Hidden in Plain Sight
I am back on Dike Road to check on the Killdeer. Driving slowly and swerving frequently to avoid the potholes, I see the Killdeer quietly standing beside the road. I usually see Killdeer running here and there, barely pausing to bob their heads up and down. They can actually run up to 5 mph, which is pretty fast for a little 10 inch long bird.[1] She is in the same area, just past the big shrub near the second big weed after the first turnout. I stop the car far enough away so that she is not alarmed at my presence. She waits, looks around, then returns to her nest and sits down. There are clearly 4 eggs, which is typical for a Killdeer. Her nest is a little scrape in the rocks beside the road. It looks pretty uncomfortable to be sitting on eggs and rocks with nothing lining the nest. The eggs are camouflaged with mottled brown coloring, hidden in plain sight.
[1] John Eastman, Birds of Field and Shore: Grassland and Shoreline Birds of Eastern North America (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2000), 70.
Recent Comments