Baby Season 2017

Duckling season seems to be peaking now. What's been nice is that a lot of the ducklings are surviving a lot longer than they used to. The blue herons have all fledged from their nests and I haven't seen the black-crowned herons all season. The gulls are behaving themselves so far, but I think they may be afraid of being injured by the mama ducks. One of the gulls was so injured, possibly by a mama duck, that it could no longer fly.

I compiled a lot of the photos and videos of the ducklings for this month since the time I last posted.

We have a new set of four goslings at Lake Murray. I think we are not really going to get anymore goslings as it's becoming late in the season.

Miss Butterscotch's ducklings are all grown up and almost ready to fly. Butterscotch is getting her groove back with her male duck friends. Her ducklings are the older ones in the video.

Here are a couple more duckling photos I just took today:

The Two

The single duckling below is being watched closely by the duckling-eating gull. But the mama duck is very experienced and successful, so I don't think she would let him get eaten without a fight.

The Single Duckling

Dumped Ducks:

It's that time of year again where people dump their Easter ducklings to get eaten by coyotes at the lake.  These three nearly died of dehydration until someone threw them into the lake. They're still having a hard time getting adjusted to living at the lake, but at least they're not thirsty anymore. I have a feeling they were kept in a cage or in a home and have no clue what to do.

These two were dropped off yesterday and seem to have a handle on things. Runner Duck wants to rape the female, though, but he hasn't figured out how to get past the big male Pekin.

RIP:

The coyotes have been very active and we've lost several ducks in the last few weeks:

The droopy-winged brown and white female had been missing for a week and a half before I found her body, so she may have been already dead when the coyotes found her. The gray one was doing well and getting grayer, but I didn't see her as well today. But, she may be OK.

The female Chinese swan goose, dropped off almost two years ago, was killed shortly after the droopy-winged duck. Her mate is now spending time trying to stay close to some of the older geese.  I think he's pretty scared. Her egg was still in her nest when I saw the feather pile.

More ducklings

"Snowie's" ducklings

Today, I saw some new ducklings.  First, I got a report that someone saw 5 ducklings about a month or a month and a half old.  The only ducklings that old were the first brood that I saw over a month ago.  So, I went to go look for them, but I found these little guys.  They were moving so fast, I couldn't get a good picture of them.

Here she is hiding from me.  I think she was the mom who had her ducklings, first, last year and lost almost all of them to gulls before she took three of them over to this canal.  I guess she feels this is a safe area as she has decided to raise her brood there from the beginning.  I believe she might be one that had nine ducklings last Saturday.  Now, she has six.

"Snowie" has reappeared with about nine or ten ducklings.  She was re-connecting with her mate.  I call her and her mate the "Snowies" because the look a little like snowy mallards, but obviously have some other type of mallard duck in them.  They could also be part appleyard.

Snowie got disturbed because too many people were starting at them, so she carted off her babies across the lake.

There were two new ducks dumped last Saturday at the lake and today was the first time I was able to get out to make a photographic record of them.  However, one of them, a blue crested Swedish, has already disappeared, leaving his buddy alone.  This duck looks like either a magpie or a black Swedish mix.

Big Daddy, Cinamon's twin-twin, and the Welsh Harlequin are all missing right now.  Big Daddy has been missing for at least a week and it's not too unusual with him this time of year to go missing.  I hope this isn't the final time he's disappeared.

I also did a bird count, but found nothing unusual.