Killdeer Bird Facts

The killdeer (Charadrius vociferous) belongs to the plover family, but unlike these shore birds, it often resides away from water. Frequenting plowed fields, mudflats, sandbars and pastures, the killdeer takes its name from its harried calls of "kill-deer," according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The killdeer exhibits some unusual behavior when it feels its family is threatened, which is designed to trick the intruder away from its chicks.

  1. Identification

    • The killdeer has brown colors above, white colors below and has a pair of black bands running across its upper chest region. Killdeers are white above their eyes and have a small, black area between them. These birds are between 8 and 11 inches in length, with long legs, a long tail and a black bill. Killdeer male and females have similar markings.

    Geography

    • The summer range of the killdeer extends eastward through most of Canada into the Great Lakes, northern Great Plains and New England. In the winter, killdeers live as far south as the northern regions of South America. They are year-round residents from the Upper Midwest south to the Deep South, American Southwest and most of the West Coast and Rocky Mountain states.

    Diet

    • Invertebrates, including earthworms, crayfish, beetles, grasshoppers and snails make up the bulk of the killdeer diet. The birds also consume the larvae of several types of aquatic insects. Killdeer have such items as seeds, berries, dead minnows and frogs on their diets as well. The birds have a reputation of following behind farmers plowing their fields searching for edible bugs and worms the plows turn up.

    Behavior

    • The killdeer's nesting site is usually a shallow depression that the bird scrapes out on the ground. Shortly after birth, the chicks are able to move about in search of food. The parents fake an injured wing to distract a predator when it ventures too close to the eggs or young, flying away when the predator gets close. Killdeer are solitary birds, refraining from forming flocks. They pair up to breed and raise their chicks. Killdeer running on the ground is a common sight; the birds bob their heads up and down when seeing potential danger.