by Lara Jackson

Created on: November 23, 2009

In a high-pitched voice that carries long distances, the Killdeer calls out its name to tell all of its presence. "Kill-dee! Kill-dee! Kill-dee!" If you look up, you may see a slender-winged, robin-sized bird flitting this way and that at high speeds.

Killdeer have several calls, but this flight call is by far the best known, and gave the bird its English name. Their Latin name, Charadrius vociferous, is an indication of their noisy behavior as well. Usually easy to recognize, Killdeer are the largest of the ringed plovers, and the only one in their range to have a double breast-band. On the ground, they have a jerky, exploratory style; quick bursts of running interspersed with pauses to look around. When they're slightly alarmed, such as when they spot a human, they often bob their whole bodies up and down briefly, as if they're trying to get a different angle on things. In the air, killdeer are graceful, quick fliers with stiff wing-beats, similar to American kestrels in their flight pattern.

Killdeer are well-known for reasons beyond their recognizable flight call. Found throughout North America as far north as the tundra, with some populations ranging as far south as northern South America, they can be seen all over the U.S. Moreover, they are birds of flat spaces, and are as happy to use human-made spaces as natural ones. They're found on cultivated fields, lawns, golf courses, athletic fields, gravel roofs and parking lots, in addition to natural meadows, grasslands, mudflats and sandbars. Unlike most other plovers and similar shorebirds, killdeer are often found far from water. They are a familiar bird species even to many people who don't make it far beyond the city.

A specialist of the wide open spaces, killdeer feed on the ground and eat a variety of insects, earthworms, snails and seeds. Adaptable foragers, they will follow the farmer's plow and eat whatever gets turned up in the dirt or killed, and have been observed hunting frogs. They will feed on mudflats and in water as well, but unlike most so-called shorebirds, their real specialty is feeding on dry ground.

They nest on the open ground, too, leaving their nests especially vulnerable to danger. They've developed a couple of specialized behaviors to deal with this, the most infamous of which is the "broken-wing display." Although not the only birds to exhibit this behavior, they're certainly the best-known.

A predator is approaching the nest. They probably don't know the nest is there - most predators

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