The First Picture of the Day, May 15th 2016 Dumped Duckies

Hi everyone! I've been so busy that I haven't been able to keep up with any of my blogs. However, I don't want anyone to think I dropped off the face of the Earth or anything. Right now, I don't have time to process a lot of my photos or write the blog on top of all my other writings. So, what I plan to do is post a single picture, or two, at least once a week. I will try to do it as many days as I can, but I didn't want to say that I will be doing this everyday only to let you readers down.

The "picture of the day" posts will say just that "picture of the day," the date and maybe a title. It's going to be hard because I love telling all the stories about all the birds I see, so it'll be hard for me to pick just one.

Today's picture of the day is of two dumped ducks I just discovered at Lake Murray. They appear to be Easter refugees and look about 8 weeks old. The crested Pekin is a female, the mallard is a male.

Two fuzzy dumped Easter ducklings

Last night, there was a lot of rain.  This morning, I found these two baby Pekins all alone, dumped at the side of the lake.

 Apparently, they had been there since the afternoon before.  They appear to be about 3-4 weeks old, which would put them right in the middle of the Easter season.  Usually, ducklings this age won't survive the night, especially a stormy night.  But, luckily, it was warmer than usual and the predators stayed away.  In the morning, one of the herons was eying the smaller of the two.  Plus, they seemed to be starving.

When I got them home, they were very dirty from the dirt in the carrier I was using.

I gave them a little bath:

They were still dirty, but they seemed to get really tired in the tub, so I took them out and dried them off.

Here is a video I made of them bathing (Yes, I know my tub is disgustingly dirty.  It's not as bad as it looks on video and I cleaned it afterward):






They were later taken to a store called Bird Crazy on Clairemont Mesa Blvd. to be adopted out. Bird Crazy specializes in exotic birds, but they thought they could help these babies. If you are interested in adopting them, look up that store here in San Diego.

Later, when I was returning the carrier, I saw Cinnamon's Twin.  The boys have been rough with her unlike Cinnamon whose feathers, so far, are in good shape.  Cinnamon's Twin also has lost a lot of weight.

"Baby Goose" is all grown up and still hanging around, but seems to have no friends.

And, here is a funny looking gadwall.  I think he might be in the middle of a molt or could be a mallard-gadwall hybrid with genes heavily on the gadwall side:

Junior and Killer Junior, the killdeers were having a lot of fun chasing and yelling at each other.  Shy's mate was really upset about a Cooper's hawk that was trying to attack him, but, then, went for some crows instead.  And, Squeak's eggs have all hatched and all the chicks have been moved to a secure location where people can't get to them.  Shy went with them, leaving her mate all alone.

Former Easter duck dies right before rescue

Hi everyone!  For some really odd reason, this post got deleted.  I don't know if it's against Google policy to report on animal cruelty or something.  I have no idea why.  I will try to track down all the photos I had.  Not only was the story about the duck, but about some killdeer, too!

The story was that this beautiful buff duck, once someone's Easter pet, was dropped off last year.  She and her companions did fine until breeding season started.  Two days before these photos were taken, she was injured, possibly when some other males ganged up on her.  I called a duck rescuer and she agreed to come pick her up on Friday, two days later.  I called the rescuer, Kim, to tell her that the duck was still alive and where to find her.  I then went on my walk, but remembered to take these photos because I knew it would be the last time I saw her.

About 20 minutes before the rescuer arrived, the duck was found dead and removed by Lake Murray staff.  The staff member said that it appeared that stuff was coming out of her, most likely from trying to pass a crushed or under-developed egg that couldn't be passed due to her injuries.  When the rescuer came, she was gone.

Here she is spending her last living moments with the two males she has known all her life.

Here they were when they first arrived, happy and fat.  Since the time that this photo was taken, the two males have lost half their body size.  They now live alone in the same area where they lived with the buff.

I don't think she was even a year old when she died.

I will try to track down the rest of the photos I took that day.