Scott
Verified User
Just finished an article with the title of this thread, thought others might like to see it. Quoting from it below:
**
The Killdeer is a large Plover which makes its nest in short vegetation where the female can lay her clutch, usually comprised of four to six beige eggs with dark markings. Albany is known for its cold weather, meaning that the Killdeer tend to delay laying their eggs until well into May, once the temperatures start to warm up.
I always know when it is nesting time for the Killdeer because of the loud and active interaction the birds have with my dogs, who invariably come close to the eggs of a nesting pair, prompting a display of the various techniques the Killdeer use to distract potential predators and lure them away from the nest and its eggs.
[snip]
Monday morning came in sunny and warm, a much-needed break from the cold, wet weather that had plagued us for the past two weeks. I drove up to the spot where we normally parked our car, well below the stretch of field where the Killdeer nest was situated and let the dogs out.
Immediately I sensed something was wrong.
The dogs had made their way up the hill, toward the nest, and there was no sound at all from the Killdeer pair. And as my eyes tracked the movement of my dogs, I suddenly realized that I wouldn’t have to worry about buying marker flags for the nest anymore.
Parked in the field, just off the edge of the gravel path, was a large yellow earthmover. Across the path was a natural gas pipeline maintenance facility. Back in April the City of Albany had granted the operator of this facility an easement on property adjacent to the park for the purpose of replacing a section of pipeline. The earthmover was part of the equipment being brought in to accomplish this work.
[snip]
My research led me to a passage which explained that while a Killdeer breeding pair would normally only produce one clutch of eggs per breeding season, if their first clutch were to be eaten or otherwise destroyed early in the breeding season, then the Killdeer would often lay a second clutch of eggs.
This explained the behavior of the Killdeer pair—they weren’t defending a ghost nest but rather staking their claim to a new nesting site. If things went well, in a week or so I should expect to be confronted with a father Killdeer perfectly executing the broken-wing technique to draw my dogs away from the area of the field where the mother Killdeer sat watch on her eggs, incubating them until the moment the miracle of life brought forth the next generation of chirping, fleeting, flying beauties.
Life, given its finite nature, is about the inevitability of heartbreak—ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
But even as death waits on the horizon for us all, it is the miracle of life that gives us both hope for the future and a reason to go on, regardless of the obstacles placed in our way.
We march forward, each day leading to an inescapable destiny, driven not by the despair of our impending doom, but rather the joy of the gift of life we have been given.
Life isn’t fair.
And it often results in tragedy.
But the act of living, of going through the motions of life, is what brings joy into this world.
**
Full article (probably only for a limited time before it goes behind a paywall):
scottritter.substack.com
**
How my interaction with a pair of birds taught me one of life's most important lessons
[snip]The Killdeer is a large Plover which makes its nest in short vegetation where the female can lay her clutch, usually comprised of four to six beige eggs with dark markings. Albany is known for its cold weather, meaning that the Killdeer tend to delay laying their eggs until well into May, once the temperatures start to warm up.
I always know when it is nesting time for the Killdeer because of the loud and active interaction the birds have with my dogs, who invariably come close to the eggs of a nesting pair, prompting a display of the various techniques the Killdeer use to distract potential predators and lure them away from the nest and its eggs.
[snip]
Monday morning came in sunny and warm, a much-needed break from the cold, wet weather that had plagued us for the past two weeks. I drove up to the spot where we normally parked our car, well below the stretch of field where the Killdeer nest was situated and let the dogs out.
Immediately I sensed something was wrong.
The dogs had made their way up the hill, toward the nest, and there was no sound at all from the Killdeer pair. And as my eyes tracked the movement of my dogs, I suddenly realized that I wouldn’t have to worry about buying marker flags for the nest anymore.
Parked in the field, just off the edge of the gravel path, was a large yellow earthmover. Across the path was a natural gas pipeline maintenance facility. Back in April the City of Albany had granted the operator of this facility an easement on property adjacent to the park for the purpose of replacing a section of pipeline. The earthmover was part of the equipment being brought in to accomplish this work.
[snip]
My research led me to a passage which explained that while a Killdeer breeding pair would normally only produce one clutch of eggs per breeding season, if their first clutch were to be eaten or otherwise destroyed early in the breeding season, then the Killdeer would often lay a second clutch of eggs.
This explained the behavior of the Killdeer pair—they weren’t defending a ghost nest but rather staking their claim to a new nesting site. If things went well, in a week or so I should expect to be confronted with a father Killdeer perfectly executing the broken-wing technique to draw my dogs away from the area of the field where the mother Killdeer sat watch on her eggs, incubating them until the moment the miracle of life brought forth the next generation of chirping, fleeting, flying beauties.
Life, given its finite nature, is about the inevitability of heartbreak—ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
But even as death waits on the horizon for us all, it is the miracle of life that gives us both hope for the future and a reason to go on, regardless of the obstacles placed in our way.
We march forward, each day leading to an inescapable destiny, driven not by the despair of our impending doom, but rather the joy of the gift of life we have been given.
Life isn’t fair.
And it often results in tragedy.
But the act of living, of going through the motions of life, is what brings joy into this world.
**
Full article (probably only for a limited time before it goes behind a paywall):
Heartbreak and Hope: The Lesson of the Killdeer
How my interaction with a pair of birds taught me one of life's most important lessons
scottritter.substack.com