Morning at the lake

Ruddy duck greets the morning

Luckily, inland, the sun was out early today.  So, I was able to get some decent photos.  Jill is still very attached to the Canada goose:

Louie is still biding his time and hopes to have Jill eventually.

I originally thought this was the mother duck with the one duckling and was very sad because she had no duckling with her and was being harassed by the males a lot.  But, it wasn't the mama, but her almost twin.  So, the duckling still might be alive:

Sadly, one of the three ducklings from the original ten hatched last month is missing.  At this age, it is not unknown for a duckling to leave the family.  I did hear a lone duckling peeping in another part of the lake, but couldn't see who it was.  Here is a photo of the other two.  The small one is the little weakling duckling:

Here is the entire family.  The male pecked at one of the ducklings for no reason except, maybe to maintain his dominance:

Little weakling swimming around the golf balls:

Big sibling with a full crop checking me out:

On the other side of the lake, the mom with the five ducklings still have five, healthy, growing ducklings, which is unusual to hold on to that many for this long.  Here are two of them:

This next picture is blurry because these ducklings were very friendly and this one walked too close to me and my camera lens:

Here are the other four walking up to other people.

Then, mom gave a sharp quack and they all ran back to the water.  Someone came by with a trio of dogs.

Killdeer update:


I could hear a killdeer doing a panic mobbing call and when I finally found where it came from, I saw a large raven around where Junior is nesting poking around the rocks looking for Junior's nest.  As I approached, the raven flew off, but I am not sure if it found the nest.  Junior calmed down after I called to him:

Then, it sounds like the raven went over to George and Killer's nesting area to do the same thing.  It is unknown if he got anything over there, too.  I think George and Killer's chicks are mostly grown by now.

I also got a report that all three of Squeak and Pollux's chicks were seen yesterday and are doing fine.