Mostly Ducky Update

I got a new camera lens and wanted to shoot some photos. It's kinda similar to the last lens I used before, but slightly better with a quieter motor.

Mr. Pekin and Mr. Squeaky, who is doing better:

Mr. Squeaky likes Miss Banana Bill, a newer dumped duck that I will be keeping an eye on. I want to name Miss Banana Bill another name like Angel, instead, but I just don't feel like Angel should be her name.

After a long time of being missing, Pumpkin showed up this morning:

I'm a little worried about Mr. R. who has a bad prolapse that now looks infected.Otherwise, he seems to be OK. Mr. R. is at least five years old now.

I was surprised to see this mama duck with ducklings as I never really saw her on a nest. She was getting severely beat up by the males.

I found this duckling who was a little bit older in another area.

Sadly, though, when I came back about 45 minutes later and I think I saw the mom without the duckling. There was a cormorant and a heron nearby and I fear he became a victim of them.

Speaking of herons, I only see one baby heron left in the nest.

I couldn't find the older gull with the swollen cheek. Usually, he likes to hang out on the osprey pole near the boat docks. I didn't see him at all.

Heron news and stalking squirrels

I found out that there were a total of at least 5 baby herons in the two nests.  2 in one nest and 3 in the other.  The 2 in the one nest were already fledging.

One of the older baby herons decided he wanted to go eat squirrels.  There are people who regularly leave grain for the squirrels and this heron was taking advantage of that.  The crow was suspicious and, after having a few bites, left the scene.

I got a shot of the heron trying to attack the squirrel, but it was cut off at the bottom.  He missed.  When the squirrels ran into the reeds, he went after them.  But, it looked like he was going to miss out of having squirrel for breakfast.  Unfortunately, there used to be three ducklings around there, too, but they were not seen.

In other news, here's a photo of a Cassin's kingbird on top of a speed limit sign:

Bigboi and Runner Duck:

And, Little Sissy is doing OK after the death of her sister, Big Sissy.  While it looks like she's going to eat that fishing line on that log, she actually didn't and went on to find other types of food.