Rites of spring

For the fourth year in a row, Dale and I have watched the same ritual unfold in the open fields near our house: the hatching of the killdeer.


Killdeer are birds that lay their eggs in very shallow holes in fields and lawns, and have even been known to build small nests in parking lots and similar urban spaces. When the nests are in fields like this one, they are very well camaflouged, but Dale's become an expert at finding the nests. Killdeer are fascinating because the parents will try to distract people who come near the nests by flying a few feet away from the nests and pretending they are injured (rolling over on their backs, for instance, or dragging one of their wings along the ground as if it's broken.) they hope the intruder will see them as weak and damaged, and thus, easy prey, and will go after them instead of the nest. When that happens, the adults then fly a little farther away from the nest so that the intruder will be led even more astray.)


The killdeer lay four eggs. This year, all four hatched but sadly, Dale found one of the babies dead a few feet away from the nest the day after it was born. We're not sure what happened to it. It was not mangled or bloody, as if a predator got it, so it's possible that it was just too weak to survive. The killdeer, within a day or two after hatched, will run to nearby cover until the babies are ready to fly. We have no idea why the adults don't just place their nests in the cover, to avoid having to make that run, but that's just nature, I guess.


Here is what an adult killdeer looks like. Pretty bird.