I'm posting a weeks worth of Killdeer behavior images on this single page to better illustrate the behavior of the nesting Killdeer. I'll also be very busy this week and may not have the opportunity to post and comment much for the next seven days.

Top image: I had stopped along the right shoulder of a gravel road to check out some Bluebird boxes on the other side of the road when out of the corner of my eye I noticed movement in the grass on the right hand side, not far from my vehicle. It was a Killdeer doing its broken wing and calling act intended to draw intruders away from their nest. I got out of my vehicle, camera ready and managed to get of a few shots before............


.... the Killdeer trotted off, stopped to see if I was following and then repeated its act several times.


Suddenly there was motion and frantic calling just a short distance from me. I turned and saw a second Killdeer, very agitated sitting on a nest. When I turned to take a shot, this Killdeer left the nest and joined the first in their "Poor me, Broken Wing Act" at all times keeping an eye on me to see if I would follow.


I quickly took a shot of this Killdeer doing its act.


I then took a few shots of the nest before quickly retreating to allow the Killdeer to get back to its nest. At that time, I noticed that there were several eggs in the nest. I did not notice the one hatched baby Killdeer in between the three eggs. I only saw it when I put the images up on my screen and I had to look twice then. I'm amazed at the size of the young baby. It doesn't seem possible that it came out of one of those much smaller eggs. Perhaps it was several days old already???


As soon as I stepped back onto the road, the sitting Killdeer returned to the nest, whilst the other continued its antics.


The Killdeer resumed nest sitting whilst keeping a wary eye on me, now back in my vehicle.