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:

July Counting Day!

I decided to do some bird counting today because my work and exercise schedule would make it difficult to to it until the middle of the month.  Usually, I don't like to count right before a holiday because it gets busy the few days leading up to the holiday.

There are at least a dozen western grebes still at the lake, enjoying themselves in the water.

Here is a photo of a male nutmeg manikin guarding the large nest on the upper right side of the photo.  I don't know much about manikins and their nests, but there appeared to be at least two females hovering and hopping around it.

This was a funny scene before this photo was taken.  At one moment, a guy was fishing, but the view of him was blocked by a tree.  Next thing I know, I see this gull hanging onto a fish and I thought maybe he was trying to steal the fisherman's catch and was being reeled in.  Nope, he grabbed this himself, brought it to shore, and began to eat it all by himself.  I think this is a western gull, but he looks a lot like a herring gull:

We have a new dumped duck at the lake.  He is a three month old Indian runner drake.  He was eating all kinds of things that were bad for him because he didn't know what he was supposed to eat.  He even swallowed a cigarette butt which could make him extremely ill.

He found a couple of mallard friends around his own age that are showing him a little bit about food.  But, he's extremely hungry.

Snowie is down to four ducklings.  At first, I thought the weak duckling was the one that is missing, but he's there in the bottom of the photo.  Snowie is not being a great mama and lets her ducklings swim and run all over the place, leaving them vulnerable to gulls that can grab them from the water.  These ducklings are just over a week old now.

I found the mama with one duckling at the "duck bench" doing OK.  I also found the mama who had the two ducklings on the same side of the lake and she's down to one, also.  I did not see the mama with the two ducklings from the other side of the lake.

And, finally, I saw this beautiful hooded oriole watching over two females in his spot.

I forgot to add that I saw two male Allen's hummingbirds, but they were too fast to photograph.

That's not all the birds I counted, but the highlights of my counting day.

Goose fight!

Louie and Jill are still fighting over at Lake Murray.  I think Louie is frustrated with her not responding to his constant flirting.  I think I did see her nod her head at him a couple of times, though.

Louie pursuing Jill

When Louie grabs her, she grabs him back and kicks him.  Then, they begin fighting with their wings:

After a second or two, one of the Canada geese starts to attack Louie.

In this fight, a third goose attacked the Canada goose after he grabbed Jill's back feathers.

I found out, though, that Jack (Jill's mate) was not taken away to the vet's and that he, most likely, was stolen from the lake.

Other than that, nothing much is going on.

Northern shoveler

Gadwall

Clark's grebe

Kestrel

3 lesser goldfinches

Boat dock duck gang

Gadwall and grebe day

The gadwalls seem to have calmed down a little at Lake Murray and are letting me get some photos.  And, there were a mess of eared grebes all around, too.  I think I saw at least 20 gadwalls and about 10 eared grebes today, very unusual.  Lots of lesser scaup, too, but nowhere as much as last year.

The one in front, I think, is a resident gadwall

This guy is very friendly

Other birds:

Lesser scaup

Young juvenile western gull

Older juvenile western gull

White crowned sparrow

And, a fun one of Pepper, stretching.

Yellowlegs are back!

The first greater yellowlegs came back to Lake Murray today. I wonder if it's the same one that arrived at the same time, last year.



Other shots taken today include:

A green heron and a young duck. The young duck freaked me out because she looks exactly like the duck that died last Friday even down to the pale bill and markings on the bill. I thought I saw a ghost, but more likely her sister. Only when the dead duck was alive, her bill was more bright orange.



Here's a shot of the dead duck's two other siblings:



The baby seagull is still begging for food from its mother:



Bossy duckling is doing very well and loves hanging out with these males, getting chased by a daddy coot trying to protect his chicks:




Bossy's two sisters were across the lake. Here they are with Peep, whom one of his sisters is in love with. Pip was also nearby:



I found this coot, I think it was sick. It's a juvenile and missing large portions of it's feet. It was all alone and couldn't seem to keep his eyes open. He did get up and start swimming and eating, but he's really lethargic. It worries me because the new friendly ducklings were hanging around nearby:



And, here's one of the friendly ducklings nearby. I thought I saw fishing line when I looked at the photo, but I think it was a spider's web. His sister was nearby and she looked like she had fishing line around her head, but when I looked later, it was gone. It was probably an algae string. I'm think I'm just being extra concerned about fishing lines right now. They were hanging out right near where the dead duck was laying (I reported the dead duck to staff who said they would remove it, but hadn't when I last checked):



And, Pepper was seen, too!



Finally, I saw this grebe with a crayfish. Another grebe relentlessly attacked the one with the crustacean until the first one swallowed it.