Backyard Oedipus? (without the murder) ***Adult duck content***

I never figured I would be using references to Greek mythology in my backyard blog.  If you recall the story of Oedipus, he returned from a long time away from home and mistakenly killed his father and married his mother.  When he realized his mistake he blinded himself.  Talk about a bad day. 

Anyway, only part of the story applies to the backyard.  There is no journey or murder involved and I don't think the parties feel they made a mistake, but it was better than making the title of this post "Backyard incest" which is what it's actually about.

Just two days ago, young Muscovy male Big Boy had his first experience with mating in the backyard, with pretty little Cutie Tips.  It was sweet and yesterday the couple was together on the bird bath having a moment.

Then it was brother Lazlo's turn and he too had his first mating experience in the backyard.   Lazlo decided to share this special time with the prettiest girl in the backyard, the object of all the males' desires, Pretty Girl.  And she was happy to accommodate him - I guess young blood can be very exciting but let's not go there.

The upsetting and bizarre part of this is that Pretty Girl is Lazlo's mother!  You would think that dominant male Black Foot would put a stop to it as she is his main lady, but he chose not to get involved.   Even if Lazlo wasn't smart enough to think through his raging hormones, you would think Pretty Girl would know better.  You would think wrong.  Don't they know by some sort of instinct to avoid inbreeding?

So this was one of the most disturbing events in the backyard to us humans.  Why do they do this stuff right in front of me?  I wonder, am I going to have two-headed ducks showing up in the backyard?  Time will tell but this can't be good.  At least Lazlo didn't kill his father.

What did you do with your son??? !!!

The evil deed

As for the other Muscovies, they didn't seem scandalized by the goings on at all.  The usuals came around including Black Foot who has gotten too laid back for everyone's good, Blanco, Lazlo, Big Boy and females Cutie Tips, Pretty Girl and Sweetie.  The males have been doing a lot of huffing and head bobbing at each other, led by the young guys Big Boy and Lazlo who are getting heavily into it.

The Muscovy mom and babies came by twice each day and rested under the ficus in the middle of the big ducks after eating.  They seem to seek out the society of the big family of ducks more now which is probably necessary so that the babies learn the ways of the duck world.

There were 11 mottled ducks waiting for breakfast in the canal yesterday, and two small turtles that looked like twins but were not having much luck getting any of the bread I tossed to the fish.  And the pigeon came for dinner.

One of the mottled duck males posed on the grass and showed off his pretty blue speculum feathers.

Blue with a black border distinguishes mottled ducks from mallards

Ani the anhinga followed a rather different routine tonight and perched high in a tree by the dock at nightfall.  I wonder if she spent the night up there.  I don't think I ever saw her in a tree though I have seen other anhingas in trees from time to time.

There is a third gallinule that I have seen occasionally in the backyard.  He's very skittish and clearly not with the other two.  His face and beak are lighter in color which is odd but I don't think he's a coot.  Possibly a juvenile gallinule that has not gotten his facial coloration yet.  I hope to get a closer look though he's not making it easy.

Finally this odd day ended with a pretty mackerel sky in the evening.

The evening mackerel