Photo Contest Winners

I enter the Mission Trails photo contest almost every year and almost always with a duckling or gosling photo. I just like to show off the babies because I really enjoy photographing them. This year, I entered three photos and two of them won prizes. It was a total surprise for me and I thank the judges for choosing my photos out of all the great photos that were there.  Here were the winning photos:

Third Place and People's Choice:

Good Morning Baby Squeaker

First Place and Best of Show:

March of the Goslings

Thanks for viewing!

Not Done With Ducklings, Yet

Still not done with ducklings. Since the duckling-eating gull died, some of the ducklings have been sticking around a lot longer. The heron still hunts around there, but not so much. I haven't seen the great egret, but I saw a bunch of large white feathers that might have been either him or from the geese who are molting.

Anyway, there is was a problem with me watching the ducklings growing up. There were three moms with ducklings all around the same age. All three moms looked almost identical and may be related. At some point, the ducklings got mixed and matched. I think there are two families that are being raised together by two females, but I'm not sure. As a result, I will not be able to separate the photos of the ducklings into families. Currently, all the ducklings are a little over three weeks old.

However, I can tell you specifically about what happened to Sissy's ducklings.

After a couple days from the last time I posted, Sissy only had two ducklings.

Two days after that, she only had one.

This guy was pretty independent and actually lived over two weeks, but grew very little. Eventually, a predator found him and he disappeared.

This little guy's mother abandoned him and he swam around for a long time looking for her. She eventually came back, but he got separated again.

Another mother with three other ducklings eventually adopted him to be with her brood.

He's still alive as far as I know.

Here they are about a week ago. I haven't seen them since.

There were other mothers still having ducklings, too, but I don't think they made it.

The mother who originally had nine got down to about two. Then, she disappeared. However, she sometimes re-appears out of the blue. I get confused as to whether she is the one with the foster duckling or not.

There is one mom with a single, extremely friendly, duckling. They rarely make an appearance, but when she does, this guy loves to follow friendly people around. Here he is, last week, coming up to me to the point where I could almost pet him. I only saw him once since then. I believe he's the same duckling that was running up to me when he was a day-old.

I believe his mom was the one who originally took in the foster duckling, but another mother seems to have kidnapped her other three ducklings.

Uno, the last uneaten duckling, has made it to adulthood and is mostly on her own.

I suspect that all those ducklings are still around, but the mothers are keeping them hidden in other areas.

Surprise Baby Ducks

I was really surprised when I visited Lake Murray, last night, that not only were the two older ducklings doing well and the three very young ducks doing well, but I found a mother with ten ducklings that were at least five days old doing well.  I think the mom with ten might be Peaches's mother.

First, the two older ducklings. They are more and more looking like a male and a female. They reached their one month old mark today.

The three that I've seen before are still alive and well.

This is the mother duck whom I thought looked like Peaches' mother with the ten ducklings. The gulls seems to be strangely absent lately which is nice because I can enjoy the ducklings without worrying about them being snatched. The herons also appear to not be as active.

Someone was throwing bread at them, hence the bread in the next couple of pictures.

Then, all sets of ducklings disappeared into hiding. I didn't see them at all.

The youngest baby goose is beginning to look like a grown-up.

And, a surprise wood duck. This one looks like either Doodle's son or that one that used to chase Doodle around.

Ducklings are now in!

Finally, we're starting to see ducklings--a lot of them.  I am seeing new broods every time I go to Lake Murray in San Diego.  Last Tuesday, I came across the mom that had four ducklings, but now she had two. 

After I had taken their picture and walked away, mama duck began screaming her head off.  When I came back, one of the ducklings had somehow gone a long distance in a matter of about 30 seconds.  I'm suspecting a young gull or crow took him, but dropped him when mom went after him.  Both ducklings were re-united after a few minutes.  However, I didn't see those two ducklings or their mama today, so I'm not sure if they made it.

Last Tuesday, I found Boat Dock Peaches with one duckling.  I didn't see the duckling today, but I did hear Boat Dock Peaches screaming her head off at the males as she usually does. I don't know if she still had her one duckling:

I did see the other mother who had four ducklings who still has three that are growing large.

Another mother with four hatchlings:

This mom had six or seven ducklings.  I thought I saw her with seven at first, but later I only saw her with six.  Here she is with 5 ducklings:

Troublemaker is still very small, but mostly feathered now.

He's still about half the size of his siblings:

Here's a few of his beautiful sisters:

And, finally, the baby Canada geese are nearly full grown and are flying a little:

Snowie's baby is returned and other baby bird news

Snowie's stolen duckling was still with his ducklingnapper this morning, snuggled against her while they swam.  But, later, she went back to Snowie's family, which still contained 7 babies, and he mixed in with his brothers and sisters:

When the family moved on, he went with him, but mostly stayed by himself.  However, when he felt uncomfortable, he went back to Snowie.  The other female took a nap and later went looking for the family and, when she found them, she stayed nearby.

Snowie was having a hard time with her mate and her son.  She has her mad mama face on while she chased her son away:

Still 5 goslings in the same area.  They're starting to get big:

One of the goslings has zooming around under water:

Dad seems confused as to where his gosling went (he's under the water) .  But, the gosling was fine:

There's still three babies in the front heron's nest.  The other two in the other nest seem to have completely fledged:

It appears that the two baby osprey that were left in the nest have fledged.  I think one even returned.

Baby Blue and his mate whom I found out was named Ducky Ducky by the man who dumped her:

Mrs. Pekin looks absolutely awful.  She is now the last surviving domestic female dumped before last September.  I hope she gets better.  Little Sissy, the buff, is dead.