Birds

Flock Friday for October 16

Some hummingbirds, ducks, chickens, a jay, and even a cat. Plus some sad news. It’s Flock Friday.

Seven hungry hummingbirds on a rainy day:

Hummingbirds

Did you see the slow motion video of the hummingbirds?

A time-lapse animated GIF of ducks having breakfast:

Duck breakfast GIF

Ducks on the edge of the lawn:

Ducks

Sassa standing tall and stretching her wings:

Sassa

Ducks on the lawn; I love Rémy’s green head:

Ducks

On the lawn:

Ducks

A wide-angle shot of the ducks, with the brown gazebo and two chicken coops in the background:

Wide angle ducks

Sassa flapping her wings again:

Ducks

A cheeky Steller’s Jay in the duck house:

Steller's Jay

Ducks in the pond:

Ducks

Ducks

Concluding my recent saga on the ChickenGuard pop door opener for the new chicken coop, I bought and installed a replacement unit, so it now works reliably, at last. While this has been quite a hassle, I’m very pleased with the customer service of the manufacturer — they were very responsive in trying to help, and even sent a front panel (with electronics) and another motor, at no charge, even after I told them I replaced it, so I’d have a spare:

New ChickenGuard opener

Speaking of the chickens, here are some pictures of damp and scraggly chickens, still going through their annual molting:

Chickens

Chicken

Chickens

Chicken

Chicken

Chickens

Merida in a nesting box:

Chicken in nesting box

Back to the ducks; you may have seen some of these on my personal blog:

Ducks

Ducks

Clara showing off her wing:

Ducks

Ducks on the lawn:

Ducks

Sven stretching:

Ducks

Heading back to the pond:

Ducks

I mentioned sad news… it’s Sven. I discovered him floating dead at the back of the pond yesterday morning. Looking at my cam footage, it looks like he died on Wednesday. No sign of injury or attack, so my best guess is that he may have choked on something. So now we’re down to 12 ducks; 3 male, 9 female. We have that many to allow for attrition, but it still makes us sad when we lose one.

Think seven hummingbirds was a lot? How about ten:

Hummingbirds

A GIF from that Live Photo; can you spot all ten?

Hummingbirds GIF

I moved one of the cameras in the new coop:

Coop cam

Did you see the time-lapse of a day in the coop from that vantage point?

Ducks in the rain:

Ducks

Paladout investicated the duck house:

Cat in duck house

Eww, that isn’t food:

Cat in duck house

The ducks were very curious too:

Cat in duck house

Finally, a summary GIF of 116 photos from this week (excluding the GIFs and a few others). Including as a link instead of embedding, since it’s fairly large.

Flock Friday for October 2

Alrighty, today’s the day: some of the ducklings seem keen to explore beyond the duck house and run, so I’m going to let them out today. We’ll see if they take advantage of the opportunity. Stay tuned for tonight’s duckling post!

In the meantime, one last Flock Friday without the latest ducklings. In next week’s post, they’ll be all together.

Firstly, did you see the video of the hummingbirds last weekend?

Hummingbirds

Here are the older ducks having a meal:

Ducks

Hey Betty:

Ducks

On the pond amongst fallen leaves:

Ducks

Ducks

Ducks

Boys’ club; the four male ducks (aka drakes):

Male ducks

Since the pop door opener on the new chicken coop is malfunctioning, I have to go out and reset it each evening, so I added a hook-&-eye to hold the hatch open while I do so to make that easier:

Pop door opener hatch

The manufacturer is sending me a new motor, which hopefully will fix that issue; we’ll see.

The four chickens that prefer that coop always look startled when I turn up around sunset:

Chickens

Exploding chickens! It’s molting time, so there are feathers everywhere:

Chickens

A totally normal thing at this time of year. They stop laying while molting, though, so we’re down to only about five eggs per day, instead of the 12-17 we were getting in summer. Which is still plenty for us, we just can’t give them away for a while.

This is nifty; if you look closely, you can see her third eyelid half closed:

Chickens

More pictures of the chickens:

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

A favorite dust bath location. Though Buffy looks embarrassed; “don’t look at me, I’m hideous!” It’s okay Buffy; you may look messy while shedding your old feathers, but you’ll grow fancy new ones:

Chickens

Back to the ducks; the ducklings watching duck butts in the pond:

Duck butts

Let’s all go this way:

Ducks

What’s that strange red thing in our food dish? (It’s a tomato, which I haven’t offered them before; they prefer green treats.)

Ducks

Hanging out on the path, and Sonja flapping her wings:

Ducks

In the pond; Rémy showing his shiny green head:

Ducks

Video

The Jays love their peanuts

I put a handful of raw whole peanuts in a tray for the wild birds every day. The Steller’s Jays and Scrub Jays love them, hardly waiting for me to leave before diving down and grabbing one or two. They take them elsewhere to open and eat; we find peanut shells under trees all over the homestead.

Flock Friday for August 21

For Flock Friday this week, more sad news, I’m afraid. One of the two Rouen ducks went missing on Sunday night. I don’t know what happened to him — I saw him on Sunday, and haven’t seen him since, not even a body or signs of a struggle. So if a raccoon or something grabbed him, it must have dragged him somewhere else.

