Cat update for week ending October 10

Lots of cat cabin pictures this week, plus a fight between alien cats Poppa and Paladout.

Pommie by the cabins:

Pommie by the cabins

Super-relaxed Pommie:

Pommie in a cabin

Two cats inside the cat house:

Two cats inside

That camera has stopped recognizing its SD card, so I can’t capture recordings. So there will probably be fewer views inside the cat house, unless I replace the camera (again). The cat house isn’t used much in summer, but as we head towards winter, I expect they’ll use it more, so I might think it worthwhile to replace the camera.

Indoor cameras aren’t super expensive, especially at the 3 megapixel resolution, which is good enough for close quarters like this… though the one I use is no longer available (maybe because it was so unreliable? I’ve had several have this issue). So I’d have to switch to another style, like a pan/tilt one, though they don’t have as wide a viewing angle (90° vs 140° with the current one). Or even a cheap 2 megapixel model for 1080P resolution, which is plenty. Or just leave it as-is; the current camera still works for live viewing, just not recording.

Not that anyone but me cares about all that.

Anyway, back to the pictures. Here’s Poppa:

Poppa

Poppa

And Paladout:

Paladout

Bella:

Bella

An animated GIF of a big yawn:

GIF of yawn

While doing rounds, I spotted a cat on the driveway:

Cat on driveway

Porcini peeking at me around the corner of the house:

Cat by corner of house

Three cats at breakfast time:

Three cats

Two cats

Porcini in a cabin:

Porcini in a cabin

Pommie says “hey, that’s my cabin!”

Hey, that's my cabin!

Porcini and Pommie

GIF of just eyes moving:

GIF of eyes

Porcini:

Porcini

Poppa and Paladout had an encounter; Paladout was eating, and Poppa arrived:

Poppa and Paladout

Poppa attacked Paladout; here’s a GIF:

GIF of Poppa and Paladout fight

I’m glad Poppa doesn’t do that to our ferals. I suspect Paladout won’t visit again for a while. (I’m pretty sure he is a neighbor’s pet that they let roam around, as probably is Poppa.)

Porcini and Pommie at the cabins again:

Porcini and Pommie

This time Pommie accepted the less preferred cabin:

Porcini and Pommie

Pommie says “eww, it’s wet”:

GIF of cat

A GIF summary of 38 cat pictures from this week:

GIF summary

Flock Friday for October 9: the chickens

Since this morning’s Flock Friday post didn’t include any pictures of chickens, and I had to go into the chicken run to close some vents for the forthcoming cooler and wetter weather, I took the opportunity to take a bunch of pictures.

And rather than save them till next Friday, I thought I might as well do a bonus Flock Friday post of just chicken pics.

So without additional commentary, enjoy 18 pictures of chickens, some of them looking very scruffy as they continue their molt.

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Flock Friday for October 9: the summary GIF

This morning I included a massive GIF summary of 248 pictures from the past week in my Flock Friday post, but it broke loading that post, so I split it out into this separate post.

It might take a while to load, depending on your internet speed, and at one second per picture, will take about four minutes to play. It includes a bunch of pictures you may have seen before in the duckling posts and above, but also many unique ones not previously shown.

Since the GIF is so large (152 MB), it also seems to break the caching server of my site. So here is a direct link to it, instead of displaying it inline. Click that to view it, if you dare.

(Moral of the story: a GIF with hundreds of pictures is probably not a great idea.)

Flock Friday for October 9: the ducks

Welcome to the first Flock Friday with all of the ducks together! I have so many duck pictures, there aren’t any chicken ones this time — I’ll make sure to include some next week.

There were 248 pictures this week… so I picked 30 not-previously-published ones to highlight in this post, and included the rest in a big summary GIF at the end, if you’re interested. (Edit: I’ve moved the GIF to a separate post, to avoid loading issues.)

As mentioned in the last daily duckling post yesterday, you can review the duckling posts in chronological order via the tags “ducklings 2020” and “ducklings 2020 again”, if that’s a thing you want to do.

As a brief review, we started the past week with the new ducks still enclosed in the duck house and run:

New ducks

A week ago I removed the fence, allowing them to join the older ducks in the pond:

New ducks

Which they did very quickly:

New ducks

Here’s another shot of their first swim in the pond:

New ducks

Sassa and the older ducks:

Sassa and older ducks

Betty and Sassa, back before she cleaned herself up:

Betty and Sassa

Some ducks by the (currently off) waterfall:

Ducks by waterfall

At the edge of the lawn:

By lawn

The two groups of ducks are becoming more integrated over time, but started out mostly separated:

Two groups

Betty and the new ducks enjoying leafy treats:

Leafy treats

The old position of the food bowl, before I moved it into the duck house:

Food bowl

I added a new island to the pond, and cleaned the fountain; I captured a few pictures while standing in the pond (see the GIF for more, including a couple selfies):

In the pond

I mucked out the duck house; now that they’re only going in there to eat, I shouldn’t need to do that as often:

Mucked out duck house

The boys:

The boys

I discovered that the fake heron that was on the bank went for a swim; someone must have knocked it off. It was supposed to discourage the real heron from visiting the pond, though didn’t really work:

