San Diego South Bay birding with a curlew

I took a short trip to the south bay this morning, visiting the Bird and Butterfly Garden, the sod farm, and the 7th street area.   It was my first trip to the Bird and Butterfly Garden and the sod farm where I hear of a lot of unusual birds, but I didn't see a whole lot.  Here are a few pictures:

At the bird and butterfly garden, I saw a ruby crowned kinglet, but couldn't get a photo.  I also saw several dark-eyed juncos.  Here's a photo of one of the males.

At the sod farm, I didn't see a whole lot, either.  I saw about five hawks and several turkey vultures sitting in one area, which I thought was kinda strange.  Two of the hawks flew off when I went to take a photo.  I think they were a family of three or four juvenile red-tails and an adult.  Here are three juveniles and a turkey vulture:

One flying off:

Here's one that looks like a dark morph, which is unusual for this area:

I saw at least two kestrels, one at the Bird and Butterfly Garden and one at the sod farm:

At 7th street, I didn't seem more than a few birds and a few ducks.  It was low tide.  I saw mostly killdeer and this long-billed curlew stayed close by.  Here he is eating what I think might be a mussel:

Whenever the killdeer flew over, he stood very still and did not move for several minutes before feeding again:

Very still, watching:

I saw him also eat several fiddler and sand crabs.  He was very thorough and I would bet he ate just about every crab and mussel he came across.  None of those stood a chance with him.

Lake update 6/12/2012

Smudge

I went to the lake Saturday and I didn't bring my camera.  I saw that Junior's nest has hatched and Junior and his family has completely disappeared.  Today, I saw only one of the juveniles from Killer's territory over there.  Later, I could hear Junior screaming as if he was defending his chicks, but I looked all over and couldn't find the family.

Meanwhile, Smudge and her sister are still in the ballfields.  They seem totally relaxed.  Their dad, Pollux, has been trying hard to get them to fly around with him, but they just ignore him.  Smudge's sister wasn't being very co-operative with me photographing her.

Smudge

The two oldest ducklings at the lake still don't have their wing feathers:

This is pretty odd for ducklings over two months old.

I couldn't find Neo today to compare, but when I last saw him, he was beginning to grow out his primaries and he's at least two weeks behind these girls in age.  I sure hope that they grow soon as the two red-tailed hawks are almost ready to fledge:

The mom of five ducklings have moved to a new area and are feeding on a big algae bloom.  Mom was a little upset about the cormorant activity there:

I saw this mom with three ducklings on Saturday and all three are still alive today.  I think this is Neo's older sister from last year that looks exactly like her mom.  She was stolen and raised away from her mom by another female:

The were eating algae, too:

I saw three baby coots in the area where I saw two last year in which one got eaten by one of the herons.  One of the babies was afraid of me and went and hid.  All three babies appeared to have hatched at about the same time:

This juvenile black-crowned night heron was watching them.  They were moving closer and closer to him, seemingly not to notice.  He sure looked like he was excited about having a baby coot for lunch today:

But, luckily, mom and dad coot saw him and gave him a good wallop.  All three chicks were saved.

The baby great blue herons were in their nest, if you can see them in this photo:

They were very concerned about this great egret nearby in a tree.  I have no idea where their parents are hunting nowadays.

Pepper is looking beautiful, but still has a broken wing (on the other side), though it looks partially healed.

Spoonface (Bossy) and his ring are still around.  At least things haven't gotten worse for him.  He is one year old now.

Near Spoonface was a family of coots, also:

Quacker, the flying cayuga seems to have been missing for at least three to four weeks now.  People are concerned about her.  Quacker flies exceptionally well, about as good as the wild mallards.  Her boyfriend was possibly seen, once, in the area, but not lately.  It is possible that Quacker has moved on to another location, or, perhaps, she went to sit on a nest somewhere, especially since her boyfriend has also not been seen.  She has been at the lake for over two years now.

Counting Day

First birds I saw were these two stilts, a male and a female.  I think the gull was confused about them.

Male stilt

 I saw a gadwall and went over to see if it was Gaddy, the missing gadwall (and it was!) and they flew off to the killdeer breeding area.  Needless to say the juvenile killdeer over there were a bit scared of them.

I also saw the two hawklets in their nest.  You can see the older one sticking his head out, here.  The younger one has an all-white fuzzy head.

Doodle's Placekeeper was seen with Doodle's Bully and Baby Doodle.

"Excuse me while I molt into something more comfortable"

Mom of five was seen, but led her ducklings pass some gulls eating a fish.  One gull started stalking her, so she was super vigilant.  The gull gave up when he saw the ducklings go into the reeds and, possibly, because they were pretty big.  Her ducklings don't seem to worry about gulls at all.

