Killdeer
By weeds11
22 comments
The driveway is quiet today.
After about four weeks of screaming, fluttering, blustering, feigning and haranguing by the parents, two baby killdeer finally hatched.
For the past month now, when I walked out the door to go to my mailbox I heard,” Kree-ah?” As I approached the nest site, whichever parent bird was currently in charge, stood up and walked a little way from the nest.
(I use the term ‘nest’ loosely, here. It is actually a scraped place in the gravel of the driveway.) Then the parent bird, (both incubate the eggs,) watched to see which way I would go. If I walked too close to the nest, he or she would shriek, “Killdeer! Killdeer, Killdeer!” and begin distraction techniques.
With one wing and a foot dragging she would struggle down the driveway. “Oh, I am near to death…an easy catch for any predator!”
As I continued toward her and my mailbox, she would scream and carry-on dragging her “torn, devastated body” away from her nest, until she decided I had followed her far enough away from her nest and that all was well ; and then “flutter.” By some miracle, she became healthy again and flew off, screaming “Killdeer, killdeer, ha ha! I fooled you again!”
They used the same ploy when the FedEx truck came, our car, the cats, but one sits tight on the nest when the magpies harass them, while the other screams and flies at the nest robber. If the threat was big enough, both birds became lame and flopped around in their pretended death throes.
Killdeer are members of the plover family. They are protected here because they eat so many bad insects and grubs.
There were originally four eggs, but about two weeks into incubation, there was a terrible ruckus in the middle of the night with lots of killdeer shrieking and the next morning only two eggs remained. It may have been a weasel or a skunk. One day, I saw my old cat Fritter out there sitting twenty or thirty feet from the nest with the killdeer doing her flopping and gyrating not three feet from him. Fritter was bored; he has seen it for years and knows there is no chance of catching a killdeer.
The adult birds are about the size of an American robin. The eggs are bigger than robin eggs and are incubated longer(26 to 28 days) because the chicks need to be mature enough to run as soon as they are dry. They are black and tan and covered with down, like a tiny chick from a hen’s egg.
The parents continued to set the second egg after the first one hatched and the second baby hatched two days later. Then they all disappeared into the tall grass and all is quiet in the driveway again.
17 Jul, 2009
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Comments
Thanks,Ian, I have only known them as Killdeer, but they are listed in the Audubon book as Charadrius Vociferus. That's a logical name considering that they really are vociferous.
The nest is all their's, the male, I think builds it and this one decorated this one with the square of grass blades. I thought that was interesting too. The eggs were placed exactly like that too. I wish I had gotten a photo of the babies but I didn't want to disturb them any more than necessary.
17 Jul, 2009
Great blog Weedy. I love Killdeers. They are fascinating. We had a pair nest in the middle of the driveway one year on the farm. It didn't last long though as the coyotes got it one night. They usually nested in the middle of the paddock but that year they had decided to try something different. After the coyotes they made a second nest back in the "old neighbourhood" where they successfully raised 3 chicks.
17 Jul, 2009
Hi Gilli, or Mrs. ......
Thanks Weeds11 that really is amazing and your photography is just as good :~))
17 Jul, 2009
Brilliant blog Weeds :)
17 Jul, 2009
That is an amazing story....it is amazing what wildlife will do to protect their own....thank you for telling us about it..
17 Jul, 2009
fantastic~the square around the eggs is so precise~you would think he had a tape measure and got it just so!
17 Jul, 2009
What an absoulutely captivating blog, thankyou very much that was so interesting and very well documented with the shots too, you are very lucky to have the opportunity to see nature like that, I do know quite a few bird's fake injury to lure predators away from their nest site but mostly we would have to go to the coast to watch them, it must be so fascinating to be able to watch it right on your doorstep.
17 Jul, 2009
Its all Bobs fault...............LOL
17 Jul, 2009
amazing!! dont know if i could go to work with all that goin on in the garden!! all i've got is two magpies that are driving me crazy!! ure blog really makes me want to encourage other widelife when my magpies have been putting me off :)
17 Jul, 2009
Thanks, everyone.
Bob, I'll bet these are related to the birds on the coast that you spoke of, they look very similar to sandpipers and plovers.
Gilli, there are at least two more nests in the area near the barn. I get harangued when I go that way too. The FedEx driver probably thinks I've lost my mind, "Stay to the left side of the driveway. Stay left! Go slow!"
Daisy, we had a lot of magpies and crows this spring. What a hullabaloo that was! Don't know where they all went but suddenly about two weeks ago, they disappeared. Probably some kind of migration going on.
17 Jul, 2009
this is brilliant thanks for sharing
gonna drag hubby away from the cricket tor ead this too
hes a bird lover
x x x
17 Jul, 2009
Fascinting to read and love the photo,s,thanks for sharing......
17 Jul, 2009
That was a great blog, you explained beautifully.
17 Jul, 2009
Thanks, Linclass and Grannysue.
Mookins, Hope he's not to upset about the interuption.
17 Jul, 2009
Hi Ian.........that's Mrs Gilli to you!! LOL LOL LOL
18 Jul, 2009
Hi, Gilli are you still married after all this time? LOL
18 Jul, 2009
Excellent blog and photos Weeds, how great to have this sort of action on your driveway!
10 Sep, 2009
Last evening I saw two does and three spotted fawns all together near my barn. Neighbors probably thought I was nuts running after them waving my arms, in fact one of the does stared at me as if she thought so too. They were headed for the highway. Yikes. I just may have saved a spotted life last night.
12 Sep, 2009
Brad was hit by a deer on the highway 2 days ago. He was driving in the early morning to go and help his uncle with some roofing. The deer jumped out of nowhere and straight into the side of his truck. Somersaulted over the top, pushed the whole cab out of alignment, landed on the other side of the truck and ran off into the woods. His truck, a little older Toyota, is a complete write off. Thankfully, Brad was OK.
12 Sep, 2009
Roger had the almost exactly the same thing happen to him a couple of years ago. Glad Brad wasn't hurt.
12 Sep, 2009
David and I sat and video taped killdeer parents and babies in the gravel at Pt. Hudson some years ago..I hope I still have it on disc..was so fun watching them ..the babies look so like the gravel it is hard to see them unless they move..lol..the parents watched us from a distance..did no floppy manuvers..guess we did not pose much of a threat as we stayed in our car and shot out through open windows..
and yes a deer crashed into the right front fender of my van one evening as well..did the same swirled around under the van slid across the road and got up and ran into the trees..caused over a $1000.00 damage to the front ....I had ins..but had to pay deductible...glad Brad was ok Gilli..sure is scary...I think they are being chased by a coyote or a cougar when they do that..running for their lives it seems...
13 Sep, 2009
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This is a brill blog, I've never seen a killdeer (is that their real name?) but your photos and blog have made it easy for me to understand all about them. Thanks very much. :~))
PS. did they make the square shape or have you just outlined the nest for us?
17 Jul, 2009