At Lake Murray, there's been a flood of new baby ducks. Unfortunately, most, if not all of them, don't make it much more than a week.
Earlier this week, I saw the mama with the last of her ducklings; the one that was brutally attacked. His sibling was gone. This guy was 10 days old when this photo was taken. I did not see her or the duckling today. I'm hoping she moved him on to a safer area, but I don't have hope for him.
It's been about 6 weeks since I first met him and he was at least 2-3 weeks old at that time. So, he should be about 8-10 weeks old now. But, he looks and acts like a 5-6 week old. His siblings are normal for 8-10 weeks old. So, Troublemaker may actually be the same age as his siblings, but behind on development.
Mom keeps a good eye on him, but she's also trying to encourage the others to fly and can't wait for Troublemaker to catch up to them.
His best friend is his brother, seen here at the bottom right. The one at the top is an adult male. He gets along well with other ducks and is smart enough to know to avoid the large males.
On Monday, I went to Imperial Beach where they were having a hug anchovy visitation. Lots of birds were there. I saw one juvenile snowy plover, whom I only got a blurry photo of, so I'm not posting it. Here is his dad who ran up to me to distract me from his chick. A female was also seen in the area.
Lots of fun willets, many still in breeding plumage:
Pelicans diving for their favorite fish, anchovies:
But, the big spectacle was the tens of thousands of shearwaters flying by the shoreline for hours. It was like the passenger pigeons where they just kept on coming. I saw that they were flying in a huge circle. Thousands and thousands of birds continuously streaming by.. Everyone that saw them was amazed.
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