I hadn’t seen Confidia with her multicolored gang of eleven ducklings for ten days. Someone told me they were being fed at the back door of the Border Cantina restaurant. They finally returned on June 8th with seven remaining ducklings. It’s interesting that she’s lost three of the gray ones and three of the standard mallards, but the most visible duckling, the yellow one, is doing fine. Even with the protection of the hen and the two drakes who appear to be very attentive, she’s lost almost half of her brood. I imagine the one with the injured leg is among them.
I took many photographs of the group as they ate and then rested at the shoreline. They are good family portraits, but I thought it was overkill to place all of them large enough to view in this post. Click the thumbnails to see the larger versions.
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On the following night, the family returned but only six ducklings were in tow (below).
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such an attractive family, but not just to our eyes, the predators think so as well :(