Killdeer are Back

Another sure sign of spring here in Eastern Idaho is the return of the killdeer. When I hear their peculiar call, my heart soars knowing that spring is here and that summer sin't far behind.

Again, I'm grateful I live in a place where the killdeer will come. We don't often see them in our back yard, but last year we did have a pair that nested in the alley and occasionally came into the yard looking for bugs. We're also not far from that ubiquitous cow pasture, so hearing their calls isn't an uncommon occurrence.

Odd thing -- we don't often see them doing their broken wing act, even if we get close. They'll do their little chirpy calls -- but not the piping, which I've heaerd from killdeer in some YouTube videos -- but when we get cloe, they just jog along even faster. The broken-wing and piping things must be for their eastern counsins. They do perform their killdeer chant which, for me, is always enchanting.

Now that we've got a good digital video camera, I plan on doing some birding this spring and summer, just for the fun of it.

I see (and hear) these little buggers out at work all the time. We often have a pair nest in the little patch of grass outside our trailer, so all spring long we can hear them chattering outside and, when the eggs hatch, we can watch the chicks scuttle about and be herded around by mom and dad. Just another advantage to working at a nuclear waste dump way in the hell out in the middle of nowhere.