> I visited the neighbours a couple of days ago and they had a couple
> of wheelbarrows blocking an area where people would often park
> on their property and just past those there were a couple of small
> flagpoles. He explained to me that it was because some Killdeers
> (a type of Plover which are birds that spend a lot of time on the
> ground and wading in shallow water) had built a 'nest' there.
> That nest was just a slight hollow in some gravel on the ground,
> and he was trying to protect it until the eggs hatched.
> As of yesterday the only change there was that instead of the
> original 2 eggs, there were now 4 of them.

In this area, the killdeers are bad about nesting in the middle of gravel
driveways and other places where cars or foot-traffic would be likely.
They make a lot of racket when disturbed.  IIRC, they are also one of the
birds where the parent (probably the mother) will feign injury in order to
draw predators away from the nest.

> They had a story on the news a couple of days ago about Geese that
> were nesting on tall buildings in Toronto I think, but they had to
> keep sending wildlife people to rescue them once the eggs hatched.
> Seems the mothers didn't think about how they were going to get
> the babies down to the ground after they hatched. They were going
> up to the roofs of the buldings and catching the mother in a big
> net and putting the goslings in a bag and taking them all down to
> the ground and then across a busy highway to where there was a good
> sized body of water and letting them go there..

Makes you wonder what is drawing them up there.  Maybe the lack of places
nearer the ground for them to nest in urban areas.

> The guy they talked to said they have to do this for dozens of
> geese in similar situations every year..

> This could be one source of the term, 'Bird Brain'..   B)

Could be one of many sources, I am sure.  

Mike


 * SLMR 2.1a * Do unto others BEFORE they do unto YOU.
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
 * Origin: capitolcityonline.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/HTTP (618:250/1)