A slow motion video of several hummingbirds around the feeder on a rainy day.
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:
Super-relaxed Pommie:
Two cats inside the cat house:
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:
And Paladout:
Bella:
An animated GIF of a big yawn:
While doing rounds, I spotted a cat on the driveway:
Porcini peeking at me around the corner of the house:
Three cats at breakfast time:
Porcini in a cabin:
Pommie says “hey, that’s my cabin!”
GIF of just eyes moving:
Porcini:
Poppa and Paladout had an encounter; Paladout was eating, and Poppa arrived:
Poppa attacked Paladout; here’s a GIF:
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:
This time Pommie accepted the less preferred cabin:
Pommie says “eww, it’s wet”:
A GIF summary of 38 cat pictures from this week:
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.
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:
A week ago I removed the fence, allowing them to join the older ducks in the pond:
Which they did very quickly:
Here’s another shot of their first swim in the pond:
Sassa and the older ducks:
Betty and Sassa, back before she cleaned herself up:
Some ducks by the (currently off) waterfall:
At the edge of the lawn:
The two groups of ducks are becoming more integrated over time, but started out mostly separated:
Betty and the new ducks enjoying leafy treats:
The old position of the food bowl, before I moved it into the duck house:
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):
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:
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:
Sven flapping his wings:
Relaxing amongst some grasses:
The boys again:
All the islands occupied:
Betty:
Rooting in the lawn for tasty bugs; unlike chickens, ducks don’t really damage the lawn, just a nice bit of aeration:
In the pond:
Mealworm treats:
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.)
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):
The reverse view, from the hidden path:
All the ducks:
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:
Over time, I expect they will become more and more integrated.
Everyone enjoying mealworm treats:
A bunch of pictures of the new ducks from the hidden path on the west side of the pond:
Duck butt:
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 57 (start of week 9)
Penultimate post on the newest ducks. Just them doing their ducky things.
Rouen:
Clara:
Leafy treats:
Sassa etc:
Rouens:
Most of the ducks:
The new ducks under the shady shrub:
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:
This morning, on the pond bank by the duck house, having just gobbled some leafy treats:
Sassa and a couple of Rouens:
A procession of Sassa, Clara, and three Rouens (one peeking around the rock):
Them gazing over the pond:
Around noon, some ducks enjoying the shade of a shrub next to the pond and pond deck:
A Rouen showing off her shiny wing:
More ducklings day 55
Just six pictures of the new ducks today.
From last night, all of the ducks swimming in the pond:
Including using the new island:
Breakfast this morning:
Leafy treats:
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:
Some older ducks hanging out by the house:
A GIF of a duck getting startled (I think Betty, hard to tell in the night vision); perhaps a fish nibbled her toes:
Ducks by their house:
Breakfast:
Eating mealworms tossed from the pond deck:
Comfy groundcovers:
Lunch:
New ducks on the 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):
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:
A GIF of ducks swimming, recorded while I was standing almost waist-deep in the pond (in my waders):
Then I mucked out the duck house. Here it is after removing the waterer:
Since I was adding fresh straw every day, it had built up quite a thick layer, about four inches:
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:
Looking at the cam now — yep:
Fresh straw:
Much better:
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):
And a second summary GIF of the photos from my iPhone:
