Karen's Killdeer Nest Pages

Killdeer Nest
April 2012

Every time anyone would come close to the nest the bird sitting on the nest would do a broken wing, cripple bird dance. It would run a short distance from the nest. Then it acted like it had a broken wing, cry and pretend to limp away from the nest. Then as either the dog or I would get close to it, the wing magically healed and it would fly away. The dog never figured out there was a nest of eggs during the 4 weeks it was on the ground before hatching. Both parents did the cripple bird dance. Amazingly, the eggs hatched within a day of each other (started hatching late Friday April 6, 2012) and the birds were up and running Sunday morning early. By Sunday evening, they had left the yard and were in the retention pond area late Sunday evening. The day after they hatched, the babies could run almost as fast as the parents!

Sunday afternoon we found one dead in the yard (don't know why). Then about 8pm Sunday evening I went to water the trees in the back lot. The 3 babies and both parents were in the retention pond in the brush. I haven't seen them since but I sometimes hear the parents.

There is a short movie starring my birds with their broken wing act on YouTube.