Killdeer, one of our favorite birds
We came upon this adult as we were hiking one of the trails near the Visitor's Center at the refuge. It started to act stressed so we stopped immediately.
It ran a few feet away and began a Broken-wing Display.
Their nests are merely a scrape on open ground, sometimes surrounded by bits of debris as camouflage: the birds as well as their eggs have evolved to be virtually invisible in their habitat.
Broken-wing Displays are performed as the bird distracts potential predators (us in this case) by acting injured and appearing to be easy prey, thus drawing attention away from a nearby nest or young.
This bird even took it to the next step and ran ahead (even though we were not advancing!) and appeared to be adjusting to settling down on its nest. A minute later it got up, ran a few yards and settled down on another fake nest, again trying to draw a potential predator away from its actual nest or
young in this case. We backed away slowly to leave the Killdeer family alone!
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