Here she is, later, with her five.  Though it's too early to tell for sure, I think she's got three girls and two boys:

 Indy, whom I think is a boy:

Sweetie, whom I think might be a girl, but I am not sure:

Neo was also seen, doing well.

Two new juvenile killdeer were seen today, one still has some fuzz on him and peeps like a chick.  The other seems older.  I think this might either be Killer's new chicks from this year, but I'm not sure.

In this photo, fuzz can still be seen around the head and neck.

Notice the "chopped" look of the feathers at the base of the tail:

This one appears to be more mature, but still looks juvenile.

Squeak's chicks are still alive (at least two of them) and almost all their down is gone, except for some on Smudge.  They are still smaller than an adult killdeer, but not by much.  At first, Pollux was guarding them, but left them alone, later. I think he's trying to encourage them to start flying and when he leaves, he calls for them, but they don't follow.

Foggy Day. Also, Scaup in Trouble

Today, it was very foggy early in the morning.  In fact, the whole time I was there, it was foggy.  It wasn't until after I left that it became sunny enough to get good pictures.  As you can see from the photo above, there wasn't very much visibility.

In the photo below is a female killdeer in the same ballfield that the male I saw last time I was there.  I don't know who she is.  She seems to have the square head that many of the native-born killdeer at the lake have.

The next photo may be disturbing to some people.  I saw a scaup way up on shore, not even near the water.  That usually means trouble because they never come on shore except when they're sick or dying.  I took a photo and tried to catch him, but he flew off way into the water.  He looked normal while in the water.  At first, it looked like he just had a little fishing line wrapped around him.  It wasn't until I saw the photo that I realized not only did he have a fish hook in his tongue, the the fishing line was wrapped all over his body.  I don't even think he'll ever be able to eat again.  I did see him drinking some water, though. 

In more disturbing news, a friend of mine found a mama duck that had been run over on the entrance road early yesterday morning.  It was probably the same duck that I saw in the road earlier in the week that almost got hit several times.  I checked all the female ducks in the area to see if I can identify one that might be missing.  It's a little hard because some ducks are laying, so it's normal to have a few females missing.  As far as I know, the only duck I couldn't find was Drama Mama, the one that had the two ducklings that kept wandering away a few years ago.  I kinda lost track of her last summer, so I don't know if she's truly missing or had flown away.  

While I was checking out the female mallards, I found this one with a chipped bill.

I was really was worried about Ducky's girlfriend because Ducky was all by himself.  But, I think I saw her and she was OK.  Ducky was being a butt-head and picking fights will all the drakes.  For some reason, he seems to want to kill this beautiful young duck that is smaller than him.  I don't know why he hates him so much.  He and his girlfriend's brother are still buddies, though.

I don't know if it was because of the fog, but all the ducks were very itchy like they had mites.  Hurt Wing was pulling her feathers out of her hurt wing.  I wonder why.  They look horrible.

Big Daddy was being a good boy and not trying to fight with anyone.  He has been seen, however, checking out all the girls at the lake.

I saw this red-tailed hawk near where Ducky was.  There was a lady feeding the squirrels and I wonder if he was using this time to take advantage of the squirrels coming out.  I told the lady about the hawk, but she got snippy about it.  She was basically setting the hawk's dinner table for him without realizing it.  Some people are just so clueless.

Lake update 02/07/2011

It's been a lot quieter at Lake Murray in regards to the waterfowl as many have moved on since the feeding there has diminished. All the domestic ducks are still there as are all the geese except one Canada goose that has been missing for a few days. Breeding season is beginning in this region and many birds have gone off to begin pairing up and having babies. Most of the geese have moved near the ballfield areas at the northern end of the lake, including two missing geese that have shown up again.

Killer and Digger were seen enjoying the bugs in their dad's territory. Killer has gotten a little more nervous about people lately and does more alarm calls than he used to. However, he's nowhere as nervous as Little Male (Junior) was, at least yet. Perhaps he's anxious about his mate.



In the ballfields, the Surprise and his guardian were feeding in the shade, but I didn't get a picture of him.

The hurt duck is still around and is looking better, but probably won't grow his feathers back until next fall. He may never fly well ever again, though. It depends on how bad the damage to his pinion joint is:




There were two red-tails flying around being mobbed by crows. One red-tail went one way and the other kept going until he circled around me. Later, he came back to hunt rats in the reeds near the lakeshore:




These shoveler ducks were sleeping while that coot was sneaking around: