Subject: [Tweeters] Rescue of Killdeer chick and more--birding this afternoon in Edmonds
Date: Sat Apr 25 20:39:09 PDT 2020
From: byers345 at comcast.net - byers345 at comcast.net

Hi Tweeters,

To get out of the house and get some exercise, we often walk
down to the waterfront in Edmonds. Our route takes us by the civic play
fields. Yesterday as we walked by we were excited to see a pair of Killdeer
and their 3 chicks. The Killdeer parents were being very protective, but
the little guys were running all over the place. Today we walked by the
same place again to see how the chicks were doing. We could hear the
Killdeer calling and we followed the noise to see where they were. The two
parents were standing quite close together and a crow was standing there
too. I waved the crow away and then went to see if there were any chicks.
One chick was there and another (gasp!) had fallen into a storm drain with a
big heavy iron grate over it. We could hear it plainly. Neither Bill nor I
is Charles Atlas, so we didn't see how we could liberate this chick.

This drain was right next to the playing field track and people were walking
around it to get exercise. Amazingly, there was a well-muscled fellow
walking around the track and holding a bar bell with significant weights on
it above his head. He and his wife came over, curious about what bird we
were seeing. When we explained the situation, this man pulled up the grate
over the drain (yeah!) and I climbed down and took out the tiny Killdeer
chick. The chick didn't look nearly as energetic as it had been yesterday,
in fact it looked pretty weak, but its parent retrieved it, put wings around
it, etc. There was water down there with the chick, but no food, so I have
no idea if the little bird will survive. I'm almost afraid to go by there
tomorrow to see what's happening.

After this adventure we walked back home. As we approached our house, I
heard geese. I finally realized that, just like a week ago or so, there was
a large flock of geese flying overhead. We determined that these were
Cackling Geese. About a half an hour later, we were in our back yard and
another large flock of geese flew by just to the east of us. This time Bill
got a photo and they were White-fronted Geese. It seems like the stiff wind
we had here this afternoon was a good time for geese to migrate. I have a
photo of the White-fronted Geese in the eBird checklist, link below:

https://ebird.org/checklist/S67814799



Never a dull moment here in Edmonds. Who knows what bird tomorrow will
bring. Stay safe and enjoy birding when you can!

Charlotte Byers, Edmonds

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