The Vultures...Uh-Oh

After the vultures finished off the remains of our duck, Mrs. Howell, they settled in on the fence. My husband got this picture of them apparently watching to see who might be next.



Hmmm. If you look at the picture a little more closely...

...the second vulture from the left is actually watching the house.

I think I'm glad they were gone by the time I got home.

When the Vultures Come

Mrs. Howell, our white female duck, died last week. She was fine one day, and then all of a sudden she was floating in the pond.


We're pretty sure this fellow caused it. I probably shouldn't say how, but when I saw him at the flea market and thought how beautiful he was, I wasn't thinking about how much bigger he was than our female ducks.


Let's just say that ducks can be rough with each other this time of year. I've read that drowning of female ducks has become a bigger problem as domestic ducks get bigger and wild ducks don't, but I would have thought Mrs. Howell was big enough for it not to be a problem.

The vultures showed up for her today. Cycle of life....

Irving the Great Hunter

Irving, our cat, continues to be intensely interested in the ducks. He's picked out the smallest female as either prey, or someone to play with. Sadly, with Irving, it could be either. (To my knowledge, by the way, he's never caught anything larger than a cricket, and he's about a year old.)



Here the duck is getting ready to enter the water, with Irving crouched behind her.





She went into the water without incident, so he came up to sit on the bench while I took more pictures of the ducks. Most of those didn't come out, because -- like most people taking photographs of ducks -- my arm was getting jarred by a goat pulling on my jacket, asking to be petted.






I gave up and scratched Arlene the goat behind her big floppy ears for a while, and Irving resumed the 'hunt.'






Doesn't he look dangerous? The duck, who had come back up on the bank close to where Irving was, was clearly terrified, though she was brave and didn't allow the fear to disturb her nap.



I don't know how the ducks know that he's useless as a hunter, but they obviously do know...

Interactions...

I was in the back the other day, and looked up to see our white cat, Halley, sharing a moment with the goats. She and Arlene, the goat who's closest to her, seem to have some sort of relationship.




When Halley first showed up at our house last year, she spent a good bit of time trying to interact with the goats. She partially succeeded with Arlene. I'm not really sure why either would be interested, but it's definitely a friendly sort of relationship.

Our older cat, Boot, also tried to come down into the pasture, and the goats chased him out. Again, I have no idea why. He's over 18 years old, and pretty cranky these days, but not really a threat to anyone at this point in his life. I think you can see the crankiness in the picture below.

He was born in Cairo, Egypt in early 1992, and has made five transatlantic flights, and lived in more than 10 houses, apartments and hotel rooms with us in various countries.

I guess he's entitled to be a little cranky.

Beyond Detente To Bizarre

I'm starting to suspect that Irving the cat may actually be trying to be friends with the ducks, rather than working his way up to attacking them.

Here's some evidence.



He's not there for the food. It's cracked corn and he has no interest in it. He sat there and waited while the ducks came up from the pond to feed. They paid him no attention at all, finished a leisurely meal, then strolled away.



He got distracted -- can cats have ADHD? -- but stayed there. I'd say that he was lulling them into a false sense of safety, but honestly, that would be a plan, and I don't think Irving can plan things.



Corky, the big Muscovy duck, stayed until the others had left, probably as a protective measure, but he also didn't seem disturbed at all by Irving's presence.

Irving seems more disturbed by my presence than the ducks. He's got a huge duck with claws behind him, and he's upset because I'm taking a picture?

Irving, what are you up to?

Cat and Ducks: Detente?

Irving the cat seems to have reached an accommodation with the ducks. He'll give them the proper respect, and they won't peck him to death. It works for everybody.

The ducks have started spending a lot of time in the marshy area at the side of the pond. The other day, Irving decided to walk the narrow path between the two areas, which took him right by the ducks. He checked out the situation first...



...then carefully walked by them to check out an insect that needed a cat's attention. On the way back, the ducks came out to see what was going on, and he got caught between them and the pond.



Finally they walked on, and I got this picture of him looking back at them, with the goats in the shelter, and Halley the white cat on the ledge next to them. Halley loves to watch Irving get himself into a pickle.



Irving tried to act cool about it, but his tail stayed puffed up for an hour afterward.



Those ducks are scary, man.

Fun With Ducks

I don't know why, but I think it's so funny to walk by the pond and see the ducks' behinds sticking out of the water. I was lucky recently and caught the action as one desperately tried to force his plump, water-repellant body under the water to feed. I love that orange foot flailing in the air.



In the shot below, you can see both orange feet out of the water. This picture was actually on the day the cats were pretend-stalking the ducks, and you can see three of the duck armada sailing in to assist their comrades in the horrific cat-duck war. (The cats never did anything but stare menacingly at the ducks, who were obviously not terrified.)



Rusty, the little wild red-headed duck who has been visiting us for months, stays near the domestic duck flock most of the time. A local who visited the pond recently said it's been a long time since he's seen a red-headed duck in this area. We speculate he's either old or got separated from his group somehow. (I mean the duck, of course, not the local.) It's nice that he feels comfortable enough to stay. He's a really pretty duck.



And speaking of good-looking ducks....



Doesn't the black-and-white one look like a penguin there? It was doing some complicated contortions to clean itself. Irving the cat was about 10 feet away at the time. Nice to see he's treated with the proper respect by the ducks...

Does My Cat Have a Death Wish?

I've mentioned before that we have a huge Muscovy duck with claws, and that we also have an idiot cat, Irving, and a smarter cat, Halley, who likes to egg Irving on to do stupid things.

I guess we should have seen this coming.



