On the Road in Texas - Killdeer Chicks On the Wing

In the last two postings, we showed killdeer parents and two of their four young. The older two of the four chicks are pictured here.
The first four photographs show one of the more developed young. This first one, walked around in a field of moved grass - seemingly to draw my attention. When I came over to him, he slowly flapped his little wings.
From the photos, you can see that the primary flight feathers have developed well, but were not able yet to support flight.
Given the heat of the day, perhaps the wing motion was an attempt to cool off.
The last three photos show the second of the more developed pair, which stayed under and in a nearby small tree.
I never saw this guy actually fly, but he hopped and glided from branch to branch. The last photos shows this chick with his wings extended. After about 30 minutes photographing the four young killdeers, I followed the parents as they 'led' me away from the young.
Later in the day at about an hour after sundown, I walked across a field of mixed gravel and grass. And, from the clear squawking of at least one killdeer, I suspect I stumbled across another set of killdeer young. I never saw the killdeer in the dark. What an interesting day full of killdeer.

On the Road in Texas - Killdeer Chicks

These are the little ones that the two killdeer parents were working so hard to hide from me. Actually, there were four of them. The two pictured here were clearly the last two to hatch, as they are the least developed (the more developed two will be presented in the next posting).
When I first spotted these chicks, I thought that they might be mockingbird young, as there were mockingbirds in the area and what appeared to be mockingbird nests in several of the adjacent trees. However, given the amount of attention I was getting from the killdeer parents, I figured these young must be killdeers. I later went to this site with photos of killdeer chicks; there is a close enough resemblance for me to believe that these are killdeers.
Killdeer nest on the ground; the nest is little more than a scratched depression, sometimes with a bit of lining, often white objects. The killdeer young are active as soon as they dry out after hatching - in stark contrast to many other chicks that can barely hold their heads up when they hatch. As soon as the killdeer young are dry, they are moving (hopping) to protect themselves from predators. The parents, of course, keep a close eye out, distracting would be predators from the still developing young by way of making noise, feinting injury, and flopping on the ground. These two young stayed in the shade and cover of a singular tree.
In the next posting, we'll meet their siblings who clearly interested in flying.

On the Road in Texas - Killdeer on the Run and in Flight

The birds at the Colvin Run Habitat in Northern Virginia are always willing to come and perch - which is not always good for the photography skills.
So, whenever I visit the Henderson Drive Habitat in Frisco, Texas, I hike to a nearby field and refresh my quick shoot skills with the killdeer.
You can find the killdeer wherever there is a flat field with a little gravel and some grass. Although they are part of the plover shorebird family, the killdeer does not require the shore to thrive.
Killdeer spend most of their day on the ground or flying just a few feet off the ground. They make lots of noise, so I typically hear them well before I see them. It is rare that I can get closer than 40 feet to them.
I spent an hour photographing these two killdeer. But, they exceeded their normal level of squawking when I came to specific location in a field of mowed grass (adjacent to the rough field of gravel and grass where I found them).
When I was near this specific spot, they squawked loudly, and would run and fly just far enough to make me interested in following them.
After they would ran a bit or flew a bit, they simply laid down in the grass (last photo). After about 15 minutes of this wild goose (or is that killdeer) chase, I finally figured out the purpose of the display.
So what did I discover? Stay tuned for the next posting.

On the Road in Texas - Killdeer in Flight

No postings from the Colvin Run Habitat this weekend, as I am visiting my daughter and her husband in Frisco, Texas. To say the landscape is different would be, well, an understatement.
Nevertheless, I am on the lookout for interesting backyard wildlife. One bird never observed in the Habitat, but which I enjoy seeing in Texas is the killdeer, or as my dad used to say, a kill-dee. This bird has a distinctive call, which like other birds is simply its name – kill-dee. Sorry for the poor quality of the photos, but I was unable to get very close to this guy.

The killdeer is found in the Mid-Atlantic States, but has just not been seen in the Habitat.