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.

Mom and a dozen ducklings

Today, I saw a mom with at least a dozen ducklings, give or take one.  She was leading them into a bad spot on the lake.  The ducklings were everywhere and not paying attention to mom:

Sometimes, it takes a day or two before mama and babies are in sync, so the babies just run everywhere, sometimes far away from their mother.

The good thing is that they don't have any worries or fears and if they get caught by a predator, they die quickly.  This mama seemed not to care that most of her ducklings were going awry.

Lots of bugs and a chance to get feed by people in this area.  Unfortunately, this is also a high gull, crow, raven, and heron area.

Not a care in the world:

Here is mom with 11 of the ducklings going everywhere.  I think there was one or two out of frame.

Close-ups of a few of them:

The killer Pekin drakes were there (they killed a mallard hen last weekend), but paid no mind at all to the ducklings.  Even their large female friend didn't bother them.  But, one of the Pekins tried to do something, probably trying to mate with mama, and mama duck kicked his butt.

 This might be "Fish Food Mama", but I'm not sure.  She didn't seem to be a good mama.  I'm thinking she might have been overburdened with too many ducklings and brought them to this area to thin out her brood so that only the most attentive, strongest ducklings were left for her to care for.  Or, she was trying to give them an advanced lesson in predators.

It was interesting, though, when I looked through my binoculars about fourty-five minutes later.  She was surrounded by gulls and crows, all within reach of her babies.  But, they were very hesitant with her.  I think a crow might have gotten one baby, but I'm not 100% sure.  One juvenile gull swiped at some of her straying babies and they immediately rushed over to mama.  The rest of the gulls just watched her.  The ducklings seemed to be learning a lesson and quickly gathered up next to mama and the mother duck swam right past about 6 gulls who did not attack, even when three or four of the ducklings strayed away.  It will be interesting to see how many she has left when I see her again.  I do notice that the gulls and crows don't mess with certain mother ducks.  It is this respect for this mother duck that makes me think that she is "Fish Food Mama", the potential gull-killer and attacker of hawks.

Roosters:

Have you heard the roosters crowing at Lake Murray?  Apparently, they were dumped there last weekend.  One rooster has, since, died, but not from a predator.  This is a new problem because of people buying chicks for their backyard flocks only to find a few roos in them.  Roosters are not allowed in the city limits and, instead of rehoming or sending them to "freezer camp", they dumped them at the lake.  Please buy your chicks sexed or buy only adults.  Otherwise, be prepared for roos and deal with them accordingly other than dumping them and giving the coyotes free food.

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.

RIP ducklings (Illness suspected)

When I first arrived, I was absolutely shocked to see that Fish Food Mama had only one duckling left.  At first glance, he appeared to be fairly healthy.  Except, I did notice that he had no interest in eating.  Mama took him to some slimy rocks with yummy algae and bugs and made exaggerated feeding motions, but all the duckling wanted to do was hide.  Mama was acting strange, too, constantly quacking and making faces at me to tell me to back off even when I wasn't any closer than I usually am.

When I got home and looked at the photos, I could see that the duckling wasn't looking healthy at all.

Something was wrong with his face and eyes, it was almost as if he had a hard time keeping his eyes open.

I noticed, in several photos, that he swam with his eyes constantly closed like the other one that was sick before.  Here, he swam up to Mama, bumped into her, and grabbed onto some of her feathers.  This may have been a sign of co-ordination problems like the other one had on Wednesday.

At one time, Mama flew away, abandoning her duckling and began flirting with the boys on the other side of the parking lot.  But, her duckling began to scream for her and she returned.  However, later in the day, Mama was duckling-less and hanging out with the boys.  She seemed to be acting normal, though I could hear a warning quack come out of her when gulls flew close by.  Before I saw the photos of the last duckling, I was mad at Mama for abandoning her baby and possibly not doing enough to protect the others, but now I know what happened was beyond her control.

If it was illness, I hope it's not something contagious and makes Mama or any of the other ducks sick, too.  I am hoping that Mama will have another brood or two next year.

In better news, the young duck on the right of these four is, most likely, the son of Snowy and his mate.  Snowy's mate had eight ducklings this year, was last seen with four and of that four at least one was known to have been caught by a predator.  I am not sure if any of the other ducks in this group are related to him.

Here he is in the afternoon.  That duck in the background is, I think, one of Brown Mama's ducklings.  I think he may have two sisters, or Fish Food Mama's two young daughters like hanging out with him.

And, a shot of the dad of the three black ducklings.  I am worried that he won't be around next spring to make more of them because he's getting old.  They were my favorite, I just loved seeing them and want to see more of that color.

And, the crested and buff duck:

And, Donald, the oldest Pekin at the lake.

Down to 5 ducklings, 1 sick

Sadly, Mama lost two of her ducklings some time on Monday or Tuesday.  The more lanky black duckling and a regular yellow duckling, whom I've noticed is a little weaker and not as zippy than the others, was gone.  At first, everything seemed to be good with the remaining five.  But, then, I saw something strange.

At first, this one duckling seemed to get stuck in the rocks when the ducklings were there feeding.  Then, he started lagging behind the group, way behind, and swimming in circles, alone.  He was way far from the others, easy picking for a gull.

