THE KILLDEER 
By WILLIAM DUTCHER 
National Association of Audubon Societies 
Educational Leaflet No. 23 
This Plover, which derives its name from its oft-repeated note of 
kildee, kildee, dee, dee, dee, should be a familiar bird to all those who 
wisely seek their health and pleasure out-of-doors with wide-open eyes. 
It wanders over the whole of temperate North America and it breeds 
throughout its entire range. In the winter months it is found from the 
latitude of the Gulf States to northern South America and in the West 
Indies, yet the writer has seen it on Long Island, New York, in 
every month of the year but January. 
It is impossible to overlook the Killdeer by reason of its beauty of 
coloring, its trim appearance, its stately walk when f ^ 
undisturbed, its rapid and graceful flight when Manners 
startled. Every bird has its characteristic motion 
in the air, and the student who is a close observer soon learns to know 
many birds from their appearance in flight even when their color is 
indistinguishable and their notes but faintly heard. 
The writer has many bird-pictures impressed upon his mind that 
never can be effaced while time lasts for him, and standing out among 
them in refreshing relief is a memory of a smoothly-flowing river gently 
winding its way from the hills through grassy meadows toward the sea, 
in which it would soon be lost. It was in early autumn, when nature 
exhibits her choicest colors and the birds are flocking for their leisurely 
journey to the distant southland, that a company of Killdeers were run- 
ning about in one of the brown fields beside this river, seeking a fare 
of succulent grasshoppers or crickets, all the while chatting with each 
other in colloquial tones. 
A human intruder appeared, and the startled birds arose from the 
ground in flight but were reluctant to leave so rich a 
foraging ground. They massed in solid ranks and 
whirled through the air, now high in graceful evo- 
lutions, then downward with lightning rapidity, sweeping across the 
field ; breaking ranks and flying like leaves before a gale, only to mass 
again for some new and intricate movement, which, if possible, was 
more perfect than the first. 
Let us change the picture to the vernal season, and observe the Kill- 
deer after it has returned to its breeding-home, a field which man may 
use for growing sugar, cotton, rice, corn, or any of the other products 
so necessary for his happiness and even for his very existence. Then 
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