there is a killdeer couple that have been hanging around the garden for the last couple of weeks. they tend to be pretty noisy and recently i've noticed them becoming even noisier and doing their "i'm injured and won't be able to get away from you" dance if i happened to be out in the yard and moving around much which was a clue that they had a nest close by.

this morning there was a LOT of dancing and screeching and when i investigated i discovered Cricket kitty on the front porch. i let her in and went back to watch the parent birds to see if i could see any chicks with them. sure enough there WAS one. running about on it's tiny stilt like legs in one of the cleared out planters. i ran for my camera.

i suspected that the closest parent bird would make a big fuss in an effort to lead me away from the chick and that the chick, rather than follow, would drop down and become almost invisible.
this is exactly what happened. i was able to walk right up to it and even touch it without it so much as blinking. meanwhile the parent bird was really putting on the dance and trying to pull my attention away from junior.

i didn't want to overly stress the birds so after i got a few shots of both of them i pulled back just enough for the parent bird to think that she could safely encourage the chick to get up and quickly and quietly run for the pine hedges while she continued to do the distraction jive, simultaneously inserting herself between the chick and i.

junior did just what he/she was told.

i thought it was so funny that the legs and feet of the chick were almost the same size as the adult birds while the rest of it was all fluff and tiny stuff~!!~

you can see that it still has it's downy feathers and not even much of a tail just yet . . .

later i found that the parent birds were watching over not just this one chick but at least two and very possibly more. it seems that the parent birds don't always keep them all herded up together in one group all of the time . . . possibly so that if a predator does find them it doesn't kill the whole nest full . ? .

the parent birds have led the little ones all over the place as they demonstrate the art of catching bugs and the "hide while i distract" behavior as necessary. it's been fabulously fun to see this new family out and about in the garden today.

i do worry that my cats will terminate any happy endings here but i'll keep them locked down as much as possible. and btw: the mowing will just have to wait a week or two.

:-)