Subject: not about female birders...
Date: Jan 6 12:43:42 1995
From: Susan Collicott - susan at pmel.noaa.gov



(although I am throughly enjoying the thread and all the different viewpoints!)

I just saw one of my favorite birds on the lawn at work - Killdeer. Why I
mention this, is because this sucker was huge! It was the fattest, plumpest,
tallest Killdeer I've ever seen. And beautiful, sharp coloration. The bird
was cruising the tree-dotted lawn in front of Building #3 at NOAA. He/she
(I'm not that good of a birder yet) would take about 10 running steps, stop,
peck at the grass, and pop his/her head up. Repeat for at least 20 minutes.
I had to stop watching, and go back to work (darn!), or I'd have watched all
afternoon. I love these birds. Every 5 or 6 sets of steps, the bird would
call out. I didn't hear any return call, though. Perhaps the mate was down
at the shore.

I grew up watching killdeer in Northern Michigan. They loved nesting in the
horse pasture that was about 500 yards from the shore of Burt Lake. We would
have to adjust our trails according to nesting sites. We didn't always see
all the nests, and the horses learned not to spook we would flush the birds.
(One horse had a very inquisitive nature, but was stupid - he never learned
that he could never get close to the birds. He was particularly entranced by
them when they would do their 'broken wing' act.) After spotting nests, we
fenced them in, so no big dumb horses would bother the nest. It was always
great fun to see the babies running around in the grass, totally undisturbed
by the swishing of horse tails. In fact, I have a few pictures of killdeers
on top of the horses - looking like the birds that ride on rhinos and
elephants.

I've seen one or two pairs of killdeer at NOAA over the past few years, and
was wondering if anyone had a sure-fire killdeer spot?

Susan
NOAA PMEL, Seattle, WA
susan at pmel.noaa.gov