Fake heron

Sven flapping his wings:

Sven wings

Relaxing amongst some grasses:

Amongst grasses

The boys again:

The boys

All the islands occupied:

On islands

Betty:

Betty

Rooting in the lawn for tasty bugs; unlike chickens, ducks don’t really damage the lawn, just a nice bit of aeration:

On the lawn

On the lawn

On the lawn

In the pond:

In the pond

Mealworm treats:

In the pond

In the pond

One chicken-related thing — ChickenGuard sent me a replacement motor to try to solve the issues I’ve been having with the opener on the new coop. But it arrived with a broken wire! Oops. So I gave up and ordered a new unit. This morning, they said they’ll send a new circuit board as a goodwill gesture, so I’ll have a spare. It’s frustrating when a device doesn’t work, but it is three years old, and I’m generally satisfied with the devices and their customer service. For the convenience of not having to manually open and close the pop doors every day, it’s worth it even if I have to replace them every few years. (And their 3-year warranty is very generous, especially when they send free replacement parts when just outside that period.)

ChickenGuard motor

The ducks in the pond, looking towards the hidden path (you can see a peek of the white gazebo; that’s the entrance to the path):

In the pond

The reverse view, from the hidden path:

In the pond

All the ducks:

In the pond

Edit: I’ve moved the GIF to a separate post, as it seemed to cause some loading issues.

More ducklings day 58: one big happy flock

This is the last of the daily posts concentrating on the new ducks. Starting with tomorrow’s Flock Friday post, I will include pictures of all of the ducks together, as one big happy flock.

The older and newer ducks still mostly stick to themselves at present, though do hang out together as well, like this; all 13 ducks in the leafy pond:

All the ducks in the pond

Over time, I expect they will become more and more integrated.

Everyone enjoying mealworm treats:

Mealworm treats

Mealworm treats

A bunch of pictures of the new ducks from the hidden path on the west side of the pond:

The new ducks

The new ducks

The new ducks

The new ducks

The new ducks

Duck butt:

The new ducks

The new ducks

I hope you’ve enjoyed watching these ducks grow up from one day old to eight weeks old. They grow so fast! Stay tuned for the weekly Flock Friday posts, to watch how they and the older ducks get on, plus the chickens and wild birds.

If you want to relive the fun, check out the “ducklings 2020 again” tag on this blog to view all of the posts for the newest ducklings in chronological order. And if that isn’t enough, the “ducklings 2020” tag will show all of the posts from earlier in the year.

More ducklings day 56

Getting to be about time to conclude the “duckling” posts. Maybe one or two more, then reducing to the weekly Flock Friday posts.

Last night, the ducks swimming for mealworm treats:

Swimming for mealworms

This morning, on the pond bank by the duck house, having just gobbled some leafy treats:

On bank

Sassa and a couple of Rouens:

Sassa and Rouens

A procession of Sassa, Clara, and three Rouens (one peeking around the rock):

Sassa, Clara, Rouens

Them gazing over the pond:

Clara, Rouens, Sassa

Around noon, some ducks enjoying the shade of a shrub next to the pond and pond deck:

Ducks in shrub shade

Ducks

A Rouen showing off her shiny wing:

Wing

More ducklings day 54: mucky night pot

Today’s no-longer-ducklings post includes some night shots, some meals, some treats, adding another island to the pond, and mucking out the duck house. What’s your day like?

Spotted on the repositioned mobile cam, the new ducks finally got hungry enough to go find some food inside the duck house, which I’m leaving open overnight currently:

Duck dinner

Some older ducks hanging out by the house:

Ducks by house

A GIF of a duck getting startled (I think Betty, hard to tell in the night vision); perhaps a fish nibbled her toes:

GIF of startled duck

Ducks by their house:

Ducks by house

Breakfast:

Breakfast

Eating mealworms tossed from the pond deck:

Ducks

Ducks

Comfy groundcovers:

Ducks

Ducks

Lunch:

Lunch

New ducks on the ramp:

Ducks on ramp

This afternoon I moved a large spare ceramic pot to the pond, to serve as another island for the ducks (yes, it was rather heavy):

Large pot

I waded into the pond, and positioned it so it was at around water level. Here’s the new one in the foreground, near three others. The new one should be big enough for two to four ducks, depending how cozy they get:

Upturned pot islands

A GIF of ducks swimming, recorded while I was standing almost waist-deep in the pond (in my waders):

GIF of ducks

Then I mucked out the duck house. Here it is after removing the waterer:

Duck house

Since I was adding fresh straw every day, it had built up quite a thick layer, about four inches:

Deep straw

After hauling several loads of dirty straw to the compost bins, I came back to find food strewn over the floor; it seems someone had been by for some food while I was away:

Food

Looking at the cam now — yep:

Ducks

Fresh straw:

Straw

Much better:

Duck house with fresh straw

Today I have two GIF summaries, since the GIF works better with uniformly-sized pictures. So first a summary of all of the camera shots I captured (except the last one above):

GIF summary

And a second summary GIF of the photos from my iPhone:

GIF summary