A Painted Bunting is a backyard first!

I have so many big birds in my backyard that I particularly enjoy seeing some smaller ones.  Today it was a treat to have a new small visitor to the backyard, a female painted bunting.  She was yellow and green, but mostly green, and she came to the feeder.  The male of the species has stunning coloration but the female is a less showy, as happens with most birds.  This female is a migratory bird so will only be seen here in the winter.  I would love to see the male and his outrageously bright feathers but one hasn't come by yet.  Anyway, the female got a few seeds but was a bit intimidated by the larger grackles and blue jays.  I hope she comes back.

Pretty painted bunting tries some of the local cuisine

Colson the call duck hung around the backyard with his new friend, a mottled duck.  He's a good bit smaller than the mottled.  He took a long splashy bath at the beach and stayed all afternoon with his buddy.  He is still unafraid of me and today he even spoke directly to me in a little raspy quack.  With his round little body and pleasant personality, I think he's really cute and huggable though I won't try that lest he be traumatized!

Colson beaching it

Best buds

It was a pretty wild scene this morning at breakfast time.  We had 15 FL mottled ducks, Colson the call duck, the pigeon, and 10 Muscovy ducks including Blanco who is over his cough, Black Foot, Red Eye, Lazlo, Cutie2 and several harem girls.  We also had the mom and 4 juvenile Muscovies who seemed to be watching me with their heads cocked to the side for some odd reason.

Is this what "looking askance" means?

Chirpie came a little later with her babies, of which only 3 of original 5 are left.  They are still very small.  They came again in the afternoon just after a great egret left which is good timing as egrets are serious predators of little ducklings.

It's good that mom is keeping close watch with big scary birds around

Today two different males mated with Cutie in the canal, one after the other.  First Red Eye did it with Big Boy watching and somewhat upset.  Big Boy immediately mated with her when Red Eye was done.  Poor Cutie2.  She took a long bath and I'm sure she needs a rest after all that  To make matters worse, Red Eye (really? again???) and Lazlo started chasing her around the backyard.  Lazlo jumped her in the water but she scooted away under water.  Pretty Girl landed just about then and Red Eye started chasing her.  She just flew away and didn't come back.  What's gotten into these boys?  Don't they know it isn't springtime?

Cutie2 was the center of the boys' attention

A refreshing bath is welcome after all that