Killdeer are back and other birds

The killdeers have begun to make their appearance again.  However, I don't know who, exactly, these guys are.  I'm thinking they're the Beautiful Dad or Shy's offspring as they look real young.  These next two look a little like Pollux and his son:

There were three other killdeer there, too, but I can't identify them:

Another youngster:

In George's territory, an adult male patrols a certain spot.  I don't recognize him.  He appears to be mature and almost looks like a fat version of George:

I think this might be Smudge and her young companion, but I'm not sure.

Running:

They headed over where the single male is and Smudge's boyfriend chased off the single male:

But, Smudge disappeared, so he looked all over for her.  I have no idea where she went.

I'm not sure, but this might be Ducky or Ducky's girlfriend's brother.  He's been fighting, I see:

Bigboi and the other domestics were found in a weird spot near these reeds away from shore.  I've never seen them there, ever.  It could be because the predators are more active and it's been cold.

Hiding in the reeds.  The buff was there, too, but was out of the frame:

The nine dumped ducks are doing OK for now.

Oreo is just not himself and is just wandering around aimlessly even though Cinnamon and her males have accepted him into their group.  All he wants to do is honk-whistle and do courtship behaviors and contests with the other males. Cinnamon's boyfriends have no reason to do courtship behaviors with him as they all already know their ranking with her and know who her #1 male is.

There is a male mallard that likes to play with him, but doesn't follow him around like Aflac did. So, Oreo just swims around by himself looking for males who will play his game.  I don't recall him being like that with Aflac or doing courtship behaviors with him like this.

Here are a couple of yellow-rumped warbler pictures:

And a common yellowthroat.  This little guy just kept following me around.  He wouldn't give up and went everywhere I did.

A couple killdeer photos

I finally saw a couple of killdeer.  The female (below) was freakishly friendly towards me, so I knew it's one of the chicks I observed some time over the last few years.  At first, I thought it was Dee, then Firecracker, then Little Miracle.  Now, I think it might be Smudge.  She walked right up to me.

Here is a young male, younger than the killdeer above.  He is a spitting image of Killer (AKA Kip), so I think it might be one of his sons.  If the killdeer above is Dee, this would probably be her son.  If it's Smudge, then this might be her new mate:

Look at all these gulls and coots.  Lots of ring-billed gulls here like last year and the year before..  Hopefully, they will move on before the ducklings begin to hatch.

Counting Day!

Today is the day I counted the birds at Lake Murray as I have done every month for the last two or three years.  I don't know how much longer I am going to do my monthly counts, but I plan to do at least the next one for the Great Backyard Bird Count in February.

My day started out with the usual birds, but a big lack of mallards.  One of my first neat birds to see was the eared grebe in the photo above.

I also heard the "Mystery Warbler" (Possibly a Virginia's warbler) call for a few seconds lately.

I checked on all the domestic ducks and all were fine, but Bumblefoot's foot infection is really bad.  It must hurt as he doesn't even want to put her foot under her body.  The rough ground probably doesn't help, either.

Here's a close-up of it.  It really is nasty and she doesn't have a lot longer to live if she doesn't get treatment for it soon.  Otherwise, she is in good spirits and has normal energy and appetite.

The call duck mix seems to be all better now and is no longer tucking his tail in.  I don't think he needs a rescue anymore.

Gaddy and his girlfriend.  You can always tell which gadwall is Gaddy because he's always with this female mallard no matter what.  Sure, he likes to stray off an look at other girls and pick fights with the males, but he always stays close to her.

Oreo has managed to get into Cinnamon's inner circle and seems to almost be her new fifth boyfriend.

But, as she and her other boyfriends leave the area, he stays behind near where his friend died, circling around.  Eventually, he followed Cinnamon, but seemed really hesitant to do so.

Later, I saw him across the lake looking at the 10 Pekins over there. I wonder if he was looking for his friend or for a new friend.

