Killdeer nest

We had read the warning on the Internet about this Killdeer's nest, built right in the MIDDLE of a gravel road leading down to Frank Lake, south of the city. The gate was closed when we arrived, so we walked the length of road and so were able to find this nest. It would have been SO easy to have missed it, as it was barely noticeable. Built on the gravel road, it was just a slight depression, lined with small bits of gravel but no other lining. The three beautiful eggs looked like stones : ). We saw both adults nearby, but the nest was left unprotected. Note later: we found out that someone had photographed the nest the day before we did, and there were four eggs : ((

"Killdeer nest on open ground, often on gravel. They may use a slight depression in the gravel to hold the eggs, but they don't line it at all, or line it only with a few stones. Since there is no structure to stand out from its surroundings, a killdeer nest blends marvelously into the background. Furthermore, the speckled eggs themselves look like stones.

Killdeer hatchlings are precocial birds like many other waders. Birds which hatch blind, naked, and helpless are called altricial. Most birds are born altricial and utterly rely on their parents to bring them food.

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 more developed than a one-day-old American Robin nestling. Although adult Robins and Killdeer are the same size, a Killdeer's egg is twice the size of a Robin's. There is more nourishment in the Killdeer egg, to sustain the embryo for its longer time in the shell." From Wikipedia.