The Killdeer is the shorebird that skipped the shore — a slim, double-banded plover as at home on gravel driveways, ballfields, and flat rooftops as any mudflat. The name is its call: a shrill, insistent "kill-deer! kill-deer!" that erupts the moment anything approaches. They're among Michigan's earliest returning migrants, back on half-frozen fields by mid-March.
Killdeer nests are audacious: four speckled eggs in a bare scrape amid open gravel, defended by theater rather than concealment. The famous broken-wing act — dragging a fanned "injured" wing away from the nest while crying piteously — lures predators (and worried humans) safely off before a miraculous recovery and flight.
Insects and other invertebrates — beetles, grasshoppers, earthworms, larvae — picked from open ground in the plover's run-stop-peck rhythm. Fields freshly plowed or watered are Killdeer magnets.
Almost certainly not — that's the Killdeer's broken-wing display leading you away from eggs or chicks nearby. Back away the way you came and watch it "recover" instantly.
Cone off a small buffer if you can and wait: incubation runs about 24–26 days, and the chicks leave the nest within hours of hatching. The problem solves itself quickly.
Purely for its voice — the loud two-note call sounds like "kill-deer." Early naturalists named several birds this way; it has nothing to do with deer.
Roughly March to November. The heart of the season falls from April through October, and departure is usually more gradual and less noticeable than arrival.
Miniature adults on long legs, downy and running within hours of hatching, but with a single breast band rather than the adult's two. The parent's broken-wing distraction display is aimed at drawing you away from them.
Yes, after nesting — late summer and fall groups gather on mudflats, plowed fields, and gravel lots, sometimes several dozen together. During the breeding season they are strictly territorial pairs.
Other birds you might be looking at instead.
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