For the Birds: Killdeer love lawns - and Cromwell Park

Killdeer baby, Olympia
Photo by Keith Brady

By Christine Southwick

Killdeer can be found running and searching for insects and other delicacies along water edges, on lawns, gravelly driveways and parking lots, and even golf courses. This mostly land-based shorebird prefers earthworms, snails, and aquatic insect larvae, but will eat large insects, grasshoppers, beetles, even small frogs and dead minnows and crawfish. Being an opportunistic eater it can thrive in places other birds ignore.

Killdeer
Photo by Glenn Hansen

Killdeer got their name from their loud call that sounds like “Killdeerr”. They call early and into the night, and even on the wing. You will usually hear a Killdeer before you see it. Their coloring blends with many backgrounds (except the lawns) making it hard to notice. It usually runs in bursts, then stops to search for its next meal, sort of like a robin. It is most easily identified by its round head, shorebird-length legs, double chest bands, and by their loud distinct call.

Killdeer will nest in almost any open, fairly flat area with vegetation one inch or lower, and that has sufficient water and food nearby. The male make several scrapes, not-built nests, on the ground, and the female selects the one she’ll use for her four to six eggs. The other nest scrapes may help confuse predators, and from time to time the parents add twigs and rocks to the scrapes.

The "broken wing" trick
Photo by Doug Parrott

Like all plovers, the babies are precocial—meaning that they are born with full feathers, and as soon as the feathers dry from hatching, the babies start running around. The babies are tiny, only have one neck ring and hide under their parents for protection. The watchful parents protect their young by loudly faking a broken wing and leading any predator astray.

Killdeer mother and chick
Photo by John Tubbs

In Shoreline, check out Cromwell Park, with its wetlands created to slow and clean rain runoff flowing into the north branch of Thornton Creek. Now that the native plants are filling in, both Killdeer and Red-winged Blackbirds are raising their young within viewing range of observant people.

Another place you can usually find a Killdeer or two is at Thornton Place near Northgate, where the Northgate branch of Thornton Creek is day-lighted.

The nest by the side of the road
Photo by Leah Serna

Listen for loud “Kill-deerr, Kill-deerr” starting about April when they have returned from wintering in South America. Then look on the ground for a bird about the size of a long-legged robin, running, stopping, then running again. You will find your noisy Killdeer.

Christine Southwick is on the Board of the Puget Sound Bird Observatory and is their Winter Urban Color-banding Project Manager. She is a National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat Steward, having completed their forty hour class. We're happy that she is sharing her expertise with us about the birds in our backyards.

For previous For the Birds columns, click on the link under the Features section on the main webpage.