What we have here...


...is the failure to understand the concept "fence".

As I was walking past the high school track and fields one morning last month, I heard what sounded like a hawk calling, but very close. I looked up at the power lines and the tops of the trees, but couldn't find anything. It got louder and I realized it was down, not up.


(not my photo)

There, just the other side of the 8 foot high chain link fence, was a killdeer (Latin: Charadrius vociferous, and man, can it yell) in full 'drag my wing like it's broken and call piteously to lead the predator away from the nest' mode. I dunno where she has her nest; there's no gravel / sand there (they're shallow gravel nesters; my dad has them in his chat driveway every year) except the pits for the long-jump and pole-vault. Of course, if this one was dumb enough to nest at a very busy high school facility, maybe she was dumb enough to put her nest in the grass where it would be run over by the mowers every couple of weeks. Who knows. (Oh, what's a killdeer doing at the high school? Well, we're only 5 miles from the Missouri River bottom...)

I shook my head at her, said, "I'm not after your babies, you silly bird, I'm on the other side of the fence," and kept walking.

Posted: Fri - August 14, 2009 at 09:08 PM   Home         | | View Technorati reactions

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