A cardinal harvests the millet and the doves have a rain shower

I've written before about the millet seeds that took root down by the canal bank.  They grew tall, flowered and went to seed, and some are now ripe for harvesting.  I figured they would just drop to the ground and get eaten by the birds and ducks.  But some of the cardinals have decided to get proactive when it comes to getting the seeds.  Yesterday, a beautiful male sat on an unripe seed head and thought about it for a while.  Then he reached over to the ripe seeds and enjoyed a nice fresh snack.  It had to taste better than that stuff from a bag!  I think cardinals are the only birds small enough for the millet plants to support their weight except maybe for the painted bunting who came by again today.  I have never seen any other bird do this.  Anyway, I really love these pictures because of the colors and the whole idea that we grew plants that fed the birds naturally (not that I had much to do with their growing).  I was lucky to be able to capture the actual event.
 

Those seeds look good.  Should I taste them?

Yes I should!  Yummmmmm!

Yesterday was a pretty rainy day and it was funny to watch two Eurasian collared doves perching above the penta plants and spreading out their wings to catch the rain.  It was almost like they were taking a shower in the rain and letting it wash that hard-to-reach spot under their wings.  Both of them did it for a few minutes, switching from wing to wing, so it looked like a deliberate action.  You can see so much interesting animal behavior by just watching for a few minutes!

Taking a shower in the rain shower

Our call duck Colson has completely integrated himself into the mottled duck society and is often found swimming with them and eating with them in the backyard.  He has one particular mottled duck buddy that he spends most of his time with.  Colson has gotten very talkative and chats with his little raspy quacking sound.

Colson and friend

This morning was insane in the backyard.  It was the worst possible situation with the Muscovy juveniles and the little babies here at the same time along with the geese who came back after being gone for a week or so.  It actually doesn't look like Tony and Cleo but rather a male goose with more black on his beak with a younger female.  I am going to keep calling them Tony and Cleo anyway.  In the picture, Tony is in the foreground.  Not to mention that we had the usual big Muscovies, Colson the call duck, and a dozen mottled ducks.  It was really hard to keep the peace.  The little babies got pecked and it got chaotic but everyone got fed eventually one way or another.

A new pair of geese get the same names as the old pair

Along with the usual big Muscovies, Chirpie came by with her remaining two babies.  She lost another one.  She didn't bring them yesterday and an absence usually means something bad has happened and that's what occurred.   They still enjoyed the pool in spite of the chaos, but did a lot of cheeping.  Mom flew off to the main food and left the babies alone in the side yard, which frightened them a lot.  I don't know why she did that but eventually she came back.  She's not such a good mom, sadly.  In the meantime they ate with the juveniles by their pool, watched over by the juveniles' mom who didn't attack them, thank goodness.

I have this big pool all to myself!

Well I HAD it to myself!

Muscovy male Red Eye chased Cutie2 this afternoon with evil intentions, and she flew into the canal.  He followed and immediately started mating with her.  It is almost that she knew it was coming and didn't really object or she might have flown farther away.  It's probably more comfortable mating in the water because there isn't all that weight on top of her.  She really is not very big.  I wonder why Red Eye never mates with his harem girls.

Another male, the handsome one, saw this going on and wanted in on the action.  He flew into the canal and being bigger and stronger, attacked Red Eye until he gave up.  The new guy took over right away and mated with Cutie2 there in the canal.  Another twofer like she had the other day.  Afterwards she had a long bath like last time.  I don't know if ducks go into "heat" like other animals but I suspect that she must be in some version of "duckie heat" considering all the male attention she is getting.

Mating with Mr. Handsome

Drying off after a long bath

Muscovy duck females Pretty Girl and Sweetie are still missing today.  Sweetie has been missing for a while now.  She had been a pretty popular target for mating before so I wonder if she is with a brood.