Each year we have wildlife encounters here at the nursery.   We’ve got all sorts of bird stories, and encounters with groundhogs, racoons, deer, and skunks to name a few.  This week, we found a Killdeer nest out in one of our tree production areas.  They had built the nest between two posts right between our irrigation lines. 

A shorebird which you can see without going to the beach!  They are tawny colored and run across the ground in little spurts, stop and jolt around again.  They make their nests on the ground, preferably in rock or stone – which made our production areas the perfect spot!  They are great actors – when taking the photos, they would run from their nest – and do a death scene better than any Hollywood actor to distract me away from the nest.   Their voice carries far and excitedly sounds like ‘kill…..deer’ – hence their name.

We have placed orange cones around the area to keep vehicles and people away until the eggs hatch and the little ones have flown away.