These guys were talking up a storm, it was a bird convention!  Earlier this summer I finally got to see a Kildeer doing that broken wing thing that you always read about.  If you’re not familiar, Kildeer will feign an injury around a predator to lure the predator away from the nest.  To me it doesn’t look much like a broken wing.  I thought the bird was doing some sort of mating display until I looked up videos on YouTube and confirmed that what I say was the Kildeer trying to get me away from the nest.

Now, I hate to be mean but this bird is a little dumb.  She was so far away.  There was even a stream separating me from her.  I am not so interested in eggs that I would wade through all that mud!  But maybe I’m biased because I’ve also seen these birds nesting in gravel…in a parking lot.  And that also seems pretty daft to me.

So I’ve concluded that this wasn’t about eggs at all.  Instead, she was merely practicing for her new job at the Salt Lake City Airport directing the airplanes.