I've seen this behavior before in ducklings and other waterfowl, it's not good and a sign of illness or a neurological problem.  He did make it to shore and I tried to catch him, but when I did, he was suddenly "cured" and ran up to Mama.  I told him that if he could keep up with the group, he can stay and I won't try to catch him anymore.

While his siblings eagerly ran around looking for food, he just stood there with his tail tucked in, not eating as seen in the next photo (that's him on the left).  I thought I saw him drink some water.  He really wanted to be under his mama, though.  He also seemed to have trouble with his balance.

The other ducklings were extremely busy trying to find food.  These two seem to be best friends right now and have been hanging out together since they were a few days old.

Mama couldn't stay still or brood the sick duckling because this juvenile hawk was hanging out in the area, making her nervous.  The gulls were harassing him while he sat on the pole and eventually chased him off.  Mama kept quacking as if to say "Hawk! Hawk!" to her little ducklings:

Mama took her ducklings away and I did see the sick duckling try to stay under Mama as much as he could, but she kept moving.  Each time she did, he would go right back under her, but she didn't fully brood him.  However, that seemed to help as, afterward, he seemed better and was keeping up with everyone just fine.

Later, when the sun was out and warmer, I saw the family far away from that spot, the sick duckling was acting normally and swimming with the group.  I think he's in the middle of the group in this photo, possibly the one with his eyes closed:

Here are the two best friends again:

The sick duckling, again, swam away from the group and closer to me.  It was almost as if he was telling me that he's OK and I don't need to try to catch him anymore.

As they swam off, I couldn't really tell which one was the sick one.  I hope it was hypothermia and not something the other ducklings could catch or some kind of food poisoning.  I have a feeling, though, I won't see him again and Mama will, soon,  be down to 4 ducklings.  She will have lost half her brood, something which I've never seen happen to her before. If it was any other mother duck, I would just say, "oh well, that's nature and the life of ducklings."  But, this is Mama and she never loses more than one or two.

But, I have some good news!  The two ducklings hatched about 5 weeks ago, are still alive and doing well.  I can no longer tell which was the yellow one, but I think it is the one in back.  Both are still very small and appear to be females.

Big stretch!

Yellowcheeks seems to have lost her yellow cheeks and has gotten more round.  She seems to be a very proud mama.

Stretching again!  You can see how small they are compared to adult ducks.  But, they seem healthy.

We also have another baby coot:

And, it appears that the mama duck (mate to Snowy, the snowy mallard), who had eight ducklings about two months ago, had at least one survive, perhaps two or three, I'm not sure.  I keep forgetting to take photos.  They were hanging out with mom and dad this morning.  One has become a very large male duckling, about the size of his dad.  The other two seem more normal.

Afternoon with the 7 ducklings (Part 2 from this morning)

I decided, after seeing Fish Food Mama lose one of her ducklings this morning, to spend some time with her this afternoon.  It was about at this age and this exact time of day last month that Peaches lost her next to last duckling.  Fish Food Mama is using the exact same area that Peaches used.

Honestly, I don't understand how she didn't lose more ducklings today or any other day.  For one, this juvenile gull, either a fledgling ring-billed or California gull, was right where they were found.  Several ducklings almost ran right up to it.  Mom seemed totally unconcerned about it.  I nudged it further away from the family.

He still hung around in the water and on the beach.  Mom tried to keep the ducklings away, but some of these guys just do whatever they wanted to.  The gull left, but came back, later, almost landing right where the ducklings were (probably because that's where he took off from), but I waved him away.  He hung around again, but left.

Like I did with Peaches the day she lost one of her last ducklings, as I sat, close by,  meditating.  Mama and her ducklings came up to me.  This time, I stopped to take photos:

Dabbling Lesson:

Mom called her ducklings out to the water and decided to give them a dabbling lesson.  A juvenile coot was also there to instruct the babies on how to dive for food.  It was so funny how the ducklings tried to imitate the young coot who really seemed to want to be their friend and show them how to find food.

Mom demonstrated how to dabble:

Here's how you dabble, babies

And, they tried to imitate her, but some ended up doing all kinds of somersaults and flips instead.

Like this, Mama?

No, you have to do it this way.

Later, she went to take a nap and only three ducklings joined her at her side.  The other four just kept running around, on their own, away from her.  I think a couple more joined her on the beach after I came up and they began to peep for Mama.   While I was there, no ducklings were lost.  I think the only thing saving them was the fact that there were fewer people feeding the birds, because the weather has been hot, and attracting the gulls.  However, if Mama can't get her ducklings to be more obedient, she's going to lose several more.  So, I am trying not to get too attached.

Across the lake, another mother duck, the mom of the two ducklings, screamed her head off for about five minutes.  A Cooper's hawk had attacked something and it greatly distressed the mother.  Both ducklings were fine, but she moved them away from that area.  The hawk stayed in the tree and remained in the tree even after I left.

I couldn't stay any longer and hope that Mama doesn't lose any more babies.

Another duckling update:

Neo!  He's almost 4 months old (18 weeks) and will be getting his green head, soon.  He still stays close to his mother, but is not as friendly as he used to be.  I almost had to chase him down to get a photo of him.  He spends a lot of time in the algae blooms, far away from where I can get a good photo of him, otherwise.