Duck Update

A Fish Food Mama Duckling

I thought I would update about the ducklings.  All 10 of Fish Food Mama's ducklings are doing well, but I never can get a photo of all of them.

I am pretty sure that she has at least two males in the group.  I think the duckling in front of this photo might be one of them:

Mama giving me a "look":

The ducklings are almost as big as she is:

I saw a new mom with 5 ducklings:

And, another mom with one duckling:

I found Pepper today.  He's going through his molt:

Here's Pepper's "good side".  Look at those big legs that he inherited from his father:

I saw this cute little duck and I think it might be Skippy.  Last time I saw Skippy was when she/he was about three months old and I thought his/her bill was turning green, meaning Skippy was a boy.  Now, I see this green-billed female.  It could also be "Hot Duckling" which was Zippy's sister who was stolen by another female:

This is all that's left of that big flock of ducks dumped last year, pretty much.  Cow is the only female left.  One of the Pekins tried to bite one of Fish Food Mama's ducklings:

This is one of Cinnamon's old boyfriend following them around:

I saw one of the baby herons trying to catch fish, but was really close to that one duckling.  He's watching the red-shouldered hawk flying above.  The hawks frequently raid (or try to raid) the heron's nests and have eaten some of the babies in the past.  Even though the hawk is not a threat to a full-grown heron, he may remember it from his chickhood:

The osprey nest was featured on the news this week.  One of the babies has a problem with his wing and probably will not be able to fly.  However, nothing can be done right now because the mom and dad are still caring for him.  I suspect that, eventually, he will jump out of the nest in his desperation to leave.  He tries really hard to fly, but just can't get that one wing to work.  We shall see what happens.  He was OK when I saw him today.