Killdeer

I used to see Killdeer in Kansas.  They'd run down the gravel road screaming, "kill-deer!" trying to lure you away from their nest or chicks.  I saw a pair in a grassy area in Area III of the Regional Park just on the other side of Wardlow, by the bike path.  When I got off the bike, they started in with their act.  One would scream loudly and run off in one direction while the other ran off in the other direction, occasionally calling back to its mate to stay in touch.  Getting a little closer I saw the babies.  Mom and dad were being loud and obnoxious hoping I'd follow them and not see the hatchlings that were still too little to fly.

There were three babies and they were just a cute as could be.  They'd hunker down in the grass and if you weren't looking closely you'd miss them.  But get too close, and off they'd go, running as fast as they could toward mom or dad.

Mom and dad, meanwhile, were trying their damnedest to get my attention away from those babies.  At one point mom got all the babies on the other side of the fence by the river where they were safe from me.  Then she goes into the broken-wing routine.  She crouched down, screamed loudly over and over, and fluttered her wings and tail to look like she was injured.  It was a great distraction.  

Killdeer family, in Area III of El Dorado Regional Park and in the San Gabriel river adjacent, March 31st, around 4 p.m., with the Nikon D5000, 55-200 lens.