Duck and killdeer update

The killdeer are all scattered around, still.  I'm not sure who this is in the first photo, but it might be Little Miracle:

I am pretty sure this is Smudge, I think her sister Peanut might have been in the area, but got scared off.

For some reason, they seem to want to befriend Miracle, but I don't think Miracle was happy with them being around:

Pollux was seen all by himself making sad deets. All three of his chicks are off on their own and I don't know where Squeak went to.

After not seeing her for a while, "Mama's Little Weakling" was seen in her usual spot in the canal.  She is going on six months old now.

An update on Cinnamon and one of her boyfriends:

And, Big Daddy:

The ducklings, Zippy and Skippy and their mom, Yellowcheeks:

And, finally, two coots having an argument.  But, they resolved it peacefully, which is unusual for coots:

George looks for hawks

George

Killdeer George seems to have moved the family away so that he can spot for hawks. Here he is looking for the hawks.

Looking with this eye:



Looking with his other eye:



The place where he was looking were two favorite trees used by the Cooper's hawk to attack the killdeer.

Earlier, Killer, Dee and George III were out alone, without George:

Killer and George III

And, Baby Bob, the GIANT spotted sandpiper was out. She's almost as big as the killdeer, bodywise. I tried to get a photo of her and the killdeer together, but it didn't look good, so I deleted them:



The baby coot is almost full grown. Mom caught a dragonfly and he demanded it be given to him. Part of it was. Then, he begged for more food.





The whole lake seems to be turning into Cootville. Only the coots and a few ruddy ducks were out. All the other ducks were hiding or under trees because of the heat.



Here are some ruddy ducks:



Bossy and his girlfriend:



Pepper:



Quacker and one of Pepper's sisters:



This kingbird has an itch:



Because of the dry weather, I saw many birds down by the water that I wouldn't normally see on the ground or at the water's edge such as this juvenile Hutton's Vireo:



No sign of Doodle or the wood ducks for a long time now.

Killdeer meet and greet

There seems to be a killdeer meet and greet going on at Lake Murray lately. This is normal for September as new killdeers migrate in and some killdeer migrate out. In George's territory, most of the killdeer hanging out there are related to George. Killdeer seen include George and Martha, Digger and Shy, Spike and Georgina and George III. I think I've seen Killer Junior and an unrelated female now and then. However, the rest of Spike's family seem to be hanging out on the other side of the lake and I think Killer Junior and the unknown female (possibly Miracle) and even Firecracker and Surprise seem to be hanging out in that area.

George and Martha

Georgina and Baby Bob

No sign of Pepper, but Doodle is looking a little better:

Martha and her duck friends

The friendly, happy ducks are still hanging out, but this one seems to be pulling out her feathers around her belly for some reason. She's too young to be brooding eggs.



Bossy duck is actually turning out to be a really bossy duck and bosses all the other ducks his size around.



The now single baby coot is still hanging around. I have a new photo of him, but haven't processed it yet. I did catch the heron trying to stalk him, but the baby was in an area that he couldn't get to. However, I could see that heron doing his best to figure out a way to get to him.

Ducklings and Killdeer Chicks

Today was a dark, drizzly day, so many of the photos appear kinda dark. No signs at all of Tom the muscovy duck, now over 2 weeks missing.

First, I came across a couple of Caspian terns on the shore. The water was lowered to do more construction work on the pipe that they put in over the last year:


Killer and Digger were also there. Here's a photo of Digger:



Junior seemed to have found another mate. Couldn't get a good picture of her, but here's Junior:



I found 9 little ducklings all alone! They were in the heron's hunting area and the one whom I thought was the mother was paying no attention to them:



They just went about their lives without a care in the world or of all the things that want to eat them:



Later, I found out the mother was being harassed by five drakes. When things calmed down, she collected her ducklings plus two more:



They all look like rouen-mallard hybrids. Their mom looks like Cinammon, but can fly and is at least a year older:



A little ways down the road, I found this lesser goldfinch in plain sight:



Across the lake, I went to check on the M6 mom and dad's nest at the ballfield. It was completely gone! I couldn't tell what happened to it. Both the M6 parents, Shy and her mate were gone, too. So, I went to look for them at the water's edge. When I went down to one of the areas where the geese were, I found the Shy's mom and dad and four little chicks! Their eggs had hatched successfully!

Here's a photo of three of them with mom:



Do you see them? Perhaps this will help:



I was only able to photograph 3 of them as the fourth went right into the brush. All three are boys, I think the 4th might be a girl, but am not sure. I have decided that I am not going to chase killdeer chicks around to photograph them this year. If I can get an extender for my lens, I will try to photograph them, then. So, these may be the only photos I get of them until they learn how to fly.





Also seen today was an eared grebe (transitioning into summer breading colors) hanging around the ducklings:




And, Oreo was around with her posse:

Doing the happy dance

Killer was doing the happy mating dance for his Digger yesterday. She sorta responded by doing her own dance back to him.



I found this duck egg right around where Cinnamon likes to sleep. I don't know if it's hers or it just washed up there with the last rain. It looked really fresh, so it was probably laid that morning:



Lots upon lots of flowers at the lake right now:



I am thinking of changed Digger's name to something else now that she's grown. I haven't figured out what I will call her, yet.

Cloudy Day

Today was a bit of a cloudy day at Lake Murray, but all is well with all the ducks. Many of the migratory birds, such as the scaup, are leaving the lake. Female mallards are beginning to disperse to their nesting sites. The only ones that don't seem to be doing that are the young ones that hatched last year.

Digger and Killer were doing well. Even though the Cooper's hawks have been visiting their area regularly, they still manage not to get caught:

Digger

Killer

Bob1 was there, feeding, but when the coots began to move around, she panicked to get out of the way. She's starting to turn into her summer colors with spots beginning to show more:



I figured out that the male great blue heron is actually managing two females. Here is a photo of the "alpha" female:



Here is the new M4 male. I no longer think he's paired up with Firecracker as I got a good look at the female. She's got too thick of a breast band to be any of George and Martha's offspring:



Digger's mom and dad were setting up a breeding area in a weird spot, right out in the open and away from the water. I have no idea why they're there and not returning to their old breeding area. Here is a photo of the dad getting upset at me for being close by:



I thought I should throw in this photo of a northern mockingbird. The small specks in the photo are actually gnats which are in great numbers at the lake right now: