Brother Tom sent these pictures of a Killdeer egg.
It’s easier to spot a Killdeer egg in dirt than in gravel where Killdeer eggs are usually laid, but still, it’s hard to spot. That got me thinking about a lesson learned several years ago. A friend of ours found a Killdeer nest right in his gravel driveway. He knew where it was and could drive around it, but he didn’t want anyone else to drive in and accidentally run over it, so he got some little landscaping flags on wires you use to mark where sprinklers are. He marked out where the nest was to protect it…… The next morning he found the nest destroyed. The raccoons found it and ate the eggs. The next year, Judy and I were in the KOA in Cortez and encountered the same situation; a killdeer nest in the campground gravel road. No-one had driven over it yet, but it seemed just a matter of time. I gathered up some stones and marked the spot of the nest with little river-rock cairns. That’s when I got the epiphany. The reason the other killdeer eggs got eaten was because something was done to protect them. Something unusual was next to the nest, which invited the raccoons over to investigate. I went back and scattered the stones. I removed the invitation for the unintended consequence.
It’s easier to spot a Killdeer egg in dirt than in gravel where Killdeer eggs are usually laid, but still, it’s hard to spot. That got me thinking about a lesson learned several years ago. A friend of ours found a Killdeer nest right in his gravel driveway. He knew where it was and could drive around it, but he didn’t want anyone else to drive in and accidentally run over it, so he got some little landscaping flags on wires you use to mark where sprinklers are. He marked out where the nest was to protect it…… The next morning he found the nest destroyed. The raccoons found it and ate the eggs. The next year, Judy and I were in the KOA in Cortez and encountered the same situation; a killdeer nest in the campground gravel road. No-one had driven over it yet, but it seemed just a matter of time. I gathered up some stones and marked the spot of the nest with little river-rock cairns. That’s when I got the epiphany. The reason the other killdeer eggs got eaten was because something was done to protect them. Something unusual was next to the nest, which invited the raccoons over to investigate. I went back and scattered the stones. I removed the invitation for the unintended consequence.