Killdeer Tragedy

DsrtVW

Possible but I hope not.
I posted these pictures 11 days ago I returned today to get some other shots but wanted to check progress of the family. Maybe get lucky and get shots of the young ones like Ric http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=166863
But was disappointed to find that construction of a walk had wiped out the area where the nest was. Hopefully they had already hatched. It was on a wildlife refuge so you would think they would have taken that in to consideration.


Momma Killdeer Playing the wounded bird act. Quite entertaining.

I am just going to stand here


Look what I can do


Ok following me into the weeds.


As soon as I saw her start up her act I immediately started looking for the nest so I would not step on it. They build them in the middle of the roads sometimes. and they hard to see. This one was just off the trail edge.


Nest was on the left side on frame about where the pink marker is halfway up near end of the board. Looked for evidence of egg fragments or anything. Did not find anything. All Killdeer pairs I seen were without young.

Maestro

Sorry to hear about the possible tragedy but the images that you have are very nice showing the distraction dance!

Ric Grupe

construction of a walk had wiped out the area where the nest was. Hopefully they had already hatched. It was on a wildlife refuge so you would think they would have taken that in to consideration.

Hope for the hatch! My experience is that people hired to do these kind of projects wouldn't know a nest from a Snickers bar wrapper.

Cool shots!

DsrtVW

Yes Ric that is so true. It took me a few minutes to find the nest myself. I know that they lose nest all the time, due to predation or poor choice of location. I have seen them in some strange places when I was growing up on the farm.
But you make connections when you start taking pictures of wildlife.