My 6yo decided he wanted to put on a "show" for all of us with his remote control cars/trucks he got for Christmas and birthday so he invited us to come see it. "It's like a concert with drums, Mom, but with cars so it's a 'car-cert' ". Too good!! (Notice which musical instrument he used to describe a concert?!)Today we were cleaning rocks, limbs and bits of trash from about 3 acres of the field and the same child came screaming to me that he was being "attacked." He had just stepped in a fire ant hill about 30 minutes earlier and barely made a sound - "I think something's stinging me Mom" (he calmly says with about 20+ red ants biting away) so I wondered what in the world had "attacked"
him. He took me back to the spot and said, "See, right there, a crazy bird" and sure enough a killdeer (who blended in perfectly with the ground around her) came squawking and strutting her feathers and threatening to peck me - even using her "broken wing" trick a couple of times. I knew immediately we were near her nest and sure enough it didn't take us but a few minutes to spot 4 beautiful gray-speckled eggs less than a foot away from her. My children were intrigued by the camouflage of both the mother and her eggs as well as her willingness to "attack" humans multiple times her size in order to protect her eggs. We marked the area with a stake and caution tape so that when hubby plows tomorrow he can leave her undisturbed (and so we can keep track of the progress of the eggs which cannot even be seen a few feet away). Hopefully in about 4 weeks (or less if the eggs have been there a while) we will be lucky enough to catch sight of those fast-running babies!On the front porch we have seen the purple
martins return to their nest they made last year and would love to know if the couple "courting" there is the same one as last year or one of the offspring. We love watching their flying, hearing their "songs" (OK, more like screeches), watching them lay and care for the eggs and then babies but by the end of the summer I am really tired of having to constantly wash off the bird droppings all over the porch. But such is a mother's life... :) - just enjoy tending to the eggs and little ones (and washing the porch off) because before you want to think about they have flown the nest.....Anyway, enjoy the spring! (Tomorrow, Lord and weather willing, we will begin planting the vegetable garden including transplanting most of my seed beds - then I will really know spring is here!).
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