I saw these older ducklings for the first time for a few days in late December 2015. On the first day I saw a group of five ducklings. The second time I saw them the group of five was with another group which appeared to be slightly younger (tail feathers were shorter). It appears all of them still had yet to grow their flight feathers. In late January 2016 I saw seven which appeared to be some from both groups. They appeared to have full flight feathers by then although I didn't see them airborne.
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Here's all 13 of the young ones traveling together. There is safety in numbers when one has yet to grow the feathers allowing escape by flight.
The duckling facing the right is one from the grouping of five I originally saw. Notice how much longer its tail feathers are compared to the duckling facing to the left.
The rest of the images on this page show the different color variations of the ducklings.
There were two ducklings with black and white coloring on their backs. This duckling is a different one than in the prior photo. The coloring on its head is different.
This duckling has a lot of white on its head. Its tail feathers are still very short. The greenish feathers of many male adult ducks are visible.
Another one of the original five I saw.
Another one of the original five.
The next three images are from late January and the flight feathers, an iridescent teal, are clearly visible.
I think this girl may be the same duck as in the fourth image (first individual photo).
Hard to tell for sure since they've now begun growing the reddish feature around their bills.
The 'kids' are all much bigger than a month earlier. The girl from the prior photo is in the middle of this one, but the light has to hit the back feathers just right to be able to see the teal. All five of these have teal feathers which are clearly seen on the two boys on the left.
Six of the seven juveniles I saw that day are in this image. (Second from the right in this image is an adult female who was wandering with a nearby group of adult females.)
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Continue to the pages where you watch the muscovy ducklings grow over time.
All photos © S. M. Garver