Your Daily Duck! (As always, click for a closer view)

Five Baby Ducks!

I just took the gorgeous drive up Salinas Valley to pick these little ladies up from Metzer Farms.  They all hatched yesterday, but they're quite animated already, as you can see from the amount of shavings they've kicked into their water.  From left to right is the Buff Orpington, Black Swedish, Blue Swedish, Cayuga, and Khaki Campbell.  I'm listening to their happy peeping coming from the brooder as I type this.  They will begin to feather out at two weeks, and we transition them off their starter crumbles and onto their waterfowl grower pellets at three weeks.  They will be fully feathered out and nearly sized up by 8 weeks and should begin laying between 16-24 weeks.  

Echium, Hummingbird, & Bee (Click for full size)

I shot this with a shutterspeed of 1:4000 in order to freeze the hummingbird mid-flight (50mm lens at f1.4). The plants are Echium wildpretii (red) and Echium pininana (purple). I believe the hummingbird is a female Anna's Hummingbird. The bees are European Honey Bees, busy as usual.