Killdeer

Charadrius vociferus

The killdeer is a large plover found in the Americas. Its shrill, two-syllable call is often heard, sounding like "kill deer". It was described and given its current scientific name in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae. Three subspecies are described. Its upperparts are mostly brown with rufous fringes, the head has patches of white and black, and two black bands cross the breast. The belly and the rest of the breast are white. The nominate subspecies breeds from southeastern Alaska and southern Canada to Mexico. It is seen year-round in the southern half of its breeding range; the subspecies C. v. ternominatus is resident in the West Indies, and C. v. peruvianus inhabits Peru and surrounding South American countries throughout the year. North American breeders winter from their resident range south to Central America, the West Indies, and the northernmost portions of South America. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this bird was recorded 1,199,688 times across 72 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

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Movement and weather

Each season it is first heard regularly where daytime highs are around 12°C (typically 4 to 27°C, from 44 areas). That range is wide, so temperature alone does not explain when it turns up.

Over the weeks it was present in the past year, its centre in North America ranged from 31°N in May to 44°N in October, about 1,400 km apart.

Arrival dates

The week it was first heard regularly in each region, after at least six weeks away. Dates differ from south to north, so a region has a range.

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Figures are effort corrected and come from automatic sound identification, which makes mistakes. How this is measured and how it compares with human observers.