Sorry I don't have a photograph. After a really long winter I haven't started carrying my camera yet, so I'll go put it on my belt right now! (I did it.) One never knows when that show-stopping photo will appear. I was even in the house and could have gone after it, but then the show may have stopped, as that's how nature operates. (Ya gotta be there!) No more excuses. I didn't go after the camera but I did get to witness the Killdeer shuffle.
As it was, I happened to be in the right spot at the right time, a ringside seat in fact. It started with one killdeer just standing there, about thirty feet away, right where I park my vehicle. The next time I looked, maybe five minutes later, there were three, inside a moving circle maybe three or four feet in diameter, and they all looked exactly alike. Well, something must be happening so I watched. First one would make a short run at another, a sort of gentle attack. The attackee, then, would jump and make a couple wingbeats and land again, still in that very small area. Then all three would play Ring-around-the-Rosey for a few seconds. Then they would all stop. Then one would take that attack-run at another again, and on and on and on this went. The activity lasted for a good ten minutes. (Yes, I could have ran after my camera. Sorry!)
What were they doing? I don't know. Later I looked in all my reference material. If there's a difference between male and female the books didn't tell me. (I think in "most" Shorebirds there is little if any difference in the sexes. Before today I haven't even wondered.)
So I will make a guess.
I know with some species the males will arrive first and stake out a territory for later nesting. It could have been three males sparring, but they weren't very violent with each other.
Another guess would be two males and one female. The short little run would have been the male making moves to the female. Consequently, it would have been the female that jumped and gave the wingbeats. So did the males take friendly turns pursuing the female? Good question. I just hope they don't decide to nest right there on my parking spot, because then I would have to park elsewhere for awhile.
In past years they have nested about 200 feet west, about halfway to the mailbox, and right in the middle of the road, which allowed me to straddle them as I passed. To my knowledge all broods survived.
Some fun facts:
Charadrius vociferus is the zoological name of the Killdeer
Charadrius is the generic name and includes 31 other species
Charadriidae is the family name (Plovers & Turnstones) (63 species worldwide)
Charadriiformes is the order name (Shorebirds, Seagulls, Auks) (about 350 species worldwide)
Carinatae is the superorder name and includes all birds except flightless ones (like ostriches.)
The killdeer breeds from Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to Quebec and northern Ontario.
It's 9-11” long; its song/cry is a continuous kill-dee!; it lays 3-5 eggs, incubation 24-28 days by both male and female; it's precocial, meaning the chicks leave nest soon after hatching, within a couple hours; independent at 25 days and will spend time flying with parents before their migration trip south.
If danger threatens, the parent bird will feign injury of its wing to draw a predator from the nest; if the first feign doesn't do it the parent will return and repeat until the feign works and the predator is drawn far away from the nest. At that time the parent's wing magically heals.
One last really interesting...fact...?
One of my books states "the pear-shaped eggs in the nest have the points facing each other" Why?
Another book states "two days before babies peck their way out of their shells they are conversing in peeps and learning to understand their parents’ calls.
People smarter than me haven't said those two facts are related, but the only way those eggs' pointed ends could face each other would be that the parent birds do it, and "if" they do that, "why" do they do it? The answer, to me, would be so that the baby birds still inside the eggs "can" converse with each other.
Thanks for reading
Author’s notes
(Digital downloads $0.99-$4.99; paperbacks $10.00-$29.95)
In my fiction I do not try to create super-heroes, but rather bring alive common and regular people who try to find love, survive, and react to circumstances as best they can, and, usually, try to do the right thing. The books are more than one genre, from war to sex and violence to romance to humor to horror to fantasy to science fiction to adventure, I write in third-person with viewpoints by men, women, and children.
Contact
nelsonjamesw@hotmail.com email
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004GW465S Author page at Amazon
http://morninginapril.weebly.com Website & Blog
https://www.facebook.com/#!/ Facebook
http://subron7.hubpages.com/ HubPages
https://twitter.com/PMGOLD Twitter
Feel free to contact me. (Response is not guaranteed) (The world is full of psychos and wackos)
A reminder for when you go to Amazon to read digital books, mine and many other authors: Amazon has a free APP download that allows you to read your book on any electronic device, including PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.
Digital prices vary from $0.99-$4.99.
