Saturday, May 16, 2009

Killfawns to Be



Never heard of a killfawn? Well, simply put, what would a baby killdeer be? Certainly nothing other than a killfawn. One of the birds present in the gravel quarries of Marblehead are killdeer, and this mom was nesting right on the bare gravel, with only a few sprigs of spiked blazing star near her nest. Aren't those eggs precious?

They'll soon hatch, and the quarries of Marblehead will be filled with killfawns.

I'll be up on Ohio's north coast three more days this upcoming week, again censusing the Lakeside Daisy. I'm starting to see them everywhere I go, today, for example, in Huron County. But they're not Lakeside Daisies, they are only dandelions. That's what happens when the image of a plant gets burned into my brain.

Tom

8 comments:

  1. I had forgotten how well camouflaged the eggs are, an amazing adaptation. The mother’s fake broken wing performance is Oscar worthy as well.

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  2. When I was small, most of the roads except the state routes, were gravel over dirt and later tar on top with a dressing of pea gravel. Along the edges of the roads was all gravel and in those edges one could see Killdeer ever few yards. They would fly and flop their wings trying to persuade you to follow them and skip the nest in gravel. Their eggs so closely matched the gravel that it was easy to overlook them altogether.

    Another creature that has almost disappeared that was once to prominent is the dung beetle. I have not seen one of them in decades. I have a family of raccoons who stop off here from time to time and their toilet it along the board fence and I would have thought a dung beetle would be at work but so far none have showed up.

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  3. LOL! Love the name...I hope you get photos of the "killfawns". I really want to see one. The only nest I saw was in a terrible place...we almost parked out car on it.... and when I went back later it was gone....don't know what happened to the mother or if the eggs hatched.

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  4. I had a nesting killdeer driving me nuts one year in Canada. The CONSTANT calling--gads! Killdeer, killdeer, killdeer! I was at work, so I couldn't get away from it. Day after day after day, it would NOT shut up! Up until then, I'd liked killdeer!

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  5. Tom: Neat photo of the Killdeer and the eggs, the eggs do look so neat.
    I took my Brother-In-Law from Florida to The Kent Bog and shared the Tamarack Tree with him.

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  6. I just found out the name of the moth, Tom, is a Dead Leaf Moth. My daughter located it and sent me the link...

    http://www.animalsandearth.com/animal/photos/135429

    Brookville Daily Photo

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  7. Wow! You can hardly see the eggs in the gravel. How in the world do you take a daisy census? Good Luck!

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  8. When we are in Canada, these glorious little things are all over. I love to see them scurry along the ground. Good Luck with the Daisy scouting expedition.

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