Tuesday, May 8, 2012

World Bird Wednesday

Killdeer
The female killdeer is the drama queen of the bird world. This pair of Killdeer build their nest every year in my friends garden ... before he has had a chance to rototill it. Being the good guy that he is, he postpones his garden every year to allow them to complete their family.

On our approach to the garden Mama Killdeer starts out by scolding ...



When that doesn't work she flies over to the grass to try to draw us away from the nest ...


the finale is the broken wing, injured bird performance ... 


Then Dad, who heard her distress calls came to help out ...


 We only stayed long enough to snap a quick picture of  the nest.  I don't like to stress the birds when they are nesting, but these two have to be used to us by now.  We check them out every spring, as much to make sure they are okay as to see the nest. 


    Looking forward to babies ... :)
      

15 comments:

Brian King said...

Wow, fantastic photos, Andrea! Very neat you can see that up close. Killdeer are indeed very good at luring predators away.

betty said...

Interesting color of eggs! What a sweet neighbor you have that he waits for their nesting time before starting his planting! Great pictures!

betty

HansHB said...

Nice to see.
Happy WBW!

theconstantwalker said...

A great set of images... it's a lovely little bird.

Dave said...

great behaviour shots - the first 2 images are stunning.

mick said...

A great series of photos. It's very interesting to see the efforts the bird makes to get you away from its nest.

eileeninmd said...

Lovely images of the Killdeer! They are pretty birds.

Dina J said...

You got some great action shots! Hope to see the babies.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful! Nature is so amazing. I thank you for sharing these special things, or we may never see them. Hugs.

Springman said...

Fantastic series Andrea. You have captured this interesting kildeer behaviour perfectly. Absolutely fascinating!

Elephant's Child said...

How amazing. Rudyard Kipling wrote about that birdy behaviour (though I cannot remember which bird). It was simply incredible to see this sequence of photos and the nest. Many thanks.

Arija said...

What a beautiful nest with instant garden. Pretty eggs as well. Nice picks of the female feinting.

TexWisGirl said...

such remarkable and clever birds. :)

Kim @frogpondsrock said...

Wonderful eggs, wonderful wonderful eggs, I made some small ceramic eggs that had similar colours. thank you for reminding me of them.

jeanlivingsimple said...

Yep...Killdeer are cool drama queens. Great shots!

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