a LOT like Zippy, which means the ducklings *could* be both Oreo's and Neo's ducklings if they are native to the lake.

I think I also saw Bob1, the spotted sandpiper,  in the morning and tried to get a silhouette photo of her in the sunrise, but she would have none of it.  She flew away and called to a second spotted sandpiper whom I think is her mate or her offspring (more likely her mate as females don't really participate in mate rearing, especially after they have learned to fly).

The new Pekin was discovered over by the duck bench last Friday, but I haven't seen him anywhere, since.  Hopefully, his owner came and picked him up or something.  There's no sign of a predator attack and there is no reason why he would have been caught any more than any other of the Pekins there.

And, finally here's a photo of Snowie and her fresh molt, looking more beautiful than ever.  I don't see her or her mate that much anymore for some reason.

Tragedy of the abandoned duckling and more duck updates

Snowie and her nearly 5 week old baby

I haven't been to the lake for a while and I thought I'd give a short duck update.  Unfortunately, I wasn't there very long before there was a duckling tragedy.  I heard a duckling peeping very loudly and I thought I heard a female duck in the same area, but when I arrived where the duckling was, I saw no females around the entire area.  There was a small duckling, hours old,  running around to all the other ducks, who were all male, peeping his head off.  I am thinking he came from across the lake where there might be a nest or other ducklings as I've seen ducklings cross the lake by themselves, then swim back on their own.  So, he turned as if he was going back across the lake when I saw the gulls flying around.  I got my camera to take a photo of him while I figured out how to rescue him or find his mama.

One of the older gulls, probably at least 8 years old, flew around to the far side of me and grabbed the duckling right in front of me.  The duckling didn't even know what was coming until the gull was a foot away and tried to run, but was grabbed by the gull.  I tried to get a photo of the gull with the duckling, but the camera wouldn't work because of the speed and low light.  So, this next photo is all I got.  here, he had just dropped the duckling and was landing.

I had a photo where I could see the duckling in the water, but it was too late for him.  He was probably already dead as he was hanging in the water head-first.  In fairness to the gull, though it really did upset me, he did give fair warning as he took his time grabbing the duckling.  Had his mother been there, he might have survived.

Later, I tried to find the mama duck and the rest of her ducklings.  I found this female, who looked like "Ducklingnapper" with a green bill, quacking and calling for someone.  Ducklingnapper frequently knaps ducklings from inattentive mothers.  Perhaps she lured the duckling away from its mama to this area.  Usually, she's really good at taking care of them.

This was the female I heard in the area when the duckling started peeping.  She wasn't there when I got to the duckling, but I saw her fly from across the lake to this area, a half hour later, and begin quacking.  I thought maybe she was the mother looking for her baby.  But, I think she was just looking for her mate because when she found him, she stopped vocalizing.  I do think she has a nest across the lake, somewhere.  Perhaps this duckling hatched early and may have heard his mother quacking for her mate and went to look for her.  She may not have even known he was following her or that he was even one of hers.

I just hope that little duckling wasn't dumped as people often dump ducks at the spot where I found him.

I also saw this young female whom I thought was Fish Food Mama, but it might be one of her daughters. She's not ready to have ducklings, yet.

Snowie's baby is still alive and hasn't grown much since last week.  And, he still swims with his eyes closed.

I think this is Neo, but I'm not sure this duck is his girlfriend, Zippy.  But, Neo is very attractive to the females, so this new duck probably likes him, too.

 

Unfortunately, Bumblefoot is not doing well at all and seems very sick.  She still gets up, swims and eat, but acts very tired and it's obvious her leg and foot hurt.

Lake update 7/9/2013

I only went out to Lake Murray for a short time and my camera battery died, so I only could get a few photos.

Snowie's little weaking

I was surprised to see that Snowie's ducklings had made it to the two week old mark.  She does nothing to warn them of danger or control them and they just go everywhere they want.  One of them reminds me of Pepper's brother.

Here is the latest photo of Cow and two of her boyfriends.  She is the only female to survive from that big group of ducks dumped off last year:

This green heron was near the ducklings, but they weren't in any danger from him:

A very quiet juvenile pied-billed grebe:

I think this is a recently fledged Brewer's blackbird, though the blue around the feathers is throwing me off.  I think it's his chick down:

After this, my camera battery died.  I wanted to show a photo of the black Indian runner duck that I found a week ago who showed up in another area.  He's doing well and completely ignores me.  I think he thinks he's a wild duck.  Also, the mother with the two ducklings that the kids were throwing rocks at also moved to a new area and the ducklings are HUGE.  They aren't a whole lot older than Snowie's ducklings, but are at least twice the size and beginning to feather well.