Anyway, on with the pictures. Here are the ducks messily eating, with one of the Rouens in the foreground:

Ducks eating

Ducks eating

Ducks by the duck house, and (not really visible) ducklings inside:

Ducks by duck house

A GIF of one of the Rouens exiting the pond:

GIF of exiting pond

Splashing to cool off on a hot day:

Splashing to cool off

It was very hot (mid-90’s) over the weekend, so we gave the chickens a frozen treat of corn and peas to help them cool off:

Chickens with frozen treats

Chickens with frozen treats

Chickens with frozen treats

Chickens with frozen treats

Ducks eating again:

Ducks eating

Camilla snuck into the veggie garden when I opened the gate:

Chicken in the veggie garden

Chicken in the veggie garden

Ducks with treats; the last photo of both Rouens:

Ducks with treats

On Sunday, the chickens with another frozen treat:

Chickens with frozen treats

Chickens with frozen treats

Looking at the pond cam, 8 ducks visible on Sunday evening:

8 ducks

The next morning, only 7 ducks; I couldn’t see any evidence of what happened to the second Rouen:

7 ducks

We had two names for the Rouens, Rémy and Raoul, but hadn’t decided on which was which. But now that we only have one, his name is Rémy. RIP Raoul.

Seven ducks eating:

Ducks eating

I went to the feed store for more duckling food. I’m well stocked now; a couple of spare bags of duckling food (the red ones at the back), plus many bags of chicken food, fish food, and mealworms, in the storage area of the new chicken coop (I might need to add another shelf):

Duck and chicken food

Sleepy ducks:

Sleepy ducks

Night ducks:

Night ducks

Ducks on the bank:

Ducks on the bank

This morning, a visit by a blue heron:

Heron and ducks

Heron and ducks

Flock Friday for June 26

Let’s check on Bert, the chickens, and fish.

Bert went onto the pond deck:

Bert on pond deck

Bert by pond deck

Perhaps looking for the mealworm treats and koi food I keep in a box on the deck… guarded by a resident frog:

Frog on food containers

Bert watching the ducklings:

Bert watching ducklings

By the duck house on a rainy day:

Bert by duck house

Bert watching ducklings

Bert watching ducklings

Bert looking over the pond:

Bert

Chickens enjoying one of their favorite treats — rice:

Chicken treats

Chicken treats

Chicken treats

Chicken treats

Chicken treats

Lettuce is ignored when there’s rice available:

Chicken treats

It’s been hot this week, so I opened all of the chicken coop vents and windows. Here you can see chickens on the roost by the front window:

Chickens with open coop window

Chickens with open coop window

Another day; a whole lettuce plant, tomatoes, and corn cobs for the chickens:

Chicken treats

Chicken treats

Looking down from the pond deck at Bert and koi:

Bert and fish

Smaller koi:

Fish

Restocked duckling and chicken food, with a messy floor from straw stored above the door:

Duckling and chicken food

As you may have seen on my personal blog, a jumbo egg:

Eggs

Flock Friday for June 19

It’s Friday, so let’s check on the adult birds, in a weekly series I call Flock Friday.

Let’s start with the chickens enjoying some kale treats, while Bert watches and waits for me outside the run:

Chickens enjoying treats while Bert watches

Chickens enjoying treats while Bert watches

Chickens enjoying treats while Bert watches

Bert then followed me across the lawn:

Bert on the lawn

And down the path:

Bert on the path

That was cute; let’s have an animated GIF of that:

GIF of Bert on the path

Bert watching the ducklings:

Bert watching ducklings

Another day, Bert meeting me by the compost bins again:

Duck and chickens

At the chicken coop:

Bert at coop

Bert watching the ducklings again:

Bert at duck house

Bert watching ducklings

Bert watching ducklings

And watching me:

Bert

A GIF of a couple birds flying over the pond:

GIF of birds over pond

And a still pic:

Birds over pond

Let’s finish as we started, with more chickens enjoying treats (kale and lettuce grown in our veggie garden):

Chickens enjoying treats

Chickens enjoying treats

Chickens enjoying treats

Cat update for week ending June 13

For Caturday this week, 5.25 cabin pictures, 3.25 cat house pictures, 2 shop pictures, 1.25 outside and feeder pictures, 1 breezeway picture, 1 GIF and 1 still from that, and 1 picture out a window. Just some totally irrelevant numbers.

Three cats at the cabins:

Cabin cats

Poppa and Pommie in the breezeway:

Breezeway cats

Cat snuggles:

Cat snuggles

Three cats in the feeder; the SD card in the feeder has stopped working (like the cat house one did recently); I don’t know if I’ll bother trying to fix it, so this might be the last picture from the feeder (though it is recorded by the Camect server, so probably not):

Feeder cats

Porcini closeup with the cabin cats:

Cabin cats

More cat snuggles:

Cat snuggles

Cat stalking a bird on the driveway, as it got away:

Cat chasing bird

A GIF of that:

GIF of cat chasing bird

One of the twins in the lavender plants by our front steps, as seen from a window:

Cat by front steps

Pepper watching me closely in the shop; she wanted to get past, but that would have meant getting within six feet of me; she’s an expert at social distancing:

Cat in shop

So she retreated and waited for me to depart:

Cat in shop

Super-relaxed cabin cat:

Cabin cat

Two cats snuggling, one looking out the door:

Cat snuggles

Four cats:

Four cats

Screenshot of four cats (two in cabins, two in the house):

Four cats

A startled greeting at the cabins:

Cabin cats

Some symmetry, both in this picture, and with the first picture in today’s post:

Cabin cats