Last night, while walking through the same field, I encountered the same bird, which started the same display. Being fond of these noisy, comical birds, which look like slightly malfunctioning windup toys, with their ultrafast gait and sudden stops, I immediately shifted into investigative mode. I proceeded through the field at an excruciatingly slow pace... it was like an inversion of navigating a minefield- a methodical creep while scanning for the slightest hint of anything out of the ordinary, not because of a fear of one's own destruction, but for a concern to avoid the destruction of an innocent family of charming neighbors. I was cast in the role of an unwilling Godzilla, liable to stomp on a happy home. My patience paid off, I was able to discover the minimalist excuse of a nest, scratched into a bare spot of ground:
I marked the vicinity of the spot by jamming a stick into the ground vertically, then placing two sticks parallel on the ground, flanking the nest. I left a note for one of the daytime managers, who has a soft spot in his heart for animals, so he could let everybody on the day shift know to give this particular spot a wide birth so as not to trample on these precious treasures, hidden so well in plain sight.
5 comments:
We used to get killdeer nesting in the center strip of our gravel driveway every year (and man do their eggs blend in well with a crushed gravel driveway). The freshly-hatched chicks are perhaps the cutest little things you'll ever see:
Example. (not my photo)
That's an awesome picture. Those gangly legs really are something.
I love my co-workers- when I arrived at work last night, I noticed that they had cordoned the area off in a more thorough fashion. We all have a realization that our workplace is someplace special, so we go out of our way to keep it that way.
I never cease to be amazed by nature, what a clever little actor.
We get Californian quail in the Zealandia Wildlife sanctuary. Obviously they are not an indigenous NZ species so managing the population is not a high priority for Zealandia's management -- though they provide a food source for the local population of NZ falcon, and are therefore a positive contribution to the broad scheme of things -- but the chicks are as cute as cuteness incarnate. They are camouflaged with edge-disrupting stripes and blotches, so you do not actually see them scuttling after their parents, just a general sense of movement like leaves blowing in the wind, until you remember that there is no wind blowing.
Cool shot...YOU MONSTER!!!
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