Is it unethical for a videographer to peer at Mama Killdeer’s eggs in order to film the female doing her broken wing act? If so, I’m guilty. But she did perform with élan.
Killdeers are shorebirds … who don’t need a shore. If you don’t believe me, visit any high school football field or golf course, where you’ll likely find a nesting pair of Killdeer. They’ll help you find them by screaming “killdeer” as they fly off in alarm. In fact their Latin name testifies to their noisy habits: Charadrius Vociferus.
They produce “precocial” babies–babies that are already fluffy, ready to run, and able to feed themselves. What’s more, those babies are all born at the same time, no matter how many days apart the eggs were laid. That’s because the first egg laid does not begin to develop until the mother Killdeer begins incubating the eggs. She doesn’t do that until the last egg has been laid.
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