Down to 5 ducklings

Sadly, there were only 5 of the original 10 ducklings left when I came this morning.  The four very healthy ones and the "special" one.  Mom was not doing a great job keeping them together, either.  Also, this is NOT Caramel, as I had previously thought.  Caramel showed up with her "naked" male this morning.  I think this might be one of the Flycatcher females.  Caramel would have never lost 5 ducklings in 3 days, but it has been cold lately.

Someone, unfortunately, put a huge pile of food right down where the mom and ducklings were feeding.  As a result, a lot of gulls, mostly ring-billed and California gulls, gathered around.  I felt that I had to stand by and protect the ducklings for a little while until the gulls dissipated or the mother took them somewhere else.

One of the ring-billed gulls grabbed one of the ducklings, but I yelled and the duckling got away.  I think one of these two were one of the ones that got grabbed.  I hope it's OK.  I think these are the two that were always getting too far away from mom.  Many times, they walked right up to me.

I watched as they left the area and went to another spot where there were no gulls, but there was a heron there.  I lost track of them when I went to talk to someone about them and what I was doing (someone I had talked to before and thought was a friend) and got distracted when the man got into a rant about how I can't consider myself a conservationist because I am a meat eater.  He didn't like that I was so concerned about one duckling, but not concerned about eating a steak (I don't eat steak but, whatever, he and his friends wouldn't let me get a word in and one called me crazy).  So, I left, hoping, at least, some of them will be OK.  

I also saw some other birds.  Here's a common gallinule:

Clark's grebe:

I saw this baby hummingbird twice on two sides of the lake.  He was peeping away for mama:

Unfortunate news about Pollux and Squeak's nest.  They are back to 3 eggs.  What's weird is there is absolutely no sign of what happened to the missing egg.  I saw no eggshells or anything.  Pollux and Squeak were more agitated than usual, too.  I wonder if the egg hatched and they're agitated because the rest of them are about to hatch.  Maybe that one egg was thrown out of the nest because, compared to the other eggs, it wasn't the right temperature, weight, etc.  I just hope whatever egg it was, it was the newest one and not one of the other ones.

Cinnamon and her entourage ran up to me as soon as I walked up.  The male in front of me is always eager to see if I have any treats and calls to me as soon as he sees me.

And, finally, Doodle's Placekeeper and other male were keeping each other company.