Random baby photos and Pekin news

Seems like babies are everyone and those that don't have babies are getting ready for them.  Here are some random bird shots I took today.

First, we start with two killdeer doing courtship.  This first one, though, seemed a little masculine, but was doing bonding chirps with the other one that was obviously male.  So, I think this one might a female.  Her head is a little round, too, males are a little more square.  I think this might be Peanut, Smudge's sister.  But, I'm not sure as I haven't seen Peanut in over a year:

Here is the male who is definitely masculine:

I found out that there are three babies in the osprey nest.  The mom (on the right), likes to keep him in the center of the nest as he's a bit smaller than the other two:

Here is dad taking a bath.  He had a fish in his talons, too.

Here is a beautiful male gadwall with a mallard duckling in front of him.  The duckling seems to be admiring his beauty:

A little duckling eating food off the water surface:

There were four mallard ducklings in this spot, overall.  Two of the ducklings were much larger than the other two.  There are two reasons for this.  I've noticed male ducklings go through a growth spurt between one and three weeks of age.  Females eventually catch up at about four weeks old.  Another reason is that the bigger ducklings may be hybrid with Pekins and other large domestic ducks.  Or, it could be genetic differences.  The large ones are almost out of gull-eating size, but the smaller ones are still at risk:

Mom with three ducklings:

A big duckling and a small one:

here they are again:

Two smalls and a big duckling:

Mom with a small and big duckling:

Mom with the biggest duckling:

I also saw these slightly younger ducklings hidden under a tree near some reeds:

Here's a photo of Rubber Band:

And, her three brothers:

I thought this was Bumblefoot, at first, having a hormone problem and getting a curly feather.  He/she even quacked a little.  But, Bumblefoot has a sore on her right foot, not her left.  I'm not sure if Bumblefoot was even there anymore and may have passed on.  One Pekin was missing from that group.

Mrs. Pekin is still alive, but in bad shape.  I don't think I saw Mr. Pekin today, either.  There were two Pekins missing for a while now.  And, today, Cow was missing.  Both Cow and Bumblefoot were seen last Tuesday (I can't confirm Bumblefoot as I hadn't actually gone to her spot, but I did see Cow).  Here's a photo of Mrs. Pekin:

RIP Louie the gander

Louie the gander was missing last Friday, but I saw a "white blob" swimming across the lake and thought that it might be him (or a pelican), so I decided not to be concerned.  I looked everywhere very carefully and saw no sign of him or that anything happened to him.  On Wednesday, he was perfectly fine and looked like he was beginning to fit back into the group after being ostracized after Jill's death.

Louie and Jill last March

Louie was very healthy, but wasn't eating a whole lot.  Nonetheless, he had good energy and muscle tone and I did see him eating some, so I didn't worry about him.  But, he was forced to stay away from the main group of geese, so he most likely slept alone.  This morning, I found a lot of white feathers near the reeds close to where they sleep.  The feathers went all around the reeds from back to front.  It looked more than just regular molting feathers that blow around sometimes.  I'm thinking Louie might have died last Wednesday or Thursday and maybe the raccoon found him while scavenging between Friday and today.  

I'm still holding out some hope that he's just hiding somewhere, but this is really unusual for there to be no sign of him for this long.  Even when he looked for Jill, I would always find him somewhere.  Louie was a very old gander who might have been more than 20 years old.

In other duck news, someone told me they found the headless body of a black and white duck in the trash, but I saw no sign of it.  This duck was the only duck missing at that time, but he was found today.  All the other domestic ducks are also fine.  There are two domestics that I rarely see that I can't verify that they're OK, but they live far across the lake. 

All the ducks are in breeding mode and doing honk-whistles.  Here's several male gadwalls chasing a female:

One in the mid-ground of the photo is doing a honk-whistle:

Baby Blue was also doing honk-whistles.  I also heard a lot of "rejection quacks" from females.

And, Rubberband and her brothers keep plugging along.  I don't know what happened to their mom, Eileen.  Last time I saw her, she seemed to be breaking away from them and going off with a male duck.

I also got a few killdeer photos:


I think this is George's skinny 2013 daughter:

And, I think this might be Little Miracle, though her head markings look a lot like Firecracker.  She was very friendly: