Cloudy Day

Today was a bit of a cloudy day at Lake Murray, but all is well with all the ducks. Many of the migratory birds, such as the scaup, are leaving the lake. Female mallards are beginning to disperse to their nesting sites. The only ones that don't seem to be doing that are the young ones that hatched last year.

Digger and Killer were doing well. Even though the Cooper's hawks have been visiting their area regularly, they still manage not to get caught:

Digger

Killer

Bob1 was there, feeding, but when the coots began to move around, she panicked to get out of the way. She's starting to turn into her summer colors with spots beginning to show more:



I figured out that the male great blue heron is actually managing two females. Here is a photo of the "alpha" female:



Here is the new M4 male. I no longer think he's paired up with Firecracker as I got a good look at the female. She's got too thick of a breast band to be any of George and Martha's offspring:



Digger's mom and dad were setting up a breeding area in a weird spot, right out in the open and away from the water. I have no idea why they're there and not returning to their old breeding area. Here is a photo of the dad getting upset at me for being close by:



I thought I should throw in this photo of a northern mockingbird. The small specks in the photo are actually gnats which are in great numbers at the lake right now: