This week on Flock Friday, I bet you can’t guess what we have… yes, that’s right, pictures of ducks and chickens! Surprise! Plus a fuzzy picture of a hummingbird, for a bit of variety.
Some ducks on the pond:
More ducks:
A couple with their heads underwater:
Lots of ducks:
Standing on one leg on an upturned pot island, and the floating island a little flooded:
A zoomed picture of a hummingbird resting on a twig:
On to a bunch of pictures of the chickens:
On Flock Friday this week, we’re visited by a heron a couple of times, a second nesting duck, and more.
Firstly, a couple of chickens in the new coop, one emerging from a nesting box:
An animated GIF of a heron landing on the pond island:
Ducks on the lawn:
Chickens in their run, and ducks on the lawn:
We evicted the chickens from the veggie garden, and closed the gate into their run:
Another GIF of the heron, this time flying from the island to the edge of the pond in front of the camera:
A GIF of Betty arriving back in the duck house after taking a brief break, drying herself off, then heading to her nest, and Sonja going to hers:
Lots of finches on the bird feeders:
Betty on her nest, and Sonja laying an egg on hers; not on it full-time as of this date:
Chickens with treats:
Ducks in the pond:
A nice circle of eggs in Sonja’s nest; about nine there:
Ducks on islands:
This morning Sonja seems to have started sitting on her nest full-time, like Betty is — we’ll see if she stays there, or is just spending a longer-than-usual time (apparently common to gradually increase the nesting time):
Here she’s pulling some straw into the nest:
The ducklings hatch in about 28 days from full-time nesting, so Betty’s are expected within the next week, and Sonja’s will be around June 11. When they hatch, I’ll be sure to do a special post with the news.
This week one of our ducks, Betty, started sitting on the dozen or so eggs in a nesting box in the duck house. So we may have ducklings in a few weeks time!
But let’s start with some pictures of the chickens, the first of which you may have seen on my personal blog:
Here’s Betty by the eggs, not happy that I was peeking in at her:
A couple of pictures from the duck house cam of Betty in the nesting box:
In this one, you can see Sonja joining her; she might be laying too:
Ducks on the lawn:
Jays grabbing peanuts from the feeder tray; I put out a handful of whole peanuts each morning for them:
Ducks in the pond:
Betty on the eggs again:
A time-lapse GIF of Betty in the nesting box, and other ducks coming in to eat:
Just a few flock pics this week.
Starting with a couple of photos of Betty in the grasses:
A slow-mo GIF from a recent @YellowCottageHomestead TikTok video of the chickens, where Domino got impatient for some rice:
Martha is being broody, but often other chickens want to lay their eggs in that box:
Hummingbirds during some surprise light snow:
It’s Friday. You know what that means. This week, chickens enjoying wriggly treats, ducks in various places, and some brave (or foolish) birds.
Firstly, some chickens waiting for treats:
The treats of the day were apple peels, which are lots of fun for them — kinda like long worms, that they can grab and run off with them trailing behind:
Some ducks on the lawn, with leafy treats:
A GIF of a Steller’s jay and a scrub jay grabbing some spilled cat food in front of the cat house:
A still edition of that:
A Steller’s jay with a bit of cat food in its beak:
Taking off with the food:
Ducks following me down the path to the duck house:
Ducks eating in their house:
Here’s the fountain garden area; can you see some ducks?
A closer shot of ducks in the garden:
Welcome to another Flock Friday. Surprisingly, with no pictures of the pond this time. But plenty of ducks and chickens, and even a surprise bird.
But first, some eggs — as the weather warms up, our chickens are increasing production; averaging about 8 to 10 per day currently:
We’ve resumed giving them away to delivery folks, but are still drowning in eggs; we need to eat them faster!
The ducks have been more adventurous; here they are amongst the flowerbeds:
Almost to the field! Yes, I need to mow the grass; I’m planning to do that today, for the first time this year, if the mower cooperates.
