Goose and Duck events this past weekend

What a weekend we had with the ducks and geese.  I've already told you about the rescue on Friday night.  Well this Saturday was another tragedy that we couldn't prevent.  We were all happy Saturday morning to wake up and see our mother duck still will her three ducklings, which meant that the last rescued duckling did find it's way back home.  But remember, she started out with five last week.

Mother and her ducklings Saturday morning.

This guy has the green pollen from the top of the pond on his bill.

Later in the day we heard a goose fight out back.  It's not too unusual to hear a lot of honking, Momma Goose is on the other side of the pond, still sitting on those eggs of hers and Papa Goose comes over for cracked corn.  She yells over to him if she senses danger.  So we thought that was what was going on.  When we looked out though, this wasn't the case.  The family with the five baby geese was out there and so was Papa Goose.  Something must have happened, which we missed, because the two males were fighting.  They had a hold of each other and wouldn't let go.  Then one would let go and honk and scream and then grab the other, on and on the fighting went.  I guess when we came out they lost momentum and Papa Goose went swimming back to the other side finally.  The sad part though, upon closer inspection of the mother and babies, who were standing nearby in shock, we discovered there were only four babies.  DH walked down to the end of our building looking for the other gosling.  There it was, at the waters edge, dead.  How sad.  We still don't know exactly how this poor little thing was killed, but I guess that's what the fight was about.

When there were five:

Now there are four:

A few feathers were ruffled, but they seem to have gotten over whatever it was that started the whole thing because they all have been back.  The two families haven't been together on this side of the pond, or the other as far as I can tell.

The mother duck with her three babies are still fine today also. 

Mother Goose is still sitting on those eggs.