The robin-sized killdeer likes to hunt bugs on short grass, so they frequently live on golf courses. Some call them “golf course plovers” although their scientific name is Charadrius vociferus, and vociferous they are, with a loud strident call. They are widespread across North America in many climates and habitats despite being a shorebird.
I’ve worked part time at a golf course with killdeer in northwest Oregon for a couple of decades and I have watched them live, love, tend to eggs and young’ns, scold golfers, and pass this mortal coil.
Every spring, in northwest Oregon, killdeer migrate onto this golf course from the surrounding farmers’ fields and vinyards, fall in love, nurture eggs, and raise little killdeer.
Killdeer nest on hard ground or bark dust, after scratching out a cup-sized depression, with the eggs in plain sight, camouflaged by little more than their mottled markings. They often nest on paths, driveway shoulders, or bark dusted gardens.
I first wrote about the killdeer in 2013. www.dailykos.com/…
Killdeer pretend to have a broken wing and writhe on the ground, crying, to distract predators who approach their nest. When the predator begins stalking the apparently wounded parent bird, the killdeer leads the predator away from the eggs, and then promptly “recovers” and jets away in a polished diversionary display, or paratrepsis as wiki calls it.
Observers have noted these tactics for over 100 years. Thus Howard Lacey (1911) "..found a killdeer standing over her eggs with upspread wings and scolding vigorously." birdsbybent.netfirms.com/…
I studied the adult killdeers’ antics to lure predators away from their nests. When you approached to 15 yards, they’d move away from their eggs and display their colored tail feathers. At 10 yards, they’d fan out their “broken wing” and stagger in circles, slowly moving away from the nest. But when you got to within a yard from the eggs, the adult might dart back and circle right under your feet.
To find their nest, you walked in the opposite direction they attempted to lead you. No doubt predators also figured out how to reverse engineer a path to the killdeers’ nests.
I often found handfuls of killdeer feathers scattered on the grass; evidence of an efficient predator, an owl, hawk, or coyote. Killdeer pairs nesting on the golf course declined from 9 to 3 from 2008 to 2013.
www.dailykos.com/...
However some of these golf course killdeer have apparently and efficiently modified their diversion procedures. One researcher insists it’s not just instinct, that the killdeer carefully craft their movements.
This study of the killdeer’s diversion tactics is at:
sora.unm.edu/…
Wherein Douglas Deane denies the wing “trick” is a reflex action, stating “There must be a considerable amount of training and intelligence combined in this trick, as the bird has evolved procedures that vary with the different types of enemy.”
I venture that “my” golf course killdeer have evolved procedures tailored to their immediate predators, and no longer invoke the broken wing dance every time golfers (or predators) approach within a couple of feet of the nests.
Every year from 2008-2014 I found 1 or more killdeer nests. In 2015 they ceased the broken wing dance near the nest and I haven’t found a nest since then. However, sometimes they issue a “calling all killdeer” cry, and several will flock near me, cursing, and then follow my retreat for a hundred yards.
I saw about 15 killdeer flocking this late autumn, which is about the historic average. There were 23 in 2008 at autumn’s end, and 12 in 2013.
However last week I stumbled across a killdeer mom that hadn’t gotten the memo about downplaying the broken wing trick.
I was walking through brush, when she dashed out from under a pine tree and across the path, then stopped and gave me the dirty eye. I stopped too. And then she backed up towards me.
Usually the killdeer keep drawing you away from the nest site, but not this time.
Mama killdeer kept edging up on me. Now I started taking a couple of steps back.
I hated to see the mama bird so distressed so I sent her a telepathic message that all I wanted was a picture of her eggs. In response she momentarily lifted the magical fog that hides their eggs and I snapped a quick shot.
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