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.

A New Contender for First Duckling

I went back to Lake Murray today and found this cute little guy who may actually be older than the ducklings I saw yesterday.

I suspect all his siblings were eaten by predators. He's the only one I saw for that one particular female.

In the meantime, these seven guys have made it through their first day out. Many of the predators don't begin to pick them off until they're at least three or four days old.

Here's the mom with one of these cuties:

Snowie had her ducklings today, but they were not out of the nest, so I couldn't really get a picture of them. They were terrified of me and hid under mama's feathers to hide.

This one has a little mask.

Unfortunately, that will probably be all the pictures I'm going to get of Snowie's ducklings as I can't be there for almost a week. Since she's not the best protector and she's only got two, they are unlikely to last very long. So if you want to see them, they should be out this afternoon and you can take pictures of them.

No signs of goslings, yet.

Update with bird festival, gbbc, and ducks

Since I've last posted, we've had the Great Backyard Bird Count, Bird Festival and a lot of other birding things going on. I see lots and lots of breeding behavior in all animals right now. We had a little rain, but it's also been extremely hot, too. I know I included the first day of the GBBC, but not the other days.

I didn't take any photos at the bird festival. I was mostly there on Sunday at the Big Sit and one other lecture. I did see a lot of gulls and a few ducks in the river. The weather was great and I'm sure the out of town visitors had a great time. I hear they had decent bird sightings on most trips.

At Chollas Lake on the 15th, I saw this friendly spotted sandpiper who reminded me of Bob:

I think is is Mylee the gosling at Chollas Lake I posted about a few years ago. She seemed to know my name.

I found this stilt and avocet enjoying the Otay River Mouth area.

Around the end of February, I saw this turkey vulture at Lake Murray wearing a wing tag. I found out that he was banded in Fallbrook about two years ago as an adult. He was part of a study of migrating turkey vultures in Orange County. I've seen him a couple times since then, but not much.

I thought this female house finch on the cactus looked pretty cool:

This gull is humongous! Bigger than a lot of the ducks, even.

One day it rained, and Peaches and her boyfriend came up to my car. Peaches has a nest now. She's getting up there in years.

Pepper's wing actually looks a little better. It's not sticking out sideways as much as it used to:

This little girl at Lake Murray looks to be a khaki Campbell. She's quite a loudmouth. I named her Skeeter after another khaki Campbell who is a celebrity.

Saw this cinnamon teal at the lake on the 8th.

And, today, I saw Snowie, who I think is also sitting on a nest. Her two boys have been seen a lot without her lately. I found duck parts near where they were standing, but, of course, it was not her.

Snowie's New Babies

It was cold and drizzly early this morning (typical Memorial Day Weekend weather) when I saw Snowie with a new set of ducklings. This is almost exactly 6 weeks after her last brood died.

I think she had 11, 6 are in the next photo:

Here's a close up of a few:

However, this leucastic female mallard was hanging around.   She NEVER hangs out in this area and I'm sure she hasn't been nesting.  All kinds of ducklings surrounded her and when she began to move, this one began to follow and peep after her.  At first, she acted like she wanted to get away, but she was answering his peeping with "mama duck" talk:

She swam close to Snowie and her babies, then went far out to the middle of the lake, the duckling tight on her side.  Then, she went closer to her usual area with the duckling and let him feed onshore.  I was worried that she didn't want a duckling and would abandon him.  But, she was being attentive and talking to him, so I told her to take good care of him.  She may have been passing by Snowie to either return him to her or to possibly steal more.

It's unusual for mallards to raise any ducklings not their own.  Most females will peck and chase a baby that gets too close, or even kill them.  But, every year I find at least one or two females who will steal a baby (or babies) from another female who is inattentive.  Usually, I've found, the adoptive mothers are females who are bad at setting, don't want to set, or have lost their nest close to hatching time.  Ducklings are easily impressionable during the first three days and may attach themselves to other mothers or ducklings during that time.

Sad news about the Canada goslings.  One is gone.  I don't know what happened.  I suspect the herons, but humans, pet dogs/cats, and raccoons could be the reason for its disappearance.  They're too big for gulls, crows, etc.  Or, it could have been sick.

Snowie down to two babies

Despite the very cold weather we've been having, Snowie has managed to keep two ducklings for five days.  It's not a surprise that these are the two that survived as their colors are selected for in nature.  It's the little mallard and one of the Swedish, though the Swedish is beginning to show unusual mallard-like markings:

Here is the little mallard:

The little Swedish who might be crested:

The little mallard has a lot of energy, but the other one is struggling.  I can already tell that both ducklings have doubled in size, at least:

There might be some goslings hatching, soon.  Here is mama nesting:

Dad is doing guard duty.  He attacks anything that might bet too close to the nest even if it's a half mile away.  He was attacking cormorants and even went way out far away to attack them.

More of Snowie's babies

Despite it being very cold and rainy over the last couple of days, Snowie still has five ducklings.  The yellow duckling and a black duckling (the yellow one was picked up by a kid and he may have picked up a black one, but put them back and I did see them after he left) were missing. It's not unusual to lose two ducklings in three days, especially in the area she's raising them in.  The blue one seems to be struggling a bit and is the most affected by the cold weather. It is so cold that there is snow in the mountains.  The ducklings were cranky and peeping a lot.

When I first found the family, Snowie was fighting off another male, but her mate and son helped chase them away.  Then, her ducklings hid under the floating dock.  The gray duckling got stuck under there, but eventually found his way out.

Here is the gray duckling whom I named Baby Baby Blue:

Here he is with one of the three black Swedish ducklings:

The little mallard is still there:

Here is the another Swedish.  The ducklings showed no fear of me and ran right up to my feet.  It makes me wonder who else they run up to:

There's also news that the Canada geese at the lake are nesting and Picked-On seems to be feeling better and is eating again.

The first ducklings of the season award goes to Snowie!

Snowie showed up late yesterday afternoon at Lake Murraay with 7 ducklings of a variety of colors and shapes.  All but one were domestic colors.  One was a mallard color.  I *think* we might have a couple crested ones.  You can probably guess who the dads were.

There were two that were light blue and yellow, probably came from Baby Blue:

Here is the lighter yellow-blue ducklings with a black and yellow duckling.  I'm suspecting the father of the dark one to be Dougie.  Bigboi tends to produce all black ducklings, but he may still be the father.  I don't think it's a runner baby because he doesn't stand up at all like a runner and that trait tends to carry through even when they breed to non-runner ducks.

This photo is available as a print on Deviant Art.  You can buy it here:

Unfortunately, Snowie had to fight off all the males in the area.  This put her ducklings in danger, especially from the 50 or so gulls nearby getting fed.  All the ducklings were fine while i was there.

Here is a Youtube video I made of Snowie's ducklings running around:

She was heading towards the gulls, that's why I told her not to go there.  Unfortunately, I don't think these guys are going to last.  The weather's been cold and Snowie is not the best mother.  I wanted to make sure I filmed and photographed all of them before they disappear.  Also, one kid was able to pick one of them up, so it's possible that they may get duck-napped.