Itchy dancing killdeer

The happy itchy couple

Digger's been really scratching her back lately, mostly in one spot. Killer is doing it, too. But, that doesn't stop him from doing his happy dances.

Killer

Aren't I cute? Says Digger

Across the lake, there were two geese right where the M4 killdeers were. After being bit by them, my camera battery died, so I only got a couple of shots. Here is the male doing some sham nesting:



After the geese left, the female and Bob2 the sandpiper came dancing around, but I couldn't get a photo of them.

All the ducks and other geese are doing well. Cinnamon seems to be dropping eggs everywhere and not incubating them. More reports about ducklings are coming in . Tom and Curly were behaving like jealous children when I gave Tom some catfood. But, everyone managed to eat some of it. Here's a photo of Curly. I also did an article on Examiner.com about him.



Ducky was seen, too. He must be fighting a lot as he's got a huge chunk of feathers missing from his front chest that weren't missing last week:

All ducks, no killdeer (and one sandpiper)

No killdeer were spotted at all today at Lake Murray, but at least two or three were heard beyond the fence when a night heron flew past them. I think I also heard some at another location when someone walked their dog too close to the shoreline. The water levels were higher today.

However, I did see my spotted sandpiper friend, though only for a few minutes:



Ducky gets interested in girls:

I think this is Ducky who is starting to fight with his friend over females, specifically his friend's sister. Ducky's friend really gave it to him hard, but both are juvenile and learning how the process goes, so no one was hurt. Other young females were also interesting to him, too. He checked out everyone.

Ooo, la la! Hello Ladies!

Gotta look good for the girls! Here's Ducky preening his new flight feathers:



Other duck news:

This is Curly with a deformed bill. Curly does everything a normal duck does, even preen and fight. He has a disadvantage when it comes to feeding on his natural food, but he does OK. Bill said there were two Curlies at the lake, but I've only ever seen one. It's possible the other one may have died from old age or moved on somewhere else.



I also saw a northern Pintail, very pretty:



And, here's the white mallard! If you can catch him and keep him confined, you can take him home. He's still pretty tame, but starting to get dirty.