Getting ready for babies!

Everyone seems to be getting ready for babies, building nests, picking partners, finding a place to raise their babies.  There are killdeers in the ballfields again.  I think Mom and Dad killdeer are going to breed there again.  Dad even flashed his tail at me as I walked around the fence.  I bet he's doing nest scrapes around there.

Mom killdeer

These next two are the ones that I saw in the other, large field a few days ago.  The male looks like Surprise, but he is a juvenile.  The female, I just realized, looks like Secret's mate and now that I think about it, the male looks a bit like Secret, too.  I think this may be Secret's son and Secret's mate.  Secret is the brother of Shy, Surprise and Dee.

The mystery hummingbird is back and is starting to get more dark black or blue color under his chin and sides.  He is still smaller than an Anna's, even smaller than the two juvenile Anna's in my yard that are only a month old.

The moorhen with the light behind him in the clover:

Spoonface and his ring:

Beautiful Jill:

She seems to really like this guy and may have chosen him as her new mate:

Hurt wing:

Finally, a red-winged blackbird singing his heart out:

Update on Waddles:  Someone said that she disappeared the same time last year and may be laying her eggs.  I don't remember her going missing last year, but I will hold off declaring her official gone for a while longer.  

I saw no sign of the juvenile gull that was sick a couple days ago, not even any feathers that would indicate that something ate him.  Lake staff do sometimes dispose of dead animals before predators find them, but I figured with the vultures waiting for him to die, there would be signs that something happened to him.  It's highly unlikely that he got better if, indeed, it was metal poisoning.  But, maybe he did get better and it wasn't metal poisoning.

No sign of the scaup with the hook and line.  Many scaups are now leaving the lake and I think he might have, too.  I wonder how far he had gotten on his migration since he wasn't able to eat much.