Killdeer are marvelous birds. They wear a handsome double necklace for easy identification by eye. They fly around shouting their name – KillDEER! KillDEER! -- for easy identification by ear. (It would be impressive if they shouted their Latin name – ChaRAdrius voCIFerus! -- but harder to remember.)
ShutterGlow.com
Famously, when any worrisome creature comes near their nest or chicks, they go into an elaborate act to entice the intruder away. They stumble along the ground dragging a wing, shrieking. “Look over here! I have a broken wing! Look! I can't fly! You'll catch me easily! Oh no! C'mon!” They keep stumbling and wing-dragging, and if you don't rush after them, they will circle to give you another chance. “Dude! I'm crippled here! Fresh meat! C'mon!”
I fell for this the first time I saw it and ran after the injured bird, planning to rescue it and subject it to life-saving treatment. Somehow, dreadfully hurt as it was, it managed to stay out of my grasp. As soon as I was far from where the killdeer didn't want me to be, it suddenly turned out not to have a broken wing and flew off. I stood astonished. “What? ...Oh. Wow, I read about that.”
It seems as if such splendid birds would be rare, not as easily seen as they are.
It's a good thing killdeer (it's also okay to say killdeers) have such a clever trick for protecting their nests and chicks, because their nests are on the ground, and their chicks scamper around for a few weeks before they can fly. Lots of killdeer chicks end up in the hands of wildlife rehabilitators.
Now, one difficult thing wildlife rehabilitators learn is not to form loving relationships with the wildlife. If an animal learns to love and trust people while it's in rehab, it might trust people it meets after it's been released. A bobcat can get killed that way. Or a duck.
A baby animal may also imprint on human caretakers, and never mate with its own species.
So wildlife rehabbers go to a lot of trouble to keep their animal charges at an emotional distance, no matter how adorable they find them. This is a hard lesson for animal lovers to learn, and many professionals take pride in having learned it, enforce it rigorously, and are quick to criticize those who don't seem to take it seriously enough.
That's why I won't tell you who I'm quoting, or what organization they work with. This person understands the need not to cuddle up, and puts that into practice most of the time. But not all species are alike, and killdeer, this person says, killdeer are great! No matter what you do, they'll never love you. “You can kiss them, but they never get tame.”
Salvez Dodd
that is indeed a dapper bird. (and i love the semi-shameless anthropomorphism tag.
Posted by: marjorie | March 22, 2010 at 10:49 AM
Yes, it's even dapper as a child. Dapper and kissable.
(I think you are the first to note the tag....)
Posted by: Susan McCarthy | March 22, 2010 at 10:56 AM
I always found that wing-dragging behavior impressive. But wouldn't the local wildlife catch on after millennia? Shouldn't natural selection among killdeer predators made the trick obsolete? Just wondering.
Posted by: Elizabeth | March 23, 2010 at 03:24 PM
Yes, red foxes get wise to the stunt. Grouse do these displays too, and foxes have been witnessed ignoring the brave dramatics of the parent, inspecting the area from which it sprang, and snapping up chicks.
In places where there are lots of naive young foxes, parent grouse are more likely to do the display, but in areas where the foxes are more experienced, grouse are less likely to bother.
Dogs can learn to ignore the adult bird with the fake injury.
That's not catching on after millennia, but in an individual's lifetime. I don't know if there's enough selective pressure to build skepticism about apparently injured parent birds into a predator, given that I don't think any of them live exclusively on killdeer or grouse. Probably more importantly, breeding season isn't that big a proportion of the year.
Posted by: Susan McCarthy | March 23, 2010 at 04:47 PM