Autumn Day in San Diego

It's a fall day in San Diego, that usually means Santa Ana winds.  But, today, it was partly cloudy and cool.  Big Daddy and the other ducks were busy doing their duck things:

I bet the female redhead that was here all summer is happy there's a male around now:

Lots of ruddy ducks here now.  And, I saw some lesser scaup, too.  Not that many gadwalls, though.

I think this might be Neo, who just turned 6 months old a couple days ago.  He's soon to be the star of his own YouTube slideshow called "Neo, the Duckling that---LIVED!"

This male crested pekin was looking silly running up to me:

Hey guys, wait for me!

No, we are going to swim over here now.

Lots of western grebes kreek kreeking:

And, some killdeer in the ballfield, but I am not sure who they are.  They look like Puffy Band, but one looks a little bit like Miracle.  I think, though, they are not any of the ones I regularly observed:

Ducklings at sunrise, killdeers at sunset

Early in the morning, yesterday, I found the mom with the ducklings, but there were only three, sadly.  My little favorite was gone.  She was very sleepy and weak and almost got left behind the day before, she she may have died or gotten eaten.

However, a female with a lone yellow-ish duckling was seen across the lake with another female.  Could it be that the missing duckling was duckling-napped by Ducklingnapper, the duckling-napping female?  She spent a lot of time around this family, lately.  Or, since Big Daddy spends a lot of time over there, it could be another female with a different yellow-ish duckling.

I saw this newly fledged western gull near the ducklings.  He seemed very confused, but was no threat to anything and walked away.

About a half hour later, as the mom was taking the ducklings into cover, I heard her scream and flop around as if a hawk was after her.  Her ducklings quickly ran out of sight.  I didn't see anything that could be threatening them and I looked and looked and could not find the mom and the ducklings. I thought I saw a flash of brown in some vegetation by the water, though.  There were other ducks there, but they swam away.

I came back in the evening and looked and looked and did not see the ducklings, but I did find a fresh dove feather near where I last saw them.  So, what I'm thinking is that a Cooper's hawk caught something nearby. It's entirely possible that the mother duck moved her ducklings completely out of the area because the incident scared her so much.

In another area, I think I saw Peanut:

Her dad Pollux was keeping an eye on the "giant" killdeer.  The other male seemed more interested in fighting and following Pollux than in Peanut.  Every time the other male started a nest scrape, Pollux would nip and kill-dee at him.  Peanut stayed out of the way, but seemed to really want to be with her dad.

No sign of Smudge, her sister.

I saw a female redhead.  Never seen on there in the summer before:

And, those four dumped ducks are still there.  Louie is constantly shadowing them.  So far, so good; he hasn't hurt them.

Lake Update

I thought I would check on the birds at the lake and everything is still the same, it seems. Tiny is still staying with the new female and his mom, Martha. Martha is getting along with the new female pretty well, except she does get a little mean sometimes.

Tiny plays games with his new mate

Mom is still not sure if she approves

Tom, the muscovy, tells vultures: "I'm not dead!"

Tom, the big, black, muscovy duck at Lake Murray was having his daily nap across the bay from where he usually visits me early in the morning. Some vultures started to surround him, but he woke up and probably began a hiss-fest at them. I could see him moving around, but couldn't hear him. The vultures then left him alone. Sometimes, vultures will attack animals who are not yet dead, but would be too weak to defend themselves. Tom needs to get more lively. He's old, can't see well and, I think, might have some kind of arthritis, but he's not dead. It's possible that he didn't react fast enough because he couldn't see them very well. But, if he was attacked, he would be more than capable of fighting them off.

"I'm not dead!" Tom says (that's his third eyelid over his eye, shielding from the sun)

I wonder if that happens to Tom a lot nowadays.

Ducky, the "lost" duckling is still around and still with all his duckling-hood friends.



I also saw a couple of red-head ducks, a male and a female:

Male (with coot)

Female

The egret was still very much in concentration. I never saw him catch anything, though, but he sure was patient:



A couple of ducks have not be seen in a while since Bill stopped feeding them. Chocolate, the large mallard-rouen-runner mix is missing, but may be with her buddies somewhere else on the lake. When she's on the water, it's a little harder distinguishing her from the other ducks at a distance. She can't fly very much, but she made it all the way to six months old, so she's probably fine. Also, Snowball, the white mallard, hasn't been seen in a week. Either he was captured or flew off with his buddies. If he flew off, he may be back.

Lots of seagulls today! There are people bringing large rolls of bread and feeding them to all the birds. I heard someone complain that there were too many seagulls, but I never saw them until now. They may be there because of all the bread still being fed to them. Also, some of them looked like ring-billed gulls who visit here in the winter.



And, finally, here's a little video I took of all the geese and ducks:

Little duckies everywhere!

Scaups

A whole bunch of small diving ducks have invaded Lake Murray. Over a hundred ruddy ducks are there now and they have been joined by a lot of lesser scaup and redheads.

The killdeer are beginning to return to the ballfield. I think I saw Shy and her boyfriend hanging out with her parents in the ballfields. Shy's dad is not thrilled with her new mate, but they're getting along OK.

The M6 parents and Shy

In the other field, I can't identify all the killdeer, but I think Secret, Surprise and the Tiny-look-a-like were there plus a couple others.

The "Tiny look-a-like" and an unknown killdeer

I still haven't seen George, Martha, Tiny and Firecracker in a while and I hope that the vultures weren't looking for them on Sunday.

Here is Killer and Digger, hanging out.

Notice how their bodies and feathers look fully filled out like full-grown killdeer now.

Killer spotted a red-tail from miles away, but was not overly concerned about it.



Here's a photo of the red-tailed hawk:



Duck and goose news:

I don't think I saw Ducky, but Caramel and Butterscotch, two of the "fish food ducklings" almost got run over by a car today. Their mom, also, stepped right in front of a truck as it passed by, too. All are OK, though, but that was scary. The fish-food ducklings are three of my favorite ducks at the lake and they just reached breeding age. I want to see if they're going to be good mamas like their mom. The drivers were being careful, but sometimes the ducks move unpredictably. Luckily, they don't hang out in the parking lot too much.

Good news on the missing gray goose: I found him and his friend all the way on the other side of the lake. I don't know why they went over there, perhaps they're going to have babies and wanted to have time to themselves. I can't tell if they're male and female or which is the gander and which is the geese, though. Unfortunately, this area has large predators such as coyotes and bobcats, so I fear for them a little bit. I hope they come back to the flock, soon.



Also seen:

I saw two kingfishers, here's a photo of one of them:



And, I thought I would add a cute photo of some pied-billed grebes.