Pepper and Not-Pepper and Counting Day

Pepper (back) and Not-Pepper (front)

Today was the day I count the birds.  I counted 887 coots, but I know I missed a couple hundred.  Mallard numbers are holding mostly steady, but dropping a lot in the last year and a half.  Very few scaup this year compared to last.

Because of bad lighting, etc, I was not able to get many photos of birds other than the ducks.  Most of the small birds were too fast.  There were many Hutton's vireos and even some Cassin's vireos there, but too fast for the camera.

I did see Bossy and his new friends.  I'm thinking that might be his mom in that group of males behind him.

Nap time for duckies!

Somebody was feeding the ducks near the dock.  Cinnamon must have been hungry because she was there from across the lake as well as Cinnamon 2, the orange-billed Cinnamon.  Pepper was there and Cinnamon and her male friends were very kind to Pepper who seemed to like Cinnamon (unlike Buffy, who attacked Pepper).  Her body-guards were always watching, though. Pepper is in the middle of the photo between Cinnamon and the big male on the left.

Not-Pepper (front) was there and he seemed to like Pepper, too and vice-versa.  Pepper sorta followed him around.  Not-Pepper showed up at the lake when he was almost three months old and looks a lot like Pepper.  He was even that gray-black color like Pepper was before he got his drake colors.  

Pepper seems to really like Quacker, whom he grew up with.  I think she likes him, too.  I think they'll end up being mates.  However, she does not sit, so there will probably be no ducklings from her unless she lays eggs in someone else's nest.

 

Big Daddy was also seen as well as Bossy's sisters, the friendly ducks, and Pip and Peep,  but no wood ducks were seen at all.