Nature's stories are unending . . .

Killdeer trying to distract us so we don't find the nest.

Killdeer

Hoping there will be more than three eggs.

Taken through the slats in the gate.

  I had been weeding under the Magnolia in the front yard while PD&C's Pop was mowing. When I finished weeding PC&D's Pop pointed out  that there was a Killdeer running around like mad on the front lawn. I got my camera and saw the bird in this odd pose and then recalled that a few years ago we had a Killdeer nest on the opposite side of the house right in front of the gate in the fence. Of course we never used the gate or mowed that section of the lawn until the babies hatched - four of them! Now it seems we have another pair with three eggs, so far. PD&C's Pop found the nest just a foot or so from the spot I had been working on. I took the photo of the eggs with my Panasonic FZ 200. The last photo I took through the slats in the gate on this side of the house. Of course there will be no mowing or weeding on this side of the house until the little ones hatch. Point of interest: a few years ago a Red-eared Slider laid her eggs on the edge of our front lawn, right near the road. So my husband put up a sign to warn the neighbors that we had a turtle nest and to please not drive too close to the edge of the road. When they did not hatch in the given time he was worried because the ground was no longer wet - it is clay and it was all dried up - so he carefully unearthed ten little ones just in the nick of time. Our neighbors brought them to a clear water stream at their camp. Pretty neat! 

Quote:  If idleness do not produce vice or malevolence, it commonly produces melancholy.   ____Sydney Smith

Quote:  Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds, and the holiday of fools.  ____Chesterfield