Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus)

County List:

Rule:

Mixed Forested/Nonforested or Nonforested Landscapes

1st alternative:
      Any Open Water 
   adjacent to:
      Shorelines/Mudflats

2nd alternative:
      Any Open Water
   neighboring:
      (Fields/Pasture or Residential)

Habitat List:

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Literature:

The Killdeer is familiar in part because it uses open areas for both nesting and feeding. Residential areas, agricultural lands, old fields, and other disturbed habitats are favored if human activity is not too intrusive. Individuals often shift to damper, more marshy habitats after breeding.

Bunni identified six consistent features of nest sites. These are (1) sparse cover; (2) a raised area for the nest; (3) stones, wood chips, plant stems, and other nesting materials within about one meter of the nest site; (4) nearby large objects, like dead wood or mounds of earth, presumably for concealment if an incubating bird is disturbed; (5) shallow standing water close by; and (6) ground soft enough for a nest scrape.

Habitat: Breeding: Heavily grazed meadows, edges of pasture ponds, dry uplands. Often close to human habitation such as on lawns, golf courses, cemeteries, unpaved parking lots and driveways, airports, cultivated fields, waste places. Wintering: Plowed or sparsely vegetated moist fields. Coastal flats and beaches, river and lake shores that are free of ice.

Special Habitat Requirements: Open fields or waste areas with closely cropped or sparse vegetation.

Like other members of the plover family, this species is often found at the water's edge, but it also lives in pastures and fields far from water. At times, it nests on gravel roofs or on lawns.

Habitat: Fields, airports, lawns, river banks, mudflats, shores. Often found on open ground, such as pastures, plowed fields, large lawns, even at a great distance from water. Most successful nesting areas; however, have some shallow water or other good feeding area for the chicks. Also commonly found around water, on mudflats, lake shores, coastal estuaries.

Diet: Mostly insects. Feeds on a wide variety of insects, including beetles, caterpillars, grasshoppers, fly larvae, many others; also eats spiders, earthworms, centipedes, crayfish, snails. Eats small amounts of seeds as well.

Nest: Site is on ground in open area with good visibility, as on bare soil, field of short grass, gravel road; sometimes on gravel roof. Nest is shallow scrape in soil or gravel, either unlined or lined with pebbles, grass twigs, bits of debris.