Update at Lake Murray

Sorry that it's been so long! I don't go to the lake as regularly as I usually do. The lake is full of geese and goslings now! Weird thing is that they don't creche there and many of the families fight.  I found this little guy all by himself with no other goslings his age. I took him to Project Wildlife a few weeks ago and haven't heard anything since.

More goslings from this season, including two very large families. One family has managed to retain and raise seven goslings almost to adulthood.

Geese are so fun and Canada geese are the best.

There have been several common gallinule chicks hatched at the lake from this one female. It appears that the female does everything. There is no sign of the male at all.

And, of course, ducklings. Unfortunately, I was gone for a while and didn't see a whole lot of ducklings. However, I did see a few broods have ducklings make it to flying age.

Baby Season 2017

Duckling season seems to be peaking now. What's been nice is that a lot of the ducklings are surviving a lot longer than they used to. The blue herons have all fledged from their nests and I haven't seen the black-crowned herons all season. The gulls are behaving themselves so far, but I think they may be afraid of being injured by the mama ducks. One of the gulls was so injured, possibly by a mama duck, that it could no longer fly.

I compiled a lot of the photos and videos of the ducklings for this month since the time I last posted.

We have a new set of four goslings at Lake Murray. I think we are not really going to get anymore goslings as it's becoming late in the season.

Miss Butterscotch's ducklings are all grown up and almost ready to fly. Butterscotch is getting her groove back with her male duck friends. Her ducklings are the older ones in the video.

Here are a couple more duckling photos I just took today:

The Two

The single duckling below is being watched closely by the duckling-eating gull. But the mama duck is very experienced and successful, so I don't think she would let him get eaten without a fight.

The Single Duckling

Dumped Ducks:

It's that time of year again where people dump their Easter ducklings to get eaten by coyotes at the lake.  These three nearly died of dehydration until someone threw them into the lake. They're still having a hard time getting adjusted to living at the lake, but at least they're not thirsty anymore. I have a feeling they were kept in a cage or in a home and have no clue what to do.

These two were dropped off yesterday and seem to have a handle on things. Runner Duck wants to rape the female, though, but he hasn't figured out how to get past the big male Pekin.

RIP:

The coyotes have been very active and we've lost several ducks in the last few weeks:

The droopy-winged brown and white female had been missing for a week and a half before I found her body, so she may have been already dead when the coyotes found her. The gray one was doing well and getting grayer, but I didn't see her as well today. But, she may be OK.

The female Chinese swan goose, dropped off almost two years ago, was killed shortly after the droopy-winged duck. Her mate is now spending time trying to stay close to some of the older geese.  I think he's pretty scared. Her egg was still in her nest when I saw the feather pile.

Surprise Baby Ducks

I was really surprised when I visited Lake Murray, last night, that not only were the two older ducklings doing well and the three very young ducks doing well, but I found a mother with ten ducklings that were at least five days old doing well.  I think the mom with ten might be Peaches's mother.

First, the two older ducklings. They are more and more looking like a male and a female. They reached their one month old mark today.

The three that I've seen before are still alive and well.

This is the mother duck whom I thought looked like Peaches' mother with the ten ducklings. The gulls seems to be strangely absent lately which is nice because I can enjoy the ducklings without worrying about them being snatched. The herons also appear to not be as active.

Someone was throwing bread at them, hence the bread in the next couple of pictures.

Then, all sets of ducklings disappeared into hiding. I didn't see them at all.

The youngest baby goose is beginning to look like a grown-up.

And, a surprise wood duck. This one looks like either Doodle's son or that one that used to chase Doodle around.

Ducklings Today

After a long while of seeing no ducklings, a mom showed up with what looked like 13 ducklings (or maybe 12, hard to say as they move around so fast). 11-12 were with her, and one was near another female. That one will be talking about later.

She had a little yellow-ish one:

Competing for flies:

I think the mom might be Trouble's mother from last year.

Here, they were passing by a gauntlet of about 30 gulls. Though the gulls seemed interested and, for a moment, I thought they were going to grab one, they didn't bother the family.

Two tired ducklings:

A duckling-napping in progress:

One duckling seemed to be hanging back with another female. I don't think he was her duckling. Later, when the ducklings went back toward this female, she attempted to steal three more of them. She approached this duckling who was screaming for the real mama. She began doing "mama talk" to the baby, but I think the baby was scared of her.

She ended up going back to her real mother:

She attempted to "mama talk" this one to her as well:

Then, this one, who was spending time with her before, went back to the shore and she followed:

She began "mama talking" and showing this one what to eat and was never aggressive towards him.

Though I saw the original mother with the 11-12 ducklings, later, this mother and this duckling disappeared. I've seen this happen before. Female ducks, this time of year, often get raging hormones, but either can't or don't want to sit on eggs. So, when they see a large brood of ducklings under three days old, they will act like they're the mother. Sometimes, a few ducklings will begin to follow her instead of the real mother. Sometimes, these duckling-nappers end up being better mothers than the real mother. One duckling-napper raised four babies out of the 9-10 the real mother had. The real mother lost all of hers.

This seems to only happen during the bonding period, up to about three days old. After that, the original mother will attack any babies she doesn't think are hers, including ducklings that have been "away" for that long. Also, mothers who don't have the hormonal change will attack babies as well.

The two babies are still doing OK, but are very brave. The other five are getting very large and are starting to feather out.

We had a large number of Canada geese show up at the lake. The four unmarried teenage geese were checking them out. But, their original father brutally attacked one of the young males over and over, but the youngster was OK. Some of the other geese flew off without taking any of the teens with them. I'm hoping that the teens will follow the migratory geese out of the area.

There were also lesser scaup there, a bit late for them:

And, a white-faced ibis came to visit.

Baby season continues

While there aren't any new ducklings to speak of, other birds, such as the geese, continue with their babies:

A mother pied-billed grebe brings up a crayfish breakfast for her five babies:

Hey, where did mom go?

There are still two young goslings:

The older goslings were also near the younger ones. Mom was not too happy about it:

Dad with three goslings:

In this photo, one gosling had just returned to the group after chasing off a squirrel. They are mouthing each other. I guess it's a greeting:

The young ones are starting to look like they're growing:

Daaaaaad!

Meanwhile, Blue and his friend are laying next to a pair of cute gadwalls:

Mr. Squeaky seems to have won the favor of this new blonde duck with angel wing: