Quacker!

Quacker was seen today walking up to people and quacking at them like her old self.  She looked so good. It was another wet and rainy day with only a few people there at first.

This next photo is of Bigboi, the non-flying Cayuga for comparison.

Since it was raining, it was important to groom those feathers for maximum water repelling:

Here are the resident geese (Minus Louie and his Canada goose friend).  All the other geese surround and protect Waddles, the large female Embden.  The whole flock loves her, even Jill.

Later, Baba and his girlfriend went into the water and Baba wanted to mate, but she wasn't ready.  Eventually, they did mate and all the other geese cheered them on as they did so.

The happy couple

Baby Goose is all alone, the other adult Canada goose, who is also Jill's new companion, in the area has been missing for a while.  Baby Goose is old enough to fly and take care of himself, but is still much smaller than an adult Canada goose.

Baby Bob was seen out later than usual.

Here's a common gallinule.  He always makes it impossible for me to take photos of him:

My Anna's hummingbird friend sitting on his branch singing and listening to other males:

Rainy day and wood ducks

It was dark and rainy, so, again, hard to get pictures.  Below is a photo of a bunch of ducks hoping for a handout.  I accounted for all the popular ducks except for Quacker, they flying Cayuga.  She has been completely missing for 10 day now and I think her boyfriend is with her.  Over the last few months, she seemed to be acting like she was sick of human beings and going off to be alone.  Now, Louie the gander is acting the same way, too.

I saw at least four or five wood ducks today.  

Spoonface says "Hi!"

The sora only seems to come out when it rains:

And, finally, from my house here are two hummingbirds that hatched over two weeks ago.  They should be flying soon.

Bad News:

In bad news, another duck was found strangled by fishing line this morning.  I didn't see him when I got there, but a couple hours later, he was found being eaten by vultures.  There was fishing line wrapped around his neck and he looked like he had suffocated like the other duck before.  Scaup usually feed far off shore, so it's a mystery how he got tangled up.

Cloudy day. Louie and his ducks

Juvenile Cormorant

First thing I took a photo of was a juvenile cormorant with his whitish neck and belly.  

In the photo below is Buffy.  He's been treated as an outcast lately and gets chased around a lot.

Lesser scaup are getting ready for their spring migration.  

Louie has been acting really strange and swimming around in unusual areas.  Here he is with Big Daddy (AKA: Cinnamon, Paprika) in a weird spot over where the swans used to swim by a big drainage pipe in Padre Bay.  He's just slowly swimming around the edge of the lake making his way around to the other side.  For some reason, he doesn't like crossing over very deep water.

He likes to herd and direct the ducks:

Update on Baby Gull:

I heard from a staff member at the lake that they received an email from Project Wildlife stating that a patient they brought in had died.  The staff member said that they hadn't taken in anything for a long time before Baby Gull and assumed it was the gull.  They did not email me, however, and I am not 100% sure that this was Baby Gull, but it probably was.  The other juvenile western gull is still at the lake begging from his mom.

Tijuana River Estuary

Today, I took a bird walk down to the Tijuana River Natural Esturarine Research Reserve.

We saw several northern harriers, males and females.  Here's a couple pictures of a female:

Northern Harrier Female

Northern Harrier Female

There was also a white-tailed kite, but it was too far away to get a good photo of.

We also saw some curlews.

Long Billed Curlew

Long Billed Curlew

Curlews and Willets

A light-footed clapper rail came out into the sunlight.

Light-footed clapper rail

Some teal and ducks:

Green-winged teal

Mallards

A few photos

4 ballfield killdeer

I took a few photos today, nothing special.  I did see four or five killdeer at the lake.  I couldn't really ID them, but it looked like two males and two females.  I think one was Shy's mate and the others were Shy's mom and Dad.  I'm thinking the smallest killdeer might be Miracle or her sibling.  That would explain why Shy's mate is there, probably to watch over her.

Hurt wing gets attacked:

I wasn't going to check on Cinnamon, but I'm glad I did as I found one of her boyfriends attacking Hurt Wing, the duck with the damaged wing (that was probably hurt in the same way it was being damaged today).  The male was three times bigger than her and she sounded like she was in a lot of pain and tried to get away.  I got them to stop and she was able to get away.  He then attacked another female who could fly away.  A third female wasn't even bothered by him.  

Here she is, not even grateful that I saved her.  She flapped her wings and most of her flight feathers were completely torn. If she could fly before, she can't fly now.  She swam off with her more normal-sized boyfriend.

Here is the perpetrator.  He's usually a pretty nice duck, but today he was a butt-head.

I caught Jill returning from where Louie was this morning.  Of course, she had a chaperon, one of the Canada geese, so I don't know if anything happened.  She seemed to be doing a "swim of shame".  Louie won't follow her across the lake, he seems scared to go over there.  

Louie is acting weird and seemed to be following or herding a bunch of large ducks, mostly Cinnamon's Twin and her boyfriends, into an area where I've never seen geese (but where the swans often went).  The ducks went into the brush and Louie followed, cooing.  

And, finally, here's Bigboi, sleeping in the water with the coots.  I think he knows he blends in very well with the coots.

Early in the morning

I took some early morning pictures at the lake this morning.  There are people who come and feed the birds right before sunrise, so they get into one big group.  I just hope nobody gets smooshed and hope the ducklings will be OK later on.  But, the birds have been getting fed there for years.

Spoonface (Bossy)

Female wood duck

Jill the goose

Pepper

Quacker and her boy

Three Musketeers

Cinnamon Teal

Juvenile western gull

The turkey vulture below must have slept under one of his friends.  He came down to the lake to wash up, but was nervous of all the people around.

Jill can fly!

Pollux's mate in the ballfields

Came to the lake and heard Louie and the Canada geese making a ruckus.  I thought that Louie and Picked On were fighting, but then I saw Jill moving away from the area with two Canada geese as chaperons.  I think she came over and is considering Louie as a mate as it is the beginning of the season.  Then, the two Canada geese started flying and so did Jill!  She only got about two feet above the water, but she flew most of the way.  Never thought I would see that.

Here is Louie back on his side of the lake.  He's scared of going to the other side.  Jill stayed on the other side, but stayed in a place where she can easily see or hear Louie.

Louie

Spoonface is on the move with his orange ring, now seen closer to where he usually is, but heading north.

Here is a photo of a friendly female scaup.  Several males and females were close by:

This dove was sitting on the speed limit sign at the lake.  The speed limit is really for people on bikes.  There's been a few accidents there between bikes and pedestrians.  

I opened a new Cafe Press story selling some of my photos on T-shirts, etc.  It's called Just Ducky by Darlene.