Somehow you'd expect some aggression from a bird whose first name is "Kill", especially if it sounds like they kill critters as large as deer.
Not so much, as it turns out. They eat invertebrates and they'd much rather run than fight. And they'd like to get you to run as well.
A Killdeer spots me, and I'm apparently near its nest...
... so it runs a short distance and flops down in some rocks.
It runs a little more, flops down again and feigns a broken wing. This bird has a future as a soccer player.
Running further, up into the grass now, it keeps flashing its bright rusty tail.
Now the "wounded bird" has two "broken" wings on display. An instant later, it decided it had drawn me far enough from the nest and flew away.
Killdeers are part of the Plover family. They're medium-sized shorebirds, with plump round bodies, stocky heads and short bills. Many of them engage in the type of distraction displays near their nests that the killdeer above is showing. They are in the family Charadrii, and I have to wonder if the name is related to "charade" but I can't find any etymology. If anyone happens to know the origin of the family name, I'd love to hear it.
Killdeer are the most widespread plovers across the US, but another one that's very common on or near the west coast this time of year is the Black-bellied Plover. We see them on beaches, mudflats and near-inland in flooded fields and some ag lands. They regularly hang out at the covered reservoir across the street from me, coming up from Ocean Beach at high tides throughout the winter.
At lower tides, the work the water's edge and look for tasty invertebrates. The lone Sanderling in this group can give you a sense of size.
Less common here, but certainly see-able in the right areas, is the Semi-Palmated Plover. At a quick glance, it's similar to the Killdeer, but it does not have the colorful rump of the Killdeer, and it has just one dark ring around its neck vs. the Killdeer's two.
This Semi-P is a plover on a mission.
The smaller Snowy Plovers are in trouble along much of the west coast. The types of beaches they favor for breeding and wintering - you know, for living - are the same beaches that people like for hanging out, running their dogs and racing around in off-road vehicles. In other parts of the country, Piping Plovers share these same habitat problems. Though uncommon, there is a small population hanging on at Ocean Beach, where these birds were photographed (from a non-disturbing distance, hence the blurriness).
Harder still to see in these parts (as some of our fellow Kossacks can attest) are the Mountain Plovers. They show up in the winter from the Great Basin and northern Great Plains. Even when they are here in good numbers, they're hard to spot - they really just look like lumps of dirt in a field. When the lumps move, then they could be Mountain Plovers - or they could be Killdeer, who they often hang out with. Here they are labelled for your convenience. (If you click through to the largest version, it's a little easier to tell them apart.)