Killdeer and Piping Plovers
Also some last things from the California trip
First of all, I want to apologize for missing a few things from last week’s email. I was excited to share some of the American Avocets I saw out west. They are an elegant bird that are very fun to watch scurry around on stilt-like legs. This was my first time seeing them in breeding plumage, and the orangey color contrasted well with their black and white bodies. The star of the show, however, is the upturned bill.
I also had this photo of a mallard and killdeer that I liked from the Albany Mudflats.
Killdeer are birds that I see all the time at the lake. There’s a family of them around now, and the adults make loud peep calls to the kids along the beach. These Killdeer are fierce protectors of their young, chasing away other birds when they can and doing something called a broken-wing display when they can’t. It basically involves an adult Killdeer lying on the ground with a wing hanging limp, fluttering as if they can’t escape. This is a looney-tunes style distraction technique, and the idea is that the secretly healthy adult draws out the threat away from the chick, only to fly away as well. Here’s a local Killdeer adult and kid from the Montrose dunes.
The killdeer’s parental defense tactics were top of mind as I watched one chase away one of the new Piping Plover chicks that were introduced to the protected beach last week. These are three cute chicks from an abandoned nest that were delivered into prime habitat along with the older Imani, a plover that’s been around all summer but hasn’t found a mate yet. Piping Plovers are endangered in the Great Lakes region, which I think is language that reflects the federal government’s ability to protect significant populations, and not just species as a whole (in the northeast they are merely “threatened.”) I’m so glad these birds are able to have a safe home so close by, and thankful for the volunteer watchers who have been on the lookout for threats, human and otherwise. The birds are a great addition to the beach, and if you’re nearby and want to see them just look for the volunteer monitors out on the fishhook pier who are happy to show you where they are.
Otherwise this was a week of regular summer birding, albeit interrupted by wildfire smoke.
For those of you who are going to be upset by some photos that aren’t birds, you can pretend the post ended with the goldfinch. For the rest, I wanted to include a couple landscapes from Yosemite that I liked. Also this unrelated bunny from Monday. So noble.
I really enjoyed photographing the waterfalls and rapids, which were extra dramatic given the record snowfall this past winter (I’m told).
Love all