I try to take at least one walk around my neighborhood each day. I do it for exercise but I also enjoy observing all of the little intricacies of daily life for the few hundred people and animals that live around my street. For several days now I have noticed a couple of birds hanging out in the same area by a retention pond. Every time I walk by they throw a terrible fit. But they never fly away.
So yesterday I took my camera on the walk and stopped to see if I could get some pictures. I knelt down to take the picture and the bird went crazy. It made a lot of noise, turned its back on me and spread its feathers. When that failed to scare me away it made attempts at charging me while yelling spreading its wings.
My wife was along and commented that there must be a nest nearby. I couldn’t understand why it was making such a ruckus when I was still standing on the sidewalk. Then my wife pointed and asked “are those eggs?” Sure enough, right there in the rocks next to the sidewalk were four eggs. I had been standing about six inches from them. They were a black and cream spotted egg and they blended in really well with the rocks and dirt.
No wonder the bird was angry. But really, it was poor planning on her part. I’m not very good at identifying birds off the top of my head. I was, however, able to do a bit of research and discovered this is a pair of Killdeer. Killdeer are a type of Plover. I’ll be checking on the eggs now when I walk by. Hopefully some dog or other animal doesn’t get to them before they can hatch.