Irving has it in his head that he can catch a duck. Yesterday he got right down to the shore, within a very short distance of a group of the smaller ducks, who are still bigger than he is. Halley, of course, was in the background watching. Can you see the little cat smile on her face?



Irving got as close as he could, with the ducks not reacting at all, because of course they know he's an idiot. Afterwards, he and Halley exchanged the cat equivalent of a high-five....



....and then Irving decided to go after Corky, The Duck With Claws.



In the picture above, he looks like he's looking somewhere else, but that's actually a clever tactic designed to avoid Corky's notice....because of course Corky can't see him if Irving's not looking at him. Irving followed the whole duck flock up the hill to their corn bin, and then followed them back down. I'm not sure if they actually didn't notice him, or if he's so inconsequential that it didn't even occur to them to react to him. Probably the latter, but of course he's all puffed up now because he chased the ducks and lived through it.

I'm afraid Irving has a harsh lesson coming, though. The Canada geese have come back. We had 18 for a while yesterday. (Last year they alternated between our pond and our neighbor's pond.) I mentioned to my husband that if we get goslings again this year, Irving might attack them. He just laughed, and then I remembered that the geese parents killed a snake last year. I imagine Irving won't be spending much time down by the pond for a while.

It says a lot when I'm more worried about the cat than about the birds...

The Diving Mallard?

I've shown this picture before because it's a great picture of our Moscovy duck, but this time I'd like to focus on the brown female mallard in the upper part of the picture.



We have two of these. Mallards are dabbling ducks, which means we spend a lot of time laughing at their little upturned behinds as they reach for food just below the surface. Mallards dabble. They don't dive.

Except for this one. I was out there tonight for quite a while, and she was diving all over the place. It was clearly intentional, and the other female mallard didn't do it once. You can see in the picture below that they're virtually identical.




I did a little online research, and apparently mallards have been seen diving, but it's unusual.

The interesting thing is that we do have a visiting red-headed duck. He's been with us for weeks now, and he's a diving duck.

Could this duck possibly have learned to dive from him?

Power Play -- Ducks and Cats

Our eight ducks and our three cats have a pretty simple relationship. They mostly pretend the other doesn't exist. I think the cats ignore the ducks because the ducks are really too big for them to take on, and they don't want to be embarrassed by trying something and having the ducks kick their little furry behinds. I'm not really sure why the ducks ignore the cats. Maybe just because they can?

At any rate, interactions are rare. But today is sunny off and on, and I took advantage of a sunny moment to sit on the bench down by the pond. The ducks were snoozing nearby, and Irving, our brown tabby, decided to join me.

At first, Irving just sat on the bench with me and watched the ducks, who -- wait for it -- ignored him. Unfortunately, I didn't bring a camera, so these are taken with my phone's camera. You can just barely see two Canada geese past the sleeping ducks.



Then Halley came squeaking down the hill to see me. She greeted me, then turned and walked toward the ducks. Here she is about 10 feet from the ducks, between them and me. They and the geese continue to ignore her.



Bored, she decides to investigate the pond bank, as Irving watches.



Finally, one of the female mallards woke up and decided to check the cats out. With no hint of fear, she approached. Shelby, the black-and-white possible Muscovy mix, joined her, but still with no apparent worry about coming near Irving. Irving just watched them approach. This is as close as they came, then one of the white ducks sounded the alarm, probably just because a smallish female had left the flock, and they all waddled slowly and awkwardly into the water.



The Canada geese just continued to graze. They never acknowledged either the ducks or the cats.

Now, shouldn't that whole thing have been a little more exciting? A little more 'Wild Kingdom'? It's not that I want any attacks, but I'm a little embarrassed for the cats all the same. It kind of reminds me of the time the squirrel tapped our sleeping orange tabby on the back, then ran away. It's like the whole wild animal kingdom knows our cats are a joke.

Sheesh.

Duck, Duck...Goose

My husband got a couple of great closeup photos of our Muscovy duck, Corky. I love the green and blue plumage with that bright red beak.

In the picture below you can see the claws on his foot. Pretty impressive, huh? This is one duck I wouldn't want to meet up with in a dark alley.



I wouldn't want to be a female duck around him either. Let's just say that we may get some odd-colored ducklings at some point. Below is a picture of the gang in all their variety. You can see he's bigger than the others, and he doesn't hesitate to take advantage of that.



And the first Canada geese have reappeared! Does that mean spring is near? The goats aren't happy about it. Emma chased the geese away last night, though they were probably just ready to leave anyway.

We've had as many as 18 Canada geese at one time before, last year when the one pair had the goslings. They're beautiful, but leave the pasture a mess...though the goats don't exactly have any room to talk about that...

The Mergansers Visit

We woke up this morning to find that a male hooded Merganser duck and two females were visiting the pond. They're beautiful birds. You're probably expecting to see pictures of them, but you're not going to. Why? Because I went down to take pictures of them, and succeeded in chasing them away without getting a single good picture.

So you're going to see landscape pictures instead. I love how different the scenery looks when the light changes. It's overcast today, so everything is muted.


I really like that rust color that the dog fennel turns in the winter. That's the feathery plant around the pond. Someone told us it's called dog fennel, and we can't find anything to say differently so that's what we're calling it.

The pathway below is where the ducks like to hang out.


I like all the white feathers littering the ground. I'm trying to imagine what they're doing that causes the feathers to fly, since I've never seen them doing anything but sitting there. I have kind of a lurid imagination so at least I amuse myself thinking about it.

And yes, I know it's pathetic that I sit around thinking about it.