Occasionally I list one of my books as free for a day, sometimes more than a day. Look for those announcements on my blog, HubPages, Twitter, and Facebook
One last thing: When you visit my website, please check out the Freebies page.
As it was, I happened to be in the right spot at the right time, a ringside seat in fact. It started with one killdeer just standing there, about thirty feet away, right where I park my vehicle. The next time I looked, maybe five minutes later, there were three, inside a moving circle maybe three or four feet in diameter, and they all looked exactly alike. Well, something must be happening so I watched. First one would make a short run at another, a sort of gentle attack. The attackee, then, would jump and make a couple wingbeats and land again, still in that very small area. Then all three would play Ring-around-the-Rosey for a few seconds. Then they would all stop. Then one would take that attack-run at another again, and on and on and on this went. The activity lasted for a good ten minutes. (Yes, I could have ran after my camera. Sorry!)
What were they doing? I don't know. Later I looked in all my reference material. If there's a difference between male and female the books didn't tell me. (I think in "most" Shorebirds there is little if any difference in the sexes. Before today I haven't even wondered.)
So I will make a guess.
I know with some species the males will arrive first and stake out a territory for later nesting. It could have been three males sparring, but they weren't very violent with each other.
Another guess would be two males and one female. The short little run would have been the male making moves to the female. Consequently, it would have been the female that jumped and gave the wingbeats. So did the males take friendly turns pursuing the female? Good question. I just hope they don't decide to nest right there on my parking spot, because then I would have to park elsewhere for awhile.
In past years they have nested about 200 feet west, about halfway to the mailbox, and right in the middle of the road, which allowed me to straddle them as I passed. To my knowledge all broods survived.
Some fun facts:
Charadrius vociferus is the zoological name of the Killdeer
Charadrius is the generic name and includes 31 other species
Charadriidae is the family name (Plovers & Turnstones) (63 species worldwide)
Charadriiformes is the order name (Shorebirds, Seagulls, Auks) (about 350 species worldwide)
Carinatae is the superorder name and includes all birds except flightless ones (like ostriches.)
The killdeer breeds from Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to Quebec and northern Ontario.
It's 9-11” long; its song/cry is a continuous kill-dee!; it lays 3-5 eggs, incubation 24-28 days by both male and female; it's precocial, meaning the chicks leave nest soon after hatching, within a couple hours; independent at 25 days and will spend time flying with parents before their migration trip south.
If danger threatens, the parent bird will feign injury of its wing to draw a predator from the nest; if the first feign doesn't do it the parent will return and repeat until the feign works and the predator is drawn far away from the nest. At that time the parent's wing magically heals.
One last really interesting...fact...?
One of my books states "the pear-shaped eggs in the nest have the points facing each other" Why?
Another book states "two days before babies peck their way out of their shells they are conversing in peeps and learning to understand their parents’ calls.
People smarter than me haven't said those two facts are related, but the only way those eggs' pointed ends could face each other would be that the parent birds do it, and "if" they do that, "why" do they do it? The answer, to me, would be so that the baby birds still inside the eggs "can" converse with each other.
Thanks for reading
Author’s notes
(Digital downloads $0.99-$4.99; paperbacks $10.00-$29.95)
In my fiction I do not try to create super-heroes, but rather bring alive common and regular people who try to find love, survive, and react to circumstances as best they can, and, usually, try to do the right thing. The books are more than one genre, from war to sex and violence to romance to humor to horror to fantasy to science fiction to adventure, I write in third-person with viewpoints by men, women, and children.
Contact
nelsonjamesw@hotmail.com email
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004GW465S Author page at Amazon
http://morninginapril.weebly.com Website & Blog
https://www.facebook.com/#!/ Facebook
http://subron7.hubpages.com/ HubPages
https://twitter.com/PMGOLD Twitter
Feel free to contact me. (Response is not guaranteed) (The world is full of psychos and wackos)
A reminder for when you go to Amazon to read digital books, mine and many other authors: Amazon has a free APP download that allows you to read your book on any electronic device, including PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.
Digital prices vary from $0.99-$4.99.
Occasionally I list one of my books as free for a day, sometimes more than a day. Look for those announcements on my blog, HubPages, Twitter, and Facebook
One last thing: When you visit my website, please check out the Freebies page.
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