Not Done With Ducklings, Yet

Still not done with ducklings. Since the duckling-eating gull died, some of the ducklings have been sticking around a lot longer. The heron still hunts around there, but not so much. I haven't seen the great egret, but I saw a bunch of large white feathers that might have been either him or from the geese who are molting.

Anyway, there is was a problem with me watching the ducklings growing up. There were three moms with ducklings all around the same age. All three moms looked almost identical and may be related. At some point, the ducklings got mixed and matched. I think there are two families that are being raised together by two females, but I'm not sure. As a result, I will not be able to separate the photos of the ducklings into families. Currently, all the ducklings are a little over three weeks old.

However, I can tell you specifically about what happened to Sissy's ducklings.

After a couple days from the last time I posted, Sissy only had two ducklings.

Two days after that, she only had one.

This guy was pretty independent and actually lived over two weeks, but grew very little. Eventually, a predator found him and he disappeared.

This little guy's mother abandoned him and he swam around for a long time looking for her. She eventually came back, but he got separated again.

Another mother with three other ducklings eventually adopted him to be with her brood.

He's still alive as far as I know.

Here they are about a week ago. I haven't seen them since.

There were other mothers still having ducklings, too, but I don't think they made it.

The mother who originally had nine got down to about two. Then, she disappeared. However, she sometimes re-appears out of the blue. I get confused as to whether she is the one with the foster duckling or not.

There is one mom with a single, extremely friendly, duckling. They rarely make an appearance, but when she does, this guy loves to follow friendly people around. Here he is, last week, coming up to me to the point where I could almost pet him. I only saw him once since then. I believe he's the same duckling that was running up to me when he was a day-old.

I believe his mom was the one who originally took in the foster duckling, but another mother seems to have kidnapped her other three ducklings.

Uno, the last uneaten duckling, has made it to adulthood and is mostly on her own.

I suspect that all those ducklings are still around, but the mothers are keeping them hidden in other areas.