May 2014 Counting Day

Nutmeg Manikins.  I always see them there at Lake Murray

Today was the (unofficial) May 2014 counting day at Lake Murray in San Diego.  I was able to really get out and count the birds carefully because there were so few birds seen.  I only counted about 20 coots, which is the lowest number I've ever counted.  Mallard levels were low, too.  Unlike previous years, there were few ducklings and coot babies, too.  Western gulls, song sparrows, house finches and Anna's hummingbirds were the most numerous birds there.

I saw two gadwalls:

Surprisingly, we still have a few ruddy ducks around.  The scaup were there until a few days ago.

Baby Blue has a new girlfriend and they stick together all the time.  The male she was dumped with has left her because she prefers to be with Baby Blue.  She follows him everywhere.

The mom who had four ducklings still has three of them.  One of the smallest ones is gone.  They're about two weeks old now.  They were the only ducklings there.  Usually, there are at least 40-60 at this time.

This mean old coot didn't like the mama duck eating some grain that was nearby and chased her away:

The ducklings went and hid deep in the reeds and mama went with them.  I didn't see them again:

The two jerk geese were there where the ducklings are.  Well, the Canada goose is really sweet, but the white one is a jerk.

George visits his son, a hurt duck, small birdies

Today was a cloudy, almost rainy day, so most of the photos I took came out very blurry. Here are a few:

One of Martha:



One of Tiny and his new mate:



Here's one of the family, minus Tiny's mate.



Tiny and his dad get along extremely well, but his mom, Martha, has a problem with Tiny's mate, especially if she gets close to George, her mate.

I don't know where Firecracker is, but when the family started to move further away, George ran back and forth seeming to look for her. So, she still might be around.

The ballfield killdeer were hanging around on the shoreline. I didn't know they were there until a hawk swooped at them, sending all 10 flying off. They all went and hid in plain sight on top of some brown dirt and rocks:



Ducks:

All the ducks are doing fine, but this one was the victim of the predator attack and the owner of the clump of down I posted about earlier. I don't know if anything can be done for him, perhaps he might heal on his own. I think he's one of Flycatcher's brothers:



Tom is looking good!



Oreo is wondering where the food is:



Here's the new crested duck:



Ducky plays around with a gadwall and his friends:



And, I think this is Chocolate 2! I don't remember her having a green bill, though. In her last photo, her bill was orange. This might be Chocolate 4, but when I called her name, she recognized me and ran right up:



Birdies:

Here are some nutmeg manikins (a former caged bird that escaped):



This is a gold-crowned sparrow, though you can't see the crown:



And, a white-crowned sparrow:



The blue heron followed me everywhere, all around the lake: