New man in town

As if we needed to mix up the backyard social structure a little more, a big new male Muscovy showed up today.  This was actually the same one that came by about a month ago and was promptly run off by Black Foot.  I guess he decided to give it another try thinking that Black Foot could share some of his girl friends.

The new guy looks a lot like Black Foot in terms of his coloration, and it's kind of hard to tell them apart at a distance.  In fact if I did not see Black Foot in the canal with Sweet Cheeks at the same time as this new guy in the backyard with Pretty Girl, I would not have noticed he was a different duck.  The key difference is that he has an interesting looking beak.  It's striped, more black at the top, a little white stripe and then a red section at the bottom.  And he has more of those warty looking red bumps (called caruncles) on his face than Black Foot with one pretty big one right on top of his beak.  Here is a photo of him and some comparing his head with Black Foot's.  I think Black Foot is a lot better looking overall.

Pretty Girl hung out with the new male in the backyard and he did a lot of head bobbing to impress her.  Or maybe he was trying to impress me as I was outside filling the bird feeders. :-D

Portrait of the new guy

New guy with striped beak

Black Foot

Eventually Pretty Girl went into the canal to be with Black Foot who curiously stayed there and did not try to come into the backyard to run off the intruder!  Anyway, sorry new guy, you struck out with Pretty Girl, which is pretty hard to do as she typically chases any new male who shows up.

Earlier today Black Foot arrived with both Sweet Cheeks and Blackie,  I don't know if Blackie is allowed to stay with them or it was just a coincidence.  Pretty Girl got feisty and attacked both Blackie and some mottled ducks that came around.  She is very protective of her food these days and she and Blackie had a face to face head bobbing contest over some seeds that fell from the bird feeders to the ground.  Neither backed down for a while, which is new territory for Blackie who used to be very meek.  Eventually Blackie let Pretty Girl get the food first.
  
The squirrel has been eating up a storm at the bird feeders lately.  Everyone seems particularly hungry these days.  Sometime the squirrel tries almost too hard to get the last possible seed out of a nearly empty feeder. I am sort of surprised that his face fits into the little feeder holes.  Check out his acrobatics.  I love the tail wound around the other feeder.

A lot of contortions for a few seeds