Surprise December Ducklings

Nothing much has been going on at Lake Murray for the last few weeks except for a surprise batch of December ducklings. The mother was first spotted with four, but by the time I saw them, there were only three left. Within a few days, it appears that the gulls got all of them or they were stolen by people. A gull was spotted with one a couple of days after I took these photos. There were also reports of them running up to people. When the mother saw me one day, she acted like she thought I had one of them, so I think one or two may have been kidnapped.

At first, I thought the mother was an elderly duck with a hormone problem. However, when I look at this next picture, I notice she looks a lot like Miss Friendly, a five month old female. Miss Friendly was the super-friendly duckling that loved to follow people around. It appears to be a genetic trait as these ducklings had the same personality.

Also this month, four runner ducks were dumped, one of which has a broken wing. They are two males and two females, it appears.

They found their way over to Sissy and Pumpkin who have adopted them. They are now bonded to the two older buff ducks and hate to be too far away from them.

The killdeer have been super friendly. I've seen Firecracker hanging out in her old hangout where she was raised. Her brother, Killer and his mate, Dee have also been seen hanging out in the same spot. All of these killdeer, including Killer and Dee in the next photo, are now considered nearly elderly for killdeer who usually live about nine or ten years at the most. They are about 5.5 years old.

RIP Big Daddy2 (Latte)

Took at trip to Lake Murray to check on Jack and Jill and found the vultures eating parts of what was left of Big Daddy2 (Latte).

It looks like he died in his sleep as there didn't seem to be a struggle and none of the other ducks were upset.  In fact, it looked like Bigboi was looking and calling for him.

Jill is doing OK, but seems very sad without Jack who has been missing since at least Monday.  I haven't been able to talk to anyone who might know what happened to him, yet.

Quiet day at the lake

No killdeer were seen yesterday and a lot of other birds were "missing". It was very cold that morning, so that may be why. I did a bird count and the number of mallards have decreased %60 since the end of last November. Coots have declined %40 and most of them are hanging around the main parking lot of Lake Murray. Ruddy ducks are very few, but lesser scaups are holding steady in their numbers.

This lesser scaup was looking for something to eat:



Here's the domestic duck posse. Actually, I think they're all after Oreo as a mate. There was a female Pekin duck not in the photo.



These two ganders were caught fighting, but not seriously. They're actually best buddies, though. However, it may just be that they like to keep an eye on each other.



Those two bossed around these other geese before their wrestling match:



And the osprey was fishing nearby, almost hit some ducks while diving into the water:



RIP:

This juvenile ring-billed gull arrived with the other ring-bills last month. I took this photo on January 18th and tried to catch him, but he kept swimming out in the water. He and another gull both had this problem with their wings. Possibly, they were playing and strained or pulled their wing muscles. On Sunday, he looked like he was healing and was even flapping his wings and getting lift. Yesterday, I found him dead in another area. It looked like he died in his sleep. His feet was folded up under him and his eyes were pretty much closed and his wings in the same position as in this photo. I looked at his hurt wing and there was no break or any other visible problems, so it was probably only strained. Something else must have been wrong with him. The other gull with this problem is doing OK.


Missing:

The two geese that were hanging out across the lake in the ballfield area have not been seen in at least a week. It's possible that they're a pair and may just be nesting somewhere. Or, perhaps, someone came and picked them up. I haven't seen any indication that the coyotes got them. I saw them last Tuesday night in an area close to where the coyotes hunt. They can't fly, so if they didn't get caught by the coyotes, then someone had to have taken them out.

Also, one of the Canada geese has been missing for a while, but they can fly, so he might have just flown away

No killdeer, so my favorite ducks

The lake level keeps getting higher, so I see no signs of the killdeer at all, except for one that I think I saw flying around on the western side of the lake.

So, here are some photos of my favorite ducks:

I know there's exposure problems with this photo, but I thought it was a nice interaction between Oreo and Big Boy. Big Boy is missing half of one of his feet, but I never noticed until now. He's been hiding it by not getting out of the water unless he feels safe.



Here's a photo of a cute female wood duck scratching herself on the head:



The crested duck has taken an interest in Oreo and flirted with her while Latte (BigDaddy2), her childhood friend, was somewhere else:



And, here is Tom rooting around in the mud showing his green shine:



And, a gadwall swimming in the shade with the domestic ducks:


In other news, "Jumpy" one of the juvenile seagulls that liked to jump on the coots has died. He was very sick when I last saw him several weeks ago and it looked like his leg was hurt bad. His leg was swollen at his death, but not broken. I don't even think he was 6 months old, yet.

Also, there's a pair of feral geese that are going to make it hard for me to visit the M4 killdeer territory, I think. They don't like anyone who they think are fishermen/women and attack or act aggressively towards people they aren't sure of. Most of the time, they are no problem for me, but sometimes they are and I don't want to get hurt. They are also aggressive towards all the other ducks/birds, too. I don't think they're a pair, but we shall see if one lays eggs. That would explain a lot.

Gnatcatcher and killdeer

My day started with a Cooper's hawk sitting on my neighbor's antenna thinking about having crow for breakfast.



Today was a day where I counted all the birds at Lake Murray (those I could find), so I didn't take that many photos.

Tiny was there alone and I think he's a bit lonely. Every once in a while, he'll do a little alarm deet for no reason. I think he misses his family.



He looks like he's got some scars and scratches on his face. I wonder how he got those, I doubt his dad gave them to him, perhaps there were other killdeers where he was before who fought with him.



I tried to take a photo of this gnatcatcher, but I couldn't get a good focus on it!




All the ducks are doing very well, here's a photo of Snowball:


And, Big Daddy 2:



I tried to get a photo of Big Daddy 3, but those darn ganders were fighting with me, so he got into the water and it wasn't that great of a photo. I think I saw Ducky, but he's got his green head now and it's hard to tell, especially when the sun is shining. Tom and Curly are very hungry, but Tom still has a lot of fat and is doing very well with his foraging.