Here are the results of today's count:

3	Canada Goose
10	Gadwall
201	Mallard
37	Mallard (Domestic type)
2	Cinnamon Teal
14	Northern Shoveler
354	Lesser Scaup
2	Bufflehead
23	Ruddy Duck
6	Pied-billed Grebe
2	Eared Grebe
1	Western Grebe
15	Western/Clark's Grebe
56	Double-crested Cormorant
3	American White Pelican
1	Great Blue Heron
1	Snowy Egret
1	Green Heron
10	Turkey Vulture
1	Osprey
1	Cooper's Hawk
1	Red-shouldered Hawk
280	American Coot
24	Ring-billed Gull
27	Western Gull
13	California Gull
1	Glaucous-winged Gull
34	Rock Pigeon
43	Mourning Dove
70	Anna's Hummingbird
5	Nuttall's Woodpecker
3	Black Phoebe
2	Cassin's Kingbird
11	American Crow
2	Common Raven
169	Bushtit
2	Marsh Wren
7	Bewick's Wren
1	Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
3	California Gnatcatcher
1	Ruby-crowned Kinglet
1	Hermit Thrush
20	European Starling
1	Orange-crowned Warbler
1	Virginia's Warbler Vocal only. Same bird heard/seen in previous months mentioned in previous eBird reports. Only gave a short, 15 second call one time before disturbed by nearby human activity. Though it is staying around the same general area as before, it has become almost non-vocal over the last few weeks.
6	Common Yellowthroat
330	Yellow-rumped Warbler Conservative count. Every bird counted was individually sighted and/or heard.
1	Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) Similar to Audubon's warbler, except with a white throat.
6	California Towhee
63	Song Sparrow
83	White-crowned Sparrow
30	Red-winged Blackbird
63	Brewer's Blackbird
40	Great-tailed Grackle
134	House Finch
79	Lesser Goldfinch

Orange-crowned warbler and one less Pekin

I think this is an orange-crowned warbler, one of the birds I know is always at Lake Murray, but I rarely see.  He was hopping around on this fence.  Didn't seem shy at all.

Big Mama Cooper's Hawk didn't seem to mind me taking her picture, either, even with the flash going.  Later, I found a half-eaten dead coot in the area.  It's unusual for her not to eat her entire kill, but she may have been disturbed by people walking by.

This is Bumblefoot and her mate.  She's very vocal:

And, she loves her mate.  Here she is saying "I love you" by doing head bobbing at him. She was actually walking better today.

Big Daddy thought I had some food, but I didn't:

Today, the black Swedish duck known as Oreo was by himself.  His friend, Aflac, was found dead and mostly eaten and it looks like raccoons got him and dragged him to the reeds near where they sleep.  Oreo was acting fairly normally, but when his flock containing Cinnamon and her boyfriends moved to another area, he stayed behind.  He's perhaps hoping his friend will "wake up" or show up again and, then, they will go together.

Here's a photo taken a couple of weeks after they arrived in late March/early April, 2011:

Cinnamon and her boyfriends (including Stubby) are OK, but I worry that the predator will be back for the rest of the ducks.

New Year's Shorebird Counting

This is the third year I've done shorebird counting on New Year's day at the San Diego South Bay.  This year, I went at a rising tide early in the morning.  The weather was mostly cloudy, but not foggy like last year.  I also didn't walk as far as usual because I was carrying a scope and tripod (which I dropped once, but it was OK).

**Yes, I know that some of the photos say "2012" on it.  I was watermarking them and my fingers aren't used to typing 2013, so several of them were mismarked, but I didn't want to go back and change them.

Willets and godwits were plentiful.  Though I saw many willets socializing with individual godwits, I did not see the special willet-godwit pair that I've seen the last two years.

This godwit was itchy:

I saw hundreds of western sandpipers, but only about a dozen least sandpipers:

Lots and lots of them:

 A good mess of northern pintails, too (and a ton of wigeons which I didn't get any good photos of):

In this next photo, though it's hard to see are several snowy egrets, a reddish egret, Bonaparte's gull, and two types of merganser.  I didn't even know I got a picture of the reddish egret or the mergansers when I took this photo.

These willets, godwits, and dowitchers were all feeding peacefully here:

When a Cooper's hawk went on the attack and tried to attack some coots and other birds along the shore.

The willets and the black-bellied plovers nearby made sure they sounded the alarm until she was gone:

A few greater yellowlegs were around:

One friendly killdeer.  I think I only saw 5 of the 30 I usually see there:

An unusual sight, a white pelican.  They are usually inland freshwater birds:

And, hundreds of black brant.

At lot of them:

Seriously, a lot:

And, lots of eared grebes, too.