Over the weekend I finally had my camera back in my hands and was ready to put it back to work. I wasn’t sure quite what to photograph yet, but I was determined. I decided to scout a location with my friend just in case spring wasn’t truly over. Low and behold we came right upon a killdeer nest. Almost quite literally! Thankfully not though. The nest was awfully close to the trail head and it worried us that it was too close for comfort.

Killdeer are a shorebird that feeds along the shore edge in search of any tasty insect or even a crustacean or berry it can find. The killdeer breeds from Alaska to South America. They summer north to British Columbia, Utah, the Ohio Valley and Massachusetts. Their winter range can be found in Central America and they also maintain a  year round range throughout the US in particularly coastal regions.

As soon as I saw the nest I was very excited. I’ve never photographed a killdeer nest before. Reading a little about popular locations for killdeer nests you often find how much they actually come in contact with humans. For example you can find them often in places such as lawns, golf courses, driveways, parking lots, and gravel-covered roofs, as well as pastures, fields, sandbars and mudflats. They don’t build any sort of complex nest with rocks, twigs, saliva, lawn clippings, shrubbery, shells, etc. They use a simple depression in the ground selected very carefully to avoid high tide. Hiding their nest amongst the dead reeds, algae, trash and other deceased sea life. Their choice of location is absolutely fundamental and crucial to the survival of the nest. You would think to yourself; how is some shallow depression in the sand amongst seashells and humans’ crap going to protect their future offspring? I can tell you it sure as heck does. So well in fact you could be standing right next to it!

Can you find him? and this isn’t shot with as wide an angle that our eyes would be looking.

When I returned the next day with my tripod, D300 w/ Sigma 150mm f/2.8 macro, and wireless remote it took me over 30min to find the nest! Throughout the day even using surrounding natural markers to remember the nest location was difficult. It really is impressive witnessing natures camouflage in action.

Once I located the nest I slowy and carefully approached the nest. Set up my gear as quickly as possible and went at least 30-40ft away. Using my binoculars and my wireless remote I was able to get my photographs without disturbing their nesting behavior. This type of photography is a huge game of patience. Be prepared to sit for hours on end. In case of killdeer they swap places for incubation periods. So the other mate is normally around to keep an eye out and lure predators away. A signal you may be close (know your settings going into the scenario so you can be in and out of their quick.)

To give you an idea of how often they swap places during the 24-26 day incubation period I jotted down the times on this this day of monitoring that they switched places:

• I arrive at 6am
• 6:23am swap
• 6:30am jumps off nest calling for mate
• 6:32am returns to nest
• 7:40am swap
• 8:16am swap
• 8:39am swap
• 9:00am swap
• 9:44am swap
• 10:31am swap
• 11:01am swap

My first day was a tough one. Word of advice; bring anything and everything you need. From a book and notepad to an umbrella and foldable chair. As you can see at dawn the weather was awful. Downpours and wind. no fun at all. We push through it all to get what we need.

Checking on his/her eggs. There were a clutch of three eggs. More commonly you find a clutch (a clutch is a group of eggs) of four.

Stepping up and outward making sure no one will get close to her future generation.

I wanted to leave you with this last one to help spread the word about what we all too often don’t see. Not only does it make our photography difficult, but more importantly it interferes and even leads to the death of many birds and aquatic animals. As you can tell from this picture; what I am talking about is trash. So please when disposing of your items recycle the recyclables and properly put your refuse in the proper receptacle.

To be continued…