Counting day!

It's counting day at Lake Murray again.  Here are some photos to start you off.  We have killdeer activity, I think Killer and Dee may have returned, but I am not sure.  Everyone is looking for a mate except the adults.

In these next photos, I think one of the killdeers is Pollux, one is an unknown male, and one might be Smudge or Peanut.

The male on the top of the rock got excited and tried to do a nest scrape when the killdeer on the lower rock turned around.

I think that is Pollux threatening the strange killdeer.

Miracle and Little Miracle where not far away, waiting for the males to tell them to come back.  Here is Little Miracle.

And, I think this is Miracle, or the other way around.  They look a lot alike.

This is Smudge:

These are juveniles, looks like a male and a female.  Could be Peanut and her brother, or could be two new killdeer, most likely siblings:

I am not sure who this is, but it might be Killer Junior.  However, he looks a lot like Surprise whom I haven't seen in a long time.

Plenty of white-crowned sparrows now and yellow-rumped warblers.

The dumped ducks haven't lost any more from their group in the last couple of days.  They seem to be getting less afraid of everything.

They even came on shore to see if they could get a treat.

Here is one of the crested ones.  All three of the crested ones have lost a lot of feathers in their crest since they arrived.

This duck looks a lot more like Indy than the other one last week. He even has little scars on the same leg that Indy had the hooks attached to.  One of his feet had a blister or scar where one of the hooks was. So, this is most likely Indy and not the other one.  He seemed very tired today.

Indy's siblings were hanging out in their old area.  I think the one in front is Sweetie and the other is one of Indy's brother.  Indy's other brother was just out of the photo:

Also, I saw "Puffy Head" today.  he was back with Donald and Buffy2 in their usual spot.

Here's how the count went:

Species	Count
Canada Goose	3
Gadwall	2
American Wigeon	9
Mallard	139
Mallard (Domestic type)	47
Ruddy Duck	7
California Quail	20
Pied-billed Grebe	6
Western Grebe	8
Double-crested Cormorant	8
Green Heron	4
Turkey Vulture	3
Osprey	1
Cooper's Hawk	1
Red-shouldered Hawk	1
Sora	1
American Coot	1005
Killdeer	14
Western Gull	25
California Gull	5
Forster's Tern	3
Rock Pigeon	72
Mourning Dove	20
Anna's Hummingbird	68
Belted Kingfisher	3
Nuttall's Woodpecker	6
Black Phoebe	9
Cassin's Kingbird	5
American Crow	8
Bushtit	84
Bewick's Wren	1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher	2
California Gnatcatcher	2
European Starling	2
Common Yellowthroat	6
Yellow-rumped Warbler	27
California Towhee	8
Song Sparrow	17
White-crowned Sparrow	52
Red-winged Blackbird	31
Western Meadowlark	1
Brewer's Blackbird	3
Great-tailed Grackle	65
House Finch	115
Lesser Goldfinch	50
Nutmeg Mannikin	10

Indy returns!?

I am not 100% sure that it is really him because his bill is so dark, but, perhaps that was one of the side effects of the anti-biotics they used on his fish hook wounds or the food they fed him. 

Or, this isn't Indy, but one of his brothers.  However, one brother is much larger than Indy and I think the other one has an almost all green bill and is more developed color-wise:

I didn't see any sign of any damage to his feet or legs, either, but it would be hard to see, anyway.  Hopefully, they got all the fish hooks out, including the ones way up in his thigh:

In case you missed his story, about three weeks ago, he was found with a large fishing lure with six barbed fishing hooks in his leg with a long piece of fishing line attached.  Most of the hooks were cut off, but one was too deep and couldn't be removed, so he was taken to a wildlife rehabilitator.

Here he is hanging out with a bunch of other ducks on the boat ramp where he had started to hang out before the fish hook incident:

Zippy and Skippy are almost totally mature.  Here, Zippy is trying to catch a piece of bread that someone threw at her.  Her mom is on the right.  She is very feisty and active when it comes to food:

Here she is:

And, here is her brother, Skippy:

The lake is starting to fill up with coots, they're everywhere all over the place, hundreds of them:

And, the killdeer still haven't started migrating through.  Here is either Smudge or her brother, hanging out in George's territory.  In the ballfields, Shy's Mate and Shy were seen as well as Pollux and his two other chicks, and a couple others.  I think I saw Miracle there, too.  I have no idea where Squeak is anymore.

Indy goes to the wildlife hospital

Someone told me that a certain duck at the lake had a fishing lure stuck to him when I came there to count birds today.  When I looked around, I saw it was Indy, short for Independent Duckling, one of Fish Food Mama's ducklings from back in May.  A fishing lure with two sets of three pronged hooks on each size, similar to this was attached to his legs in several places. He also had a few feet of fishing line attached to the lure that could have injured him even more or, perhaps, strangle him, if we hadn't have caught him. We tried to remove all prongs, but a couple were too deep to get out.  So, instead of risking injuring Indy more, he was crated up and I took him to Project Wildlife:

Indy in his "ambulance"

 Indy seemed to feel a lot better even after removing all the pieces that we could and even got up and moved around in the crate.  He was also very strong and healthy otherwise.  So, barring any broken bones or damaged tendons, I suspect that Indy will be back at the lake with his family in a couple of weeks.

In other duckling news, Zippy and Skippy as well as Yellowcheeks are doing great!  They should be flying in a couple of weeks or so.

And, in killdeer land, guess who this is in the next photo.  It's Miracle's and Killer Junior's baby!  She is so curious, but this makes dad very nervous.

There were dogs outside the ballfield and Killer Junior made sure to sound alarm calls.

I also did a bird count, though it was interrupted because I had to take Indy in to the wildlife hospital.  Here are the results of my monthly count for September at Lake Murray:

Canada Goose  3
Gadwall  1
Mallard  224
Mallard (Domestic type)  31
California Quail  1
Pied-billed Grebe  20
Western Grebe  4
Western/Clark's Grebe  3
Double-crested Cormorant  7
Snowy Egret  1
Green Heron  3
Black-crowned Night-Heron  1
Turkey Vulture  1
Osprey  1
Northern Harrier  1
Cooper's Hawk  1
Red-tailed Hawk  3
American Coot  113
Killdeer  4
Western Gull  32
California Gull  6
Forster's Tern  1
Rock Pigeon  27
Mourning Dove  72
Anna's Hummingbird  50
Costa's Hummingbird  3
Allen's Hummingbird  4
Nuttall's Woodpecker  5
Black Phoebe  8
Cassin's Kingbird  6
Hutton's Vireo  1
Western Scrub-Jay  3
American Crow  3
Common Raven  2
Bushtit  20
Bewick's Wren  2
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  1
California Gnatcatcher  5
Common Yellowthroat  7
Yellow Warbler  2
California Towhee  5
Song Sparrow  25
Red-winged Blackbird  10
Great-tailed Grackle  35
House Finch  40
Lesser Goldfinch  22
American Goldfinch  1

Happy birding!