Birds Playing Games

I have been hearing killdeer sounds coming from one of the ballfields for about a week, but never saw the birds. Well, yesterday, I was determined to find them and went all around there looking for them. There appeared to be two of them, a male and a female. The female was playing "I'm not nesting there, I'm nesting here" with me, a game usually played by males. I don't think I've seen her before, but she does look a little familiar.

Female

The male has two very distinctive white feathers on his back. I definitely haven't seen him before. He also appears to have an injury around the cloaca, but that could be something related to mating.

Male with white patches on his back

But, what was really weird is that they seemed to be purposely teasing the squirrels in one area. They were doing a full-blown broken wing act around them, not the red-tail flashing that Little Male did with his mate yesterday. And, the squirrels were actually chasing them. But, the killdeer only ran away and not flew. I would never think a squirrel would attack a wounded bird, though I wouldn't put past them eating some eggs or chicks. It could be that the squirrel was annoyed.

"Teasing" the squirrels

I couldn't see what the squirrel was eating, but it didn't look like eggs or chicks. I walked carefully around there, even looked outside the fence area nearby and saw no eggs or chicks anywhere. The ballpark is heavily used this time of year and any nest laid inside the fenced area will be destroyed. So, I'm hoping they don't lay eggs there, but I think that they're planning to and have it set in their head that the nest is there. That could be why they were doing the broken wing act.

In another area, the ducklings that I have named the "Fish Food Ducklings" because they spent their earliest days surrounded by huge fish, possibly trying to eat them, were having their own issue. They're big now at 3 1/2 weeks old. There's a man who comes around and feeds the water birds and these ducklings try to share a spot with some American coots. But, coots are territorial and constantly chase and harass the ducklings and the mother duck. But, I think the baby coots think this is all a game. They're having fun chasing everyone around, ducklings or other birds.

Gonna get cooties!

You guys gotta leave or you're gonna get cooties

Stealing females and update on the ducklings

M2 was nowhere to be seen, but I could definitely hear him. I still haven't found his nest, but I know it's around and it's probably within sight of people as I hear him trilling and making frustrated calls. But, I haven't spotted it. I swear, though, I heard him calling and saw him landing in a tree! I've never heard of killdeer ever being in a tree, even for a moment. I will definitely be looking upward for him if I can't find him otherwise. This will be an interesting observation. The only reason why he might be in the tree was to keep track of "Little Male" and his own territory. But, I don't think that killdeer have the right kind of feet to hold onto a perch.

In the meantime, I see he's been harassing "Little Male" off and on, claiming part of his territory on M1's south side. M1 often can be heard calling back to him. Later, sometimes, M1 will go off and call over M2, M3 and M5s' territory probably hoping to lure females away from them. In the past, M2 would ignore M1's attempt to steal mates, but now that he has a mate of his own, he has gotten involved and has begun to chase M1 sometimes. The birds chased each other out of sight and I couldn't see the result of the fight. These things can take hours, so it's no use to wait it out.

Update on Ducklings

More ducklings are hatching and I have recently seen at least a dozen brand new ones in the last few days. However, the lake is being lowered and that has put many ducklings in risk of being snapped up by fish and turtles. So, just about all the ducklings between 10 days and 5 weeks old have been in hiding. I haven't seen the seven that I fed the cereal to since that day, but their parents are around and I assume they're hiding. I occasionally see the one duckling that hatched in M1's territory.

Today, I think I might have seen the two ducklings I call the "Drama Ducklings" because I wrote a photo essay about how one got away and got lost. They got lost two days later, but since then, their mom has been glued to their side. I haven't seen them in four days, but I thought I saw two small ducks swimming around the reeds in the "restricted area". They disappeared quickly. I went to where I could look into the reeds from across the bay and saw a small "cave" with mom and dad sitting in the front and it looked like two dark fluffballs sticking out of the reeds behind them. Mom was looking back often, either grooming herself or keeping an eye on her babies. But, I couldn't totally verify if there were really two ducklings there as there are also small coots and grebes nearby, too.

I may not get to see them again until they fill up the lake after the road repairs, which will be in about a month. It will be good to see how many survived. I want all of them to survive because they're so cute! However, that wouldn't work very well in nature. God (or nature if you prefer) has given ducks the ability to produce lots of eggs and young so that enough will survive to keep the species going, but at the same time provide food for other organisms as much as I don't like to think about it.

The "Drama Ducklings" at 10 days old, the last time I saw them

M4 had a female in his territory

M4 had a female in his territory the other day. In this case, it was hard to tell which was male or female as the one that I thought was M4 was very calm and didn't mind me, which the killdeer I didn't know was going crazy, hiding, yelling, screaming. It's very possible that the one I thought was M4 and had posted about earlier was actually a regular female visitor to his territory. When I first got there, M4 began to hide.

Sorry for the blur on these photos.

You can't see me, but I've got my eye on you!

Equivalent to Bo Derek in 10 for killdeers. Hmm, looks suspiciously like the one I thought was M4 earlier

Females can be picky about who they mate with

OK, now that I'm way over here, I want to tell you to stop looking at my girlfriend! I think this is the real M4 because he is the one doing the territorial displays and the most yelling, but I could have them reversed.

This was the only killdeer I saw the next time, making territorial calls, but acting like good old Mr. Cool this time. Looks like he's been roughed up a bit.

I don't know what happened to the female after that as it's been a couple of days and I haven't seen her.

"Little Male" takes a mate

"Little Male" (to be known as 1st Male, Male1 or M1) has taken a mate and selected a nesting site. He is very aggressive in defending that site and his mate. He doesn't want me to pay any attention to her at all and will fly around, yelling, if I look her way. (I think he was also trying to impress her with his "protection skills") I call the female Female2 or F2 because she's the second female I've seen this season.

"Little Male" (M1) and his mate (F2)

F2 heads down into the water under M1's protection

F2 is keeping her eye on me

I think I know where he's going to put his nest because he gets really excited if I walk near that spot and comes up to me really close (less than 10 feet away) or flies up near me and then runs or flies away. It's in an area that is not accessed by people that much, but still accessible to humans and their dogs. Hopefully, no one will mess with their nest or chicks. I plan to "nest watch" only on the less busy days so as not to draw too much attention to me going into that area and all the noise that they will make when I do.

I saw a hawk drop down in that area and start walking around the lake shore. Both M1 and F2 mobbed it, flying around, screaming, diving at it. I thought that maybe it was after some eggs or chicks, but there weren't any. It was probably looking for something like that, though. Those two potential parents didn't let it stay in peace.

Meanwhile, "Second Male" (Male2 or M2) has taken over part of "Little Male's" former territory on the other side of the lake. Since M1 has a mate and has become more defensive, he makes a lot more noise to which M2 responds to very loudly, even flying over the area proclaiming it as his own. M1 seems to be staying only on the one side of the lake, probably to better defend the possible nesting site.

"Second Male", M2 flies over his new portion of his territory, yelling his proclamation