Killdeer

It amazes me how many creatures are able to adapt to “city life.” We were visiting a nursery setting beside a busy road. Wandering through the rows of plants we discovered humming birds, sparrows and warblers. As we strolled through some of the larger plants and trees something seemed to explode from the ground just a short distance from us. We had startled a Killdeer.
Elegantly garbed in rich brown with black and white accents and a golden-tawny rump these members of the Plover family spend a lot of their time on the ground. Not only do they run more than fly, they even nest on the ground. Their eggs and chicks are so well camouflaged that it's not hard to step on them. That's part of the reason the parents act as if they have a broken wing when you come near their nest; they want to draw you away from their vulnerable clutch. When intruders approach their nest, they react as a natural alarm system - alerting all other wildlife to its presence. They will try to lure the intruders or predators away from their nest by pretending to be injured while emitting their loud cries and moving slowly away until they have drawn their subject off to a safe distance from the nest.
My husband shares a childhood memory of the book Little Killdeer by Ruth Wheeler. Published in the late 1940’s, it was an early venture into photojournalism for children. Even in the black and white close-up photos in the book it was easy to overlook the nest, speckled eggs and camouflage covered chicks.
Peterson’s Field Guide to Eastern Birds refers to them as “The common noisy breeding plover of the farm country” and range maps show them to be resident all across the southern US as well as breeding throughout the northern half of the states. In our mixed forest woodland, however, the Killdeer is non-existent; a bird of fields, airports, lawns, riverbanks and shores, it is just not at home is our hilly woodlands. So it was a special treat for us when we observed this old friend watching us carefully from the edge of a field while we browsed among plants in the Hudson Valley nursery. When we brought out the camera and moved in for a few shots it was obviously the signal to bring out the old broken wing act. It was nice to spend a few minutes observing an old friend even though our appreciation was obviously not reciprocated.