Journal of a Sabbatical

July 9, 2001

distraction display

Today's Bird Sightings:
Plum Island
brown thrasher (2)
purple finch (1)
herring gull (11)
gray catbird (10)
American goldfinch (2)
yellow warbler (1)
red winged blackbird (17)
short billed dowitcher (66)
Wilson's phalarope (2)
killdeer (8)
least sandpiper (18)
snowy egret (5)
gadwall (10)
willet (1)
mallard (3)
lesser yellowlegs (1)
eastern kingbird (3)
Canada goose (6)
bobolink (5)
American robin (3),
house sparrow (1)
great egret (1)
northern rough winged swallow (15)
tree swallow (15)
Baltimore oriole (2)
double crested cormorant (7)
cedar waxwing (1)
mourning dove (2)
northern mockingbird (1)

Today's Reading: Return of the Osprey by David Gessner

Today's Starting Pitcher:
All-Star Break - tonight is the home run hitting contest

The Lists

2001 Book List

2001 Plum Island Bird List

Plum Island Life List

The Past

two years ago

three years ago

four years ago

five years ago

These days the major thing that strikes me when I do a drive-by birding pass in the refuge is the number and visibility of killdeer chicks. While I've seen young of robins, willets, and osprey it's mainly been lucky glimpses. But the killdeer chicks have been right out in the open all over the place, with parents protecting them of course.

Tonight's killdeer encounter reached new heights though. As I am driving down the road, I stop for a killdeer chick in the road. It's a really small one, maybe from a second brood, definitely younger than the others I just saw at the salt pannes. A pair of adult killdeer put on a distraction display, one on either side of the road.

First both adults shriek an alarm note that warns the chick to freeze. The chick squats motionless in the road. I've read there's supposed to be an all-clear signal but I don't get to hear it because, of course, my car, the predator, is still here. We have a stand off.

Killdeer are well known for their techniques of distracting predators or just accidental interlopers from their nests or young. If it's a browsing animal that just stumbles unintentionally toward the nest or the chick the adult will run or fly directly at the intruder, flying around it and calling loudly. They don't do this with my car, so I guess they think I'm a real intentional predator.

Both adults crouch down on the ground right next to the road with one wing spread and hanging as though broken. In both cases it's the right wing. Both birds flop around as if wounded, calling loudly the whole time. The idea is supposedly that the intruder gets drawn towards the seemingly wounded or helpless bird, which always manages to move away, decoying the intruder farther and farther from the chicks or the nest. This is where it gets weird. The one on the left side of road flops into the road in front of my car and drags itself away from the chick expecting my car (the predator in question) to follow. The one on the right side of the road flops and limps and drags itself away from the road into the grass towards the marsh, also expecting my car to follow. Meanwhile, the chick is still in the road so I can't go anywhere.

Another car comes up behind me and pulls around to pass, clearly the driver is thinking I'm just some nutty birder blocking traffic. The adult killdeers shriek even louder. The other car stops for a few seconds and miraculously, the chick scurries off into the bushes. The other car proceeds on its way. Both adults miraculously "recover" and fly off.