Here they are on the back lawn:
Over by the chicken runs:
She really blends in with the walls:
Mealworm treats:
A surprise bird in the storage area of the chicken coop; it must have flown in when I opened the door. I managed to encourage it to fly out again:
This morning while having breakfast, I was surprised to see the ducks on the driveway; they turned around pretty much straight away — no worms to eat on the asphalt:
Please enjoy a @YellowCottageHomestead TikTok video of hummingbirds on a snowy day:
It’s been an interesting week, with an ice storm, snow, and days of power cuts. The ice and snow is all gone now, and we have power again (albeit with an hour outage yesterday evening). But things still feel unstable, and I know other parts of the country aren’t faring so well.
If you missed them, check out the previous two posts on the ice storm, including pictures of the chickens and ducks.
Here’s an aerial drone shot of the pond and snowy environs; you can see the new island in the center, and the ducks nearby:
Duck prints in the snow:
Despite the days of freezing weather, the pond didn’t fully freeze at all; the closest it came was a slushy crust:
The hummingbirds were very hungry with no other food sources:
Ducks on pond bank, with melting snow:
Ducks on the island:
A cam shot of sleepy ducks on the edge of the pond, and on the island. It’s got a bit of a tilt due to water pooling on it, but the edge is still above the water line, so that’s okay:
Hungry hummingbirds again:
Ducks on the lawn:
Let’s finish with a couple of token chicken pictures:
We had an ice storm last night. This morning, everything is covered in a layer of ice, with some powdery snow on top. Only about half an inch of each, but it was enough to knock out our power (and for everyone else in the region).
Some icy branches:
Tree branches weighed down; they’re normally high enough to walk under, not touching the ground:
Icy willow branches:
I lifted up a sample, looking edge on: a layer of ice with a layer of snow on top:
The pond is starting to freeze. Just slushy at present, with some liquid on the edges:
The ramp into the duck house is icy, but they can make it, so still have access to food:
Icicles on the duck house:
The ducks:
Icicles on the bird food box:
And the gazebo and deck:
The hummingbird feeders were frozen; I brought this one inside to defrost:
Since we don’t have power now, and thus can’t use the heater, I’m alternating the hummingbird feeders. We can heat water to make the sugar syrup using a kettle on our gas stove. They’re very hungry, unsurprisingly:
I’ll go out to the chicken coop every few hours to poke at their water dispensers, to break up the ice.
Our internet is working for now, powered by a UPS, though we’ll probably turn it off soon to preserve the battery. Fun times!
It’s Friday again. Today, a bunch of pictures of hummingbirds, chickens, and ducks. I know, very surprising for a Flock Friday post.
As mentioned on my personal blog, the hummingbird feeder was starting to freeze overnight, so I added my hacky heater. The heater comes on when the temperature gets down to 35° F, and goes off when above 45° F, via a thermostatically controlled outlet:
The heating pad gets quite hot, enough to melt the ice, but too hot for the plastic base of the feeder, so it hangs a bit below via some paperclips:
Here’s a closer view of the feeder and heating pad:
The first customer approaches:
A couple of hummingbirds:
A cam shot of the ducks on a snowy morning:
Did you see the snowy aerial photos? Here’s one picture of the pond and ducks that I didn’t include there; check out that post for more:
Snowy ducks:
A couple more pictures of hummingbirds, with at least 15 visible on the two closest feeders:
A closer look at the hummingbirds on the house feeder:
A bunch of pictures of the chickens, with new pumpkin and apple treats (and the older pumpkin shells slowly dissolving):
The ducks on the back lawn:
Snowing:
A GIF of ducks going after mealworm treats while it’s snowing:
A couple more pictures of ducks:
We still haven’t decided on a name for that Silver Swedish male duck formerly known as Sassa; options include Stefan, Silvan, Sigfrid, Sigge, and Silvester; what do you think? I rather like Stefan, though am tempted by Sigfrid in honor of Siegfried from the All Creatures Great and Small TV series we’re enjoying at present.