A Distraction, A Display

Nesting Killdeer, 4 May 2012

The Killdeer is named for its call.  While this is common in the bird world, the name, Killdeer, has done much to help many forget that this bird is a plover, a shorebird, a not-so-distant relative to gulls and sandpipers.  The bird, in its own adaptation and survival, has done much to forget this fact as well.   It is now a bird of lawns, pastures and gravel landscaping projects, even nesting on the flat gravel of school rooftops.  Still, it is often the first shorebird I see teetering around the mudflats of Northwest Wisconsin in early March before ice has left the lakes.  The sight of such a plover flying low under rolling, gray, overcast skies snaps a naturalist to attention and hints of this plover’s relatives migrating toward the vast wetlands of the Arctic and beaches of inland seas.  As soon as it calls out with the sharp and rising “Killdeeeee, killdeeeee,” my heart has left the imagined Arctic and comes back ‘round to Holsteins, swing sets, and kickball games amid cropped grass and sandburs. 

The Killdeer has precocial young, meaning that the young hatch from the eggs ready to run.  They arrive into the world sort of drip-dry ready, wearing camouflage patterns and with comically long and able legs.   The killdeer’s nest is a perfect adaptation to open, rocky areas.  Like all other plovers, this is a bird that builds a simple nest in a depression in the ground.   The eggs are so well camouflaged that direct observation of a nest may involve moments of loss and searching.   The eggs are mottled gray and black.  They match perfectly the many shades of pea gravel, interwoven grass thatch, granite rock, sand or silt.

Aiding in protection of the nest, Killdeers have become famous for a wing-dragging display that mimics injury and entices predatory animals to follow the adult bird far from the nest.   I have found it to be more wonderful and complicated than this.   There are a variety of strategies in the Killdeer’s bag of tricks, and it seems that a Killdeer is intent on trying all of them, trial and error.    First, the bird sits tight on the nest and tries not to move.  The bold, banded pattern of the throat and the sharply bi-colored brown-and-white dorsal and ventral coloration makes an amazing break-up camouflage. 

 If the Killdeer feels it is detected, it will begin to sound an aggravated alarm while fluffing its feathers and revealing the orange rump.  Once its calculating bird brain (or is it stress hormone?) is convinced that the predator is locked on, the Killdeer stands and tries one of two strategies.    One strategy is to splay the brightly-colored tail, drag a wing, and limp off, away from the nest, leading the predator on a futile mission, a wild Killdeer chase.  

The other strategy I have just now grown to respect is the Killdeer’s threat posture.  It is so similar to the “broken wing” display, but it involves a head-on, confident approach with both wings out, feathers fluffed, and lots of vocalizing.  When this Killdeer’s “broken wing” display failed to entice me, it returned to confront me.  Of course, during the nesting season, this big, bad thug of a bird won and “frightened me slowly away.”  It is important to let a nesting bird “win” every single time.

The sun faded behind clouds this afternoon, and, while this killdeer met over 120 students over the course of my teaching day, the light was best when I had the bird all to myself, sharing it only with my own two kids.    I shot most of these images at f4.0, handheld, using a Canon 40D, 300mm lens, and shutter speeds around 1/500^th of a second.  I tried to shoot low to the ground for most of the images, as it is often important to be at eye level with your photo subject.