The Killdeer is an early bird!

Al Lowe
Contributor

One of the birds which comes back early - as early as the robins - is the killdeer. Most people are familiar with this bird. It breeds all across Canada, from the Yukon to the Maritimes. Here in the Northwest, it breeds as far north as Hudson Bay. You can often hear him (or her) quite a while before he comes into view. The Killdeer is a noisy bird.
This is also quite a good-looking bird. It is about the size of a robin, but its fairly long legs make it look taller and bigger. It has a couple of prominent colour features which make it easy to identify. For one, it has a white breast with two prominent black bands across it. For another, it has a chestnut—coloured lower back, tail and rump. It also has some black and white on its head. Otherwise, the rest of its head, and its back, are brown. Quite a classy bird.
Almost everyone knows what it sounds like, “kill-dee, kill-dee, kill-dee” over and over again. That’s where its name came from. But it has other sounds, too. One sound, a long trill “t—tr-r-r-r-rrrrr”, is used in two sets of circumstances. When the birds are courting in the spring, this is the song. It is also used, more loudly, when some animal or person is getting too close to the nest.
The Killdeer is well known for another bit of its behavior, the ‘broken-wing’ one. This bird makes its nest on the ground, and it is not much of a nest. Usually, a sort of scooped out depression will do - in the gravel, on the golf course, in your garden, on a flat roof, even in the gravel on the railway tracks. It is usually in a clear space, so the bird can see well in all directions. If a fox, or dog, or man approaches, the Killdeer will leave the nest. But it always runs a bit before flying or calling. When the ‘enemy’ gets too close, then our actor goes into his performance. He (or she) will flop along the ground, dragging a wing, and making the most pitiful noises. After the intruder follows this half-dead bird away from the nest, then the Killdeer suddenly has a marvellous recovery, and flies away.
This bird also has some other unusual performances, during the spring courtship. Sometimes, the male will go up several hundred yards in the air, hover on almost motionless wings, all the while calling out very loudly. Sometimes both male and female will spiral upwards until they are out of sight. They also sometimes dive down almost to the earth. As the famous Audubon once said “they perform all sorts of evolution’s on the wing”.
The Killdeer, Charandrius voicferus, is a plover, and has all sorts of close relatives. Most of these birds prefer the shores of the sea, or of large lakes. The Killdeer prefers to nest inland, and not necessarily near the water. Before protection came into being for the birds, millions of shore birds were shot for sale on the open market. Actually, before 1900, Killdeers almost completely disappeared from the eastern part of North America. Now it has again become quite common.
Almost 100% beneficial, about 98% of the Killdeer’s diet consists of insect pests - beetle, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and so on. It is a good thing that those numbers are up again. We need all the help we can get against the ‘bugs’.