Killdeer Poetry

We have a nice population of Killdeer residing at Green Cay this year. I digiscoped a few photos recently and wanted to share them. I also included some Killdeer inspired poetry from two famous poets.

Where the Sabbath of that place kept itself in waiting,the herons of the night stood in their morning watch,and the herons of the day in silence stoodby the living water in its strait. The coots and gallinulesskulked in the reeds, the mother mallards and their little onesafloat on the seaward-sliding water to no purpose I had foreseen.The stilts were feeding in the shallows, and the killdeertreading with light feet the mud that was all ashinewith the coming day. Volleys of swallows leaptin joyous flight out of the dark into the brightening airin eternal gratitude for life before time not foreseen,and the song of the song sparrow rang in its bush.

- From Sabbaths by Wendell Berry

Over the stagnant bight
we see the hungry bank swallow
flaunting his free flight
still; we sink in mud to follow
the killdeer from the grass
that hides her nest. That March there was
rain; the rivers rose; you could hear killdeers flying
all night over the mudflats crying.

-from Heart's Needle by W.D. Snodgrass