Easy Sunday: Killdeer nest in the gravel road

I often encounter killdeers at the farm.

The bucket is there to mark the nest so we will swing wide to avoid it.

Here she is, on her nest:

Killdeers build nests in roadways and fields. Their eggs match the color of the gravel or the ground in a tilled but unplanted field. The mother scrapes out a small depression and that is their nest. When I encounter a nest in the field that I am preparing to plant, I farm around it, giving it a few feet in every direction. I indulge the killdeers. We are on the same team. They eat insects that might damage crops. They don't seem to bother honeybees. 

The nests are so camouflaged that I wouldn't notice them if it were not for the mother bird. I would step on them or run equipment right over them. I notice them because the mother calls attention to a nest by putting on a big show when a threat approaches. She flutters around and acts like wounded easy prey as she draws the threat away from her nest. The nest is the opposite direction from the way she is moving.

The mother in this nest is accustomed to vehicles on the road, so she now stays put as people drive by and swerve wide. But yesterday morning I was on foot, so she put on her act, fluttering and walking away from the nest.

Six feet away

Twenty feet away

I didn't approach and photograph this nest. I didn't want to torment the mom. But here is a stock photo of a killdeer nest:

Life is tough for killdeer, without me making it tougher. I know of at least three owl nests around the vineyard. I'm glad the owls make homes at my farm. They eat mice and gophers. There is an owl nest in each of two barns and one in the conifer trees next to the vineyard. I showed this photo of this owl last week. It looks cute here, but the killdeer mom understands that it eats killdeers, too.

I try to live and let live, so I don't get in the way of whatever struggle happens out there. I have to let go and let that part of nature take care of itself.

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