With the first day spent at the salt marsh in adverse weather I came back more prepared and with comfort! The day would prove to be a long one. Six hours in total watching and waiting; which can be its own entertainment as well. I was even greeted by two deer (sorry no photo of that, camera was pre-occupied.) The nest has been around for approximately 2-3 weeks according to a local beach walker. Leaning toward the third week. Meaning they could hatch any day now and today was that day.

The killdeer began to hatch one after the other. She had laid three eggs which tends to be more rare then the more common four (how they hold a huge portion of the future inside them like that is beyond me with the size of the eggs in relation to her body.) Later that day while I changed a card (own nothing bigger then 8gb cards) I saw a hatchling tucked away. After quickly retreating I observed a head pop-up. Probably the first one I saw. When finally dry and with enough strength to greet the world a second soon followed. The third egg remained unhatched for the remainder of the stay. No worries however.The next day I returned to make sure all three eggs & eggshells were missing. Although stray cats can and could be the culprit I learned something new behaviorally from watching the killdeer.

Killdeer (and possibly other shore birds) will carry the egg shells away from the nest in order to protect it. After seeing the action occur more then once I was able to confirm it for myself. Later talking to Dina she told me one of the reasons this is done is to reduce the likeliness of visibility to aerial predators. The outside of the shell is spotted and beige similar to the sand with dark spots; while the inside is a pearly white and can shimmer being wet from the embryo.

Watching as the 2 of 3 were born, knowing my cards were getting full and the light was going from good to bad I left them to finish getting the offspring ready for their journey. Killdeer chicks will be ready to feed almost immediately and just need their parents to protect and guide them.

Taking some of their first peeks into the world.

Finally mustering up the courage to share their face with the world.

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Two side notes here. Some cool news tips:

• Mozilla is coming out with a newer version with their Firefox internet browser that is going to support color profiles. Finally coming one step closer to sharing the way we want to share the images we take with the world. Check this link out for all the details! (make sure to test it as it needs to be turned on. I wasn;t a fan in certain circumstances. Hope they work out the bugs.)
• Google buys up one million phone numbers for their upcoming Google Voice service. Wanted to update anyone who was still interested in getting full control of their phone services. Can’t wait for it to become available? Sign up here to get an invite as soon as it is available. Read about it’s features here and see how much it can do to help your business line.