UPDATE:On the way home from work tonight there were cops everywhere.  Unlike last time, like a few weeks ago, they weren’t looking for bank robbers.  Joe Bidden is coming to town.  He was in Jeff City today and he is speaking at UMSL tomorrow.  It just so happens that I’ll be passing through UMSL in the morning via MetroLink.  I’ll be sure to say, “Hello Joe”, if I see him.

I did not know that the killdeer is a beach bird.  Living in a part of the Midwest, where the closest thing to a beach is Times Beach.  I still see killdeer though.  I see them at work during my luncheon walks and I see them in the Park.  The picture with today’s post is from Pagoda Circle.  Today’s header shows a landscape from the Park that is covered in Spring Beauties.

The most interesting aspect of the killdeer is its peculiar defensive nesting tactic.  Killdeer like to nest in the open and on gravel or loose soil.  At work, dug up sections of grass make a choice nesting site.  When a predator or even an engineer approaches, one of the nesting pair will sit quietly on the nest, hiding, while the other one goes into its dance.  As you approach, the killdeer may suddenly develop a broken wing.  It struggles in front of you, as if it can barely walk, let alone fly.  One or both wings drag pitifully on the ground.  If your instinct to rescue the killdeer overcomes you, and you try to catch the bird, it almost lets you reach out and pick it up.  But somehow, while struggling to keep its balance, the killdeer manages to stay one step ahead of you.  As you pursue it, the killdeer leads you farther and farther away from its nest.  When the killdeer feels that the nest is safe from you, its broken wing heals suddenly, and the bird flies away, calling a loud “KILL-DEE” that sounds like a jeer.

I rode in the Park this morning and got fifteen miles.  As I rounded Pagoda Circle I noticed a women with a nice camera step out of her mini-van and start taking pictures.  Later, while I was on the bike path the same said women had stopped at a crosswalk.  She leaned out of her driver side window and took my picture as I glided across the street.  I guess that I am now someone else’s blog fodder.   Well at least it beats Face Book, I hope.

OBTW, Kayak Women may tread lightly on political issues.  I however love to stomp through every political mud puddle I can find.  The photo to the left right is from the Huffington Post, the left’s answer to the Drudge Report, but I digress.  It is from their Wednesday caption this photo contest.  My favorite caption was, “I’m a little crackpot, short and stout.”