This month's featured bird is: the Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus)
1. Identification
You may hear this bird before you see it, and the distinctive call, kill-dee, kill-dee, will leave little confusion about its identity. The Killdeer is a plover, a family of birds that is found worldwide. It is the largest of the ringed plovers or those plover that have bands across their breasts. It is also the only plover in its range that sports TWO dark bands across its breast. In flight, the reddish-orange rump and white wing bars are obvious.
Habitat: Killdeer may be found in a variety of habitats from urban to agricultural to wetland. They prefer open areas and nest in a variety of sites, such as shorelines, savannas, grazed fields, bare gravel, golf courses, and even the open spaces between railroad ties.
Size: Length - 9 to 11 in.
Fun Facts:
1. All plovers use a distraction display to lure intruders away from their nests, but the display of the Killdeer is very developed. An adult bird will feign a broken wing while moving away from the nest.
2. Other names for Killdeer are chattering plover, field plover, noisy plover, and killdee.
3. Killdeer young are precocious, that is they are active with their eyes open as soon as 1 hour after hatching.
4. A Killdeer nest is hard to see, because it is barely there. Referred to as a scrape, it is a slight depression in the ground, sometimes lined with grasses or small pebbles.
5. In European folklore, Killdeer were associated with rain, when they and other plovers were thought to be more active and vocal. Though an increase in behavior during rain has not been confirmed, the name plover comes from the Latin pluvial or rain.
Great Links:
• NestBox.com
Check out a Killdeer on the nest
•
Cornell - Listen to the Killdeer’s distinctive call…one of the best ways to identify this bird in the field
•
Hinterlands Whos Who - You will find lots of information about Killdeer habits, range, feeding and breeding at this in-depth site.
•
Patuxent Wildlife Research Center - Get some more identification tips and explore the life history of the Killdeer, along with details about its population status.
•
Birdwatching.com - Learn more about the Killdeer’s precocial young and migration
|
