{"id":52230,"date":"2018-05-23T04:56:55","date_gmt":"2018-05-23T10:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=52230"},"modified":"2025-05-24T15:59:33","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T20:59:33","slug":"mating-killdeer-at-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2018\/05\/23\/mating-killdeer-at-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge\/","title":{"rendered":"Mating Killdeer at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MatingMating Killdeer – Nikon D500, f6.3, 1\/1600, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Last week when I took my Mom to Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge<\/span><\/a> we were fortunate to see and photograph Killdeer mating while on the auto tour route.<\/p>\n

Mom had never seen them mate before and I was able to warn her beforehand that they were going to because the male displayed some courtship behavior prior to mounting the female.<\/p>\n

I fired something like 133 shots while they were mating but in most of those images one or both of the plovers had their heads turned away from the camera so those images will end up in my delete bin when I have time to cull them.<\/p>\n

Listen to the sounds of a distraction display and flight call of Killdeer here<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Killdeer can have up to three broods per year but many times the second and third clutch of eggs are laid because the first clutch fails.<\/p>\n

Life is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/span><\/a> to see more of my Killdeer photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week when I took my Mom to Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge we were fortunate to see and photograph Killdeer mating while on the auto tour route. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":146843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,27,1148,267,26],"tags":[4004,4144,3713,3535,4070,270,6515,4062,4094,4363,4347,5841,275,274,165,4095],"class_list":["post-52230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","category-avian","category-box-elder-county-utah","category-killdeer","category-utah","tag-adult","tag-charadrius-vociferus","tag-copulating","tag-courtship-behavior","tag-female","tag-killdeer","tag-killdeers","tag-male","tag-marsh","tag-mating","tag-mating-behavior","tag-plover","tag-plovers","tag-shorebirds-2","tag-spring","tag-wetlands"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/killdeer-mating-mia-mcpherson-0623.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-dAq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":101068,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2022\/03\/27\/killdeer-in-spring-at-bear-river-mbr\/","url_meta":{"origin":52230,"position":0},"title":"Killdeer 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Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/killdeer-flight-mia-mcpherson-7658.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/killdeer-flight-mia-mcpherson-7658.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/killdeer-flight-mia-mcpherson-7658.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/killdeer-flight-mia-mcpherson-7658.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":58795,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2019\/06\/24\/killdeer-nesting-in-last-years-ashes\/","url_meta":{"origin":52230,"position":3},"title":"Killdeer Nesting In Last Year’s Ashes","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"June 24, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Both the female and male Killdeer incubate so there is no way for me to tell what the gender of this Killdeer is but it stayed on the scrape while I photographed it and didn't move.","rel":"","context":"In "Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge"","block_context":{"text":"Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Killdeer nesting in a burned area, Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Box Elder County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/killdeer-last-years-ashes-mia-mcpherson-5431.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/killdeer-last-years-ashes-mia-mcpherson-5431.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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It was no surprise that I found several at Bear River MBR last Monday.","rel":"","context":"In "Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge"","block_context":{"text":"Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Killdeer walking in shallow water at Bear River MBR, Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Box Elder County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/killdeer-flats-marsh-mia-mcpherson-5519.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/killdeer-flats-marsh-mia-mcpherson-5519.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/killdeer-flats-marsh-mia-mcpherson-5519.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/killdeer-flats-marsh-mia-mcpherson-5519.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}