My goldfish pond

[CometKeith]

Addy, sorry your right, jw was commenting about them eating fish. Now back to your bird.There must have been someone named Harry you didn't like! Koiguy, I agree about it being the opposite. You don't see men in lipstick and painted nails but some of us like flashy bright colored sport cars... Is that our latent genetics at work? JW maybe men buy fancy cars, condos etc. to attract woman and we are just like the birds in a lot of ways?

 

[j.w]

I did a bit of research and found this article on The Ducks Unlimited site about Mallards: http://www.ducks.ca/resource/general/wetland/mallard.html

 

[addy1]

Addy, sorry your right, jw was commenting about them eating fish. Now back to your bird.There must have been someone named Harry you didn't like! Koiguy, I agree about it being the opposite. You don't see men in lipstick and painted nails but some of us like flashy bright colored sport cars... Is that our latent genetics at work? JW maybe men buy fancy cars, condos etc. to attract woman and we are just like the birds in a lot of ways?

lol I do not know anybody named harry, it just fit the darn bird. Flew over again today, one of these days will land, hopefully not but bet it will
my hubby is hooked on flashy cars.............corvettes, camaros, firebirds had multiples of each I drive a prius lmao

It was his kindness that got me hooked on him!

 

[CountryEscape]

Just looked up ducks. They were both Mallards. The brown one is the female and the other one is the male. I knew the green one was a mallard but didn't think the other one was.They both jumped in the pond and then took off a few minutes later. They didn't eat any of the fish, but afterwards the fish were all hiding and totally freaked out by the ducks. JW. Thanks. I think things warmed up way too fast last month and now that it is so cold that the pond hasn't cycled the waste the fish have been producing. I have some others that don't look so good and have done a few water changes but that doesn't seem to be enough. Literally the air temps have been averaging 30-40 degrees colder than last month. icsd71 welcome and good luck with your pond. It can be a fun hobby. You can learn a lot on this forum. Addy, I haven't read about ducks eating goldfish so I watched them for a few minutes and took some pictures but was a little worried nonetheless. I wonder if my tadpoles are still there. Good luck with Harry! That's a funny name for a bird. Hope he stays away. CE I don't think they will come back but we did have a neighbor one time have a couple wild ducks that made a habit of sitting on their front lawn. Baby ducks would be cute...

Keith, my sister and her husband had a pair of wild mallards that came to their back yard 3 years in a row. No pond in their neighborhood, no goldfish pond. For some reason their yard was chosen. They laid their eggs and hatched their ducklings each year in their yard, then wandered from yard to yard during the day with the babies, feeding them, always back to sister's yard at night for sleeping. Must have felt safe in their yard, although they had a Giant Schnauzer!

They are baby killdeer chkicks.

OMG, killdeer chicks are so adorable! Watched some at work once. They had eggs in the decorative lava rock on the edge of the sidewalk. Someone put couple of posts in the ground to warn people to stay away. Babies were very hard to spot in the gravel parking lot, unless they moved. They were hatched and running around the very next day. Cute little tykes!

 

[koiguy1969]

i always thought itwas kill-"dare"....guess not! arent those the birds that draw you away from their young by faking the broken wing so youll go after them...fly a little ways and do it again and again? hence the reason i thought it was killdare...daring you to kill them.

 

[CountryEscape]

Yep, same bird, and people pronounce it like killdare, but it's actually spelled deer. They have to do the faking broken wing thing since anything that walks past their nest could step on the eggs and not even see them. I've known exactly where the nest is, and they are never covered, and still not able to spot the eggs, they blend in so well with the rocks.

 

[icsd71]

Youa re corect Country. Since the babies are born on the ground and on the run the mother does this to keep predators from the babies. Most people cant stand there call they make either. It will get annoying. My family and I love wildlife and being in the wild. We photograph alot of things.

 

[j.w]

I used to love when they would come here and did not mind the sounds they made. They don't come anymore tho as the crows would always get their eggs. Here's a neat link that you can click to hear the sounds they make: http://www.birdjam.com/birdsong.php?id=18

 

[CometKeith]

okay, I'm going to change this threads name to "interesting facts about birds" instead of "my goldfish pond"! JW, I enjoyed reading more about ducks and hearing the neat bird sounds. What was the most interesting bird everyone saw today? I saw a peregrine falcon. It looked just like this! http://www.google.co...9QEwAw&dur=1711

 

[j.w]

Those birds are so cool Keith............have seen them on a persons arm trained to fly and get the food they throw in the air. Quite magnificent!.Yesterday I saw a tiny hummingbird at my feeder and an eagle flew over my head a couple days ago!
Maybe you should start a whole new thread on birds?

 

[addy1]

yep he should

 

[icsd71]

We have been lucky to see American Bald Eagles here in central illinois around Lake Shelbyville. We have enough of them that they nest here regularly. Let me tell yah that is an awesome bird to see!

 

[j.w]

Yessiree it is icsd..................magnifico! They gather not far from us on the rivers in the wintertime to fish and it is an amazing site to see them grab a fish and take off w/ it! http://www.arlingtonwa.gov/index.aspx?page=430

 

[CountryEscape]

I only saw eagles one time around Effingham, near Lake Sara, which is not nearly as large as Lake Shelbyville, by you, ICSD. There was a pair of them just off a country road, in a farmer's field. We didn't have a camera, but slowed way down to admire them! Someone else drove by with a telephoto lens and they put the pic in the newspaper. Only other time I've seen eagles in the wild is along the Mississippi river between IL and MO in the spring. Very fun to see them there, and there are nests, too.
My favorite bird is the barn swallow. Love their flying antics, zipping past me when I mow catching bugs from the air. I have very few types of birds since I'm surrounded by farmed fields, no woods within a mile, so I treasure each and every bird that comes by ... except for a heron! They are not allowed in my back yard. They are welcome to visit my farm pond .... and eat any and all baby snapping turtles that may show up there. LOL

 

[callingcolleen1]

I made all my ponds myself years ago. Last year I remade the bottom pond so it would be bigger. All my ponds are raised slightly above the ground so that when it rains, the rain water won't wash the ground dirt in, plus it views better and I can walk all around right next to the pond.
I glued the rocks together (on the outside of the pond) with the stuff from the hardware store called "Great Stuff" big gap filler. Its just the same as the stuff they sell at the pond shop for waterfalls, except its yellow and a fraction of the cost. You don't see the yellow foam at all cause I stuck real peat moss in between the rocks where the foam sealant (Great Stuff) is. I can't show you all the ponds at one cause their too big and spread out. (All ponds flow together) take a look and see, what do you think? The stuff works real good!