On the topic of nesting spring birds, here’s a good one. Our livestock crossings that were cost shared through CREP are a pretty nice addition to the farm…it lets us get to all areas of the farm without mudding up the creek channels in the winter. We signed up for CREP for a lot of reasons; hydrological, future forestry income, farm productivity, and biodiversity. While the biodiversity thing was easy to imagine with all of the tree planting, I didn’t think a swath of gravel would work as well towards that end.
Can you see the nest? (Click for a larger one)
Ah, kildeer are so awesome! now you steer clear of that nest!
Hi Kat
It’s fortunate that they nested in the far fields, the back 10, so to speak.
They actually started nesting around the time I had the steers grazing about 10ft away, but now all of the rotations have moved away from there for a few months. Whew!