The firepit is open for business again

So...I'm out mowing the lawn this morning, when I notice that the Mama and Papa Kildeer are especially irritated by my presense. Not that the roar of a lawnmower on a beautiful, sunny morning isn't enough to bug anyone, but really - they were mad. Like attack-mode-mad.

Once I got up around the firepit, this is what I found:

Pretty cute huh? Well, cuter than those icky, slimy, disgusting-looking robins when they are newly hatched. Sorry all you robin-lovers. But you gotta admit they're kind of ugly.

Educational note of the day:

Baby birds that hatch with their running shoes on are called precocial. Precocial means "ripened beforehand." (The word comes from the same Latin sourceas "precocious.") Other precocial birds besides killdeer are chickens, ducks, and quail. None of these precocial babies lies in the nest and gets waited on. They will be up and running within 24 hours.

Birds that hatch blind, naked, and helpless are called altricial, which comes from a Greek word meaning "wet nurse." Robins are altricial, as are blue jays, cardinals and most other birds. The hatchlings lie helplessly in their nests, relying utterly on their parents to bring them food and push it down their throats. It's two weeks or more before they mature enough to leave the nest, and even after they leave it, their parents are still feeding them.

Precocial birds stay in the egg twice as long as altricial birds, so they have more time to develop. A one-day-old killdeer chick is actually two weeks older than a one-day-old robin nestling. Although adult robins and killdeer are the same size, a killdeer's egg is twice as big as a robin's. There's more nourishment built into the killdeer egg, to sustain the embryo for its longer time in the shell.

If you look closely at the picture above, you can see a small hole in the remaining un-hatched egg. Cool, huh?

Mama kildeer still doesn't like me very much as you can see:


After running for my camera, taking a few shots, and getting a drink of water; I went back to finish the lawn. Wouldn't you know - I couldn't get that damn lawnmower started again.

I think it's Kildeer Karma.