A glorious day on Como Lake. We're always astounded to see ONE cormorant there, as lakesides are not this species' preferred location. They're shore birds whose massive wingspan you can see from a mile away. The lake is stocked, so I think this small flock came for an easy meal. They like to hold their wings up, either to sun them, dry them or just give them a stretch.
This day there were FIVE of them roosting on a single log. One seemed to have a bit of fishing line on it, but I hoped it wasn't doing any damage. Birds are such mysterious creatures! Every time we go anywhere to birdwatch, it's a different experience.
I saw a large brown duck with NINE ducklings at the end of the summer - the wrong time to hatch out your young, but there they were. This duck was, I believe, a khaki Cam pbell, a large domestic bird raised for meat. It must have escaped the barnyard and mated with a wild mallard, as the babies were an interesting hybrid of fluffy yellow and mallard-ish mottled brown. Then, all at once, they disappeared, and I have never seen them again.
But who knows. . . one day, months from now, we may see half-grown, multicolored ducklings in the lake. Or not. Were they some wild predator's easy meal? Even crows have been known to swoop down on ducklings and carry them off. But we've seen domestic birds - many times - in semi-wild settings like this.
We saw five white domestic ducks at Burnaby Lake, along with several gorgeous doves, but like the others, the numbers dwindled and they eventually disappeared. We also followed two large domestic ducks, likely a mated pair, for several years, before they also vanished, likely eaten by predators. All part of nature, where bird eats bird, but hair-raising nonetheless.
