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Transcript 4/27/24:
Sometimes you just need to get out in it. Welcome to The Nature of Phenology where we share the cycles and seasons of the outdoors. I’m your host, Hazel Stark, and this episode was written by Joe Horn.
When I was teaching for an outdoor education organization out in Wyoming, we spent a few days in the late spring teaching on the other side of the mountains in Idaho. After a long and winding drive, we were greeted by eager Montessori students in a classroom full of wooden toys and teaching supplies. As the morning wore along, it was time for the class to head out for recess. While some kids ran off to the basketball hoops, and others to the jungle gym, a few kids insisted on taking me over to “the killdeer.” Without any context or backstory, I had no idea why these kids were referencing a bird that most folks don’t seem to know despite how common they are. I assumed it was a game, or maybe some kind of art mural, but sure enough the kids took me to a little dusty patch in the middle of their recess yard that was flagged off with caution tape. In the middle of what looked like the tiniest and most desolate of crime scenes was a single killdeer bird sitting atop her eggs.
Towards the end of March this year, I happened to catch a glimpse of a killdeer flying low over a field which got me curious about their habits and reminded me of this time at the Montessori school in Idaho. I was surprised to find a document the State of Maine had published called “Maine Breeding Bird Safe Dates” which essentially isolates a time frame when birds in our area are apt to be nesting. Curious about killdeer, I went to their section and learned that on average, they are nesting between April 20th and July 15th. So we’ve just entered this nesting timeframe, though this of course changes year by year depending on weather patterns.
Killdeer are a species of plover. Like all other plovers, they are shorebirds, but unlike most plovers, they seem most at home in closely mown lawns, golf courses, and in agricultural fields. They have such an affinity for these places, they can actually be a fairly regular occurrence in the built environment—including schoolyards. They get their rather macabre name from their shrill wailing call which sounds very much like they’re saying “kill-deer.” They have a generally plover-like form which is not too far off from that of a songbird, but with longer legs and a slightly lengthened neck. Their coloration is very similar as well—all tawny browns on their backs and white on their bellies. But for me, the most distinguishing characteristic of killdeer is the combination of a single thick black ring around their neck, and thick black band just under it, across their breast.
The nesting killdeer the kids had been keeping an eye on in their schoolyard might seem to be an oddity for choosing such a busy nest site. In reality, this was a pretty typical nest for these birds. They generally choose a wide open nesting site with vegetation less than an inch tall. Rather than build a proper nest, they instead scrape a very shallow divot in the ground and lay eggs directly in the dirt. Occasionally, they might adorn the nest with an odd stick or rock, but not enough to describe this as a typical twiggy nest that your average Montessori student might draw for an assignment on the subject.
The mother killdeer will deposit 4-6 eggs into the nest and incubate them for 22-28 days. The eggs are notably pointy on one end and are a buff color heavily speckled with dark chocolate brown. Considering the build of the nest, these eggs are just about perfectly camouflaged. The killdeer chicks are impossibly cute, looking like miniature adults but fluffier, with more awkward legs, and are much more rotund.
So this weekend, if you happen to live near a wide open field of short grass, you could keep your eye out for nesting behavior of a killdeer. As with all bird nests, if you do happen to find one, you should stay a respectful distance away from it and be sure to keep your pets under close control.
You can download this episode and find a link to the transcript, photos, information about podcasting and more by visiting archives.weru.org. Thanks for listening and please join us next week for another dive into The Nature of Phenology.
References:
Killdeer Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. (n.d.). http://Www.allaboutbirds.org. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Killdeer/overview
Maine Breeding Bird Safe Dates. (n.d.). Retrieved March 26, 2024, from https://www.maine.gov/ifw/fish-wildlife/maine-bird-atlas/docs/Maine%20Breeding%20Birds%20Safe%20Dates.pdf
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