Dead babies

When it got too hot to work in the tank,* I came to town to get some stuff done here. Found this dead duckling in the pond. Based on my investigation, I think it choked on cracked corn. Around 1PM my husband fed them and all three ate, but one ate more and sat down a couple of times while eating. Then a couple of hours later I arrived and found it dead in the water. I think I'll stop feeding them.

Meanwhile, back at CMO, when it got hot I found a javelina in the shade of my water trailer. I hope that's the only use that will be made of it. Better rain soon, though.

I was taking a break near a water feature, camera in hand, when a hot Varied Bunting came up to get a drink. I don't usually get a chance to shoot them from that close so I couldn't resist.

After I posted this I found another dead baby bird. This one is one of the Cactus Wrens I posted about recently. It looks like the bird has a big insect stuck in its throat but I can't tell, and am too squeamish to check further.

OK, curiosity got the better of me. I donned plastic gloves and pulled out the object. Turns out to be a grasshopper.

I know the baby bird couldn't have caught the grasshopper, so that means it was fed it by the adult parents. That means normally the baby should have been able to ingest it. So, it must have been weak from not being fed all those hours during the fish fry. (See post of May 17)

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* The reason I don't get photos of the tank work is because I have to change lenses to do it and keep forgetting. One of these days, I will, though. I used to use my iphone but since I let it install an upgrade it no longer works on my CMO computer. One of these days, I'll get that remedied too.