More ducklings

"Snowie's" ducklings

Today, I saw some new ducklings.  First, I got a report that someone saw 5 ducklings about a month or a month and a half old.  The only ducklings that old were the first brood that I saw over a month ago.  So, I went to go look for them, but I found these little guys.  They were moving so fast, I couldn't get a good picture of them.

Here she is hiding from me.  I think she was the mom who had her ducklings, first, last year and lost almost all of them to gulls before she took three of them over to this canal.  I guess she feels this is a safe area as she has decided to raise her brood there from the beginning.  I believe she might be one that had nine ducklings last Saturday.  Now, she has six.

"Snowie" has reappeared with about nine or ten ducklings.  She was re-connecting with her mate.  I call her and her mate the "Snowies" because the look a little like snowy mallards, but obviously have some other type of mallard duck in them.  They could also be part appleyard.

Snowie got disturbed because too many people were starting at them, so she carted off her babies across the lake.

There were two new ducks dumped last Saturday at the lake and today was the first time I was able to get out to make a photographic record of them.  However, one of them, a blue crested Swedish, has already disappeared, leaving his buddy alone.  This duck looks like either a magpie or a black Swedish mix.

Big Daddy, Cinamon's twin-twin, and the Welsh Harlequin are all missing right now.  Big Daddy has been missing for at least a week and it's not too unusual with him this time of year to go missing.  I hope this isn't the final time he's disappeared.

I also did a bird count, but found nothing unusual.