All the Killdeer Games

Before I moved to Texas, I had no idea what a killdeer was. It’s a banded plover and one of the chattiest birds in the world.

My daughter is obsessed with them and wants one as a pet.

The joint venture, mama/daughter drawing of the killdeer. Those are eggs. Yes, really.

This is Kenzie’s version of a killdeer with its eggs (psst…not drawn to scale)

At the moment she has the next best thing.

Just to the other side of our fence, a killdeer has made a nest in the rocks, a nest so camouflaged that it took me ten minutes to find it even after my daughter pointed it out.

She’s been watching it very closely and observing all the killdeer games.

If anyone gets too close to the killdeer’s nest, the mama bird will jump off of it and run away, dangling its wing as if it was injured. The bird does this to lure possible predators away from the eggs. After some time,  when the pursuer has lost interest in the bird and lost track of the eggs’ location, the mama returns to her nest and her sitting.

All the while my daughter sketches, observes and “writes” thank you cards to the mama killdeer.

This mama bird reminds me of someone who walked among us and had all the negative attention focused on him so that he could offer us salvation. Someone who always lives to intercede for us (see Heb. 7:25).

Hebrews 12:1b-2 “And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

(You are what gave Him joy.)

My daughter continues, with intense observation and rapturous joy, to sit at the fence quiet and still.

I’m taking these quiet moments to reflect on Jesus and the remarkable thing He did for me.