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.

More and More Ducklings at Lake Murray

Right now, there are so many ducklings being hatched that they are pretty much everywhere.

The seven from last week were down to three yesterday. These had made it to ten days old, which is rare in this spot. I doubt I will see them again after these photos because of too many predators. However, it's nice to get some photos of them at this age as it's been a long time since I've been able to do so. They were eating bread from the ground in some of the photos. I didn't feed them that, though, so don't tell me how bad bread is for them as I already know.

Lovely Miss Una was seen with ducklings about the same time. I saw her twice and she had four ducklings when I last saw her. Then, she disappeared. This was her pattern last year when she kept the ducklings in one place until their numbers started going down and then took them somewhere else where they can stay hidden, so they may still be around.

I saw this gull near the ducklings. It looks like he had the stuffing beat out of him. His wing might be broken. I don't know if Miss Una or one of the geese beat him up. I watched him for a few days and he's not doing good. I don't think he's going to make it. I can't catch him because he swims away. I hate seeing gulls get this old only to die shortly afterwards. It's very hard for a gull to reach breeding age.

I think Miss Una's Mother had these ducklings, yesterday. There were tons of gulls around, so I don't know how they fared. Miss Una's Mother is a very competent mother, so I hope all is good.

Lots of babies in the canals. I'm not sure who this mama duck is:

This female, also in the canal, looks a lot like "Mama's Little Weakling" from a few years ago. She was raised in the canal, so it makes sense that her ducklings are being raised there as well.

And, of course, Mr. and Mrs. Squeaker and their one adorable baby:

Still no signs of any other goslings, yet. I suspect there's at least three other nests going on.

Grumpy (or Larry) update:

I can't remember if I've mentioned it in my other posts, but the parking lot goose which I called Grumpy (also known as "Larry" by one other person) was taken to Project Wildlife to be rehabilitated and, perhaps, released somewhere where she won't get into trouble. She was the one who liked to stare at her reflection in the cars in the parking lot. She was causing a lot of problem as she had started to go out to street and local businesses, so she could have caused an accident or got hurt.

New young goose dropped off

About a week ago, a new young goose was dropped off at the lake that was the same age as the other youngsters.  She even follows people around making baby noises, so she's probably under a year old.  Someone overheard them say that they were releasing a goose that was injured back to the wild.  But, many speculate it might be the 6th baby goose who went missing at about a week or so old.  We don't know where it would have been all this time, though.

I think it might be a girl and she was following around people at the lake, including fishing boats.  I witnessed a pair of men possibly hitting her with one of their oars when she wouldn't leave them alone.  She seems fine and uninjured and I'm not sure if they hit her or hit the water near her.

The family doesn't want her around.

She was following me around far from the family when the outcast gander, Picked On, came over and led her back to the others.  She seemed to like him, but he showed no interest in her.

Here she is near the rest of the other geese, trying to get herself into the group.  I didn't want to get any closer so as not to ruin her chance to get accepted.  Later, though, I saw that she left on her own again.

Little trouble is still around and is changing his body feathers.  Here he is about five days ago:

Here he is, yesterday.  I can tell it was him by his bill color, body shape, and his fuzzy butt.  He's starting to get a green head.

I had a hard time finding him.  There are a lot of males in various stages of molt.  Here is another male:

Here is one with no gray on him at all, but a black bill.

Here is a video I put together on Trouble:

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:

A few photos, plus a dumped duckling update

Today, I did my monthly bird count at Lake Murray and I counted the lowest number of coots and mallards since I started counting over two years ago.  I know about 20-30 ducks (wood and mallard) are with young somewhere and I know there are two gadwalls.  But, I can only count what I see at that time, so they didn't get counted.  Still, even when I add them, there aren't that many ducks around.

This was the only duckling I saw today.  At first, I thought it was one of the three that I saw a couple days ago, but this is a different mother.  I think this is her first breeding season.  I didn't see this little guy later when I came back to this spot.

I did not see the other moms with their ducklings that I saw on Wednesday, including the rouen duckling.  At first, I thought I spotted that mom without any ducklings, but it turned out that it wasn't her.  It's a good sign not to see her because the ducklings may still be with her.  The mom may have moved them to another area because they are now two weeks old and would be switching from a high protein diet to one with more plant matter.

This wood duck pair was still hanging around near where I saw them a couple days ago.  All the other wood ducks I saw were male.  The only other female there had 8 ducklings the last time I saw her a few weeks ago in early April:

Louie is not giving up on his quest to make Jill his mate.  She seems to be breaking down and not recoiling in horror whenever Louie gets up to sit next to her or follows her around.  However, she still doesn't want to be near him that much and often moves away if he gets too close.  

Update on the two dumped fuzzy ducks:

Some of you may remember me writing about the two fuzzy ducks, about three or four weeks old, that I saved from the lake after they were dumped there.  They didn't have any feathers at all and were taken to Bird Crazy.  Well, Bird Crazy managed to adopt them out earlier this week to someone in a nice neighborhood with a big yard and lots of other birds and chickens.  So, they will be well cared for and possibly spoiled beyond belief.  Thank you Bird Crazy for taking care of the little guys!

Goodbye Waddles:

Waddles, the big Embden goose that was the matriarch of the goose flock there is now considered deceased.  She has been missing too long to have been sitting on a nest.  Though others have said that she had gone missing, before, for several months, I have never noticed her being gone for more than a week or two.  She may have been sitting on a nest earlier in the year, but I doubt she has been sitting on one all this time and not getting up to eat or drink.  She's a very large goose and can't hide for very long, especially alone without any other geese.  She also had a lot of health issues and trouble walking.  My guess is either someone stole her, a coyote got her, or she died of health problems.

Other birds seen today included a few new ones:  Pacific slope flycatcher, Calliope hummingbird, and Cassin's vireo.  There is one other bird call I've been hearing, but can't figure out yet.  It sounds very thrush-like, but I can't pinpoint it.  I am still searching out that call.

Jill and Pollux in Love

Jill professes her love to the Canada gander

Love is in the air all over the lake.  Jill seems to be hopelessly in love with the Canada gander.  She was across the lake (probably visiting Waddles who hasn't been seen in a week) with another gander and started screaming for this guy.  However, he ignored her.  She the came on land and was bowing and vocalizing to him, but he just slowly walked away.  At least he's not chasing her off like he used to.

All the remaining domestic ducks were doing well.  And, so was Spoonface (Bossy):

Ducky was seen without his mate who might be on a nest now:

Bigboi, I think, might be molting.  He looks less green:

I had a surprise today.  I thought, at first, this was a blue-winged teal, but noticed it had a stiff tail like a ruddy duck and it was very small.  Now, I know it's a female ring-necked duck.  First time I've seen one there, though they aren't uncommon in San Diego.

In Killdeerland, when I saw these two killdeer I thought it was Dee and her son, George III who was flirting with her.  It was kinda dark, so that's why the color is strange.  When I looked at the photos, it almost looked like Firecracker was the female, but not exactly.  I think it is one of George and Martha's daughters.

I thought the male was George III at first, but now that I look at the photos, I think it's Pollux.  I thought Pollux had a mate, but something must have happened.  She may have been caught by the hawk, or chose another mate.  She was a full-grown adult, perhaps she didn't want to deal with a juvenile and wanted a more experienced mate.

Baby Bob made a rare late morning appearance.  She is still pretty much spotless.  Her mom was already getting new spots at this time last year.

And, finally, the Cooper's hawk sees all.  I don't think this is Big Mama as she looks too brown.  But, she is an adult. I'm thinking she might be the female chick Big Mama and her mate had last year.  There was an older hawk seen courting her, later.