Killdeer of South Amboy

Located in the extreme corner of western Raritan Bay is the City of South Amboy. Trains carrying commuters on their way to New York City can be heard moving along several times a day with the hum of cars whizzing by on Highway 35. Rows of high-density housing with working-class families living inside coexist near long-established businesses.  It's a snug urban community with around 8,000 people in approximately one square mile of land.

Within a grid of grass and asphalt it's hard to image the city would be home to any wildlife. But down along the edge of the bay lies a surprising wedge of natural lands including mudflats, wetlands, and a wide pebbly beach. It's known locally as the Raritan Bay Waterfront Park.

Although previous development has left its scars here, a diversity of birds and fish seem to be content to rest, feed, nest, and spawn in perilous proximity to humans. Seaside Sparrows and Striped Bass can be found along with American Oystercatchers, Black-headed Gulls, and Bluefish. While the odds of their survival are really not in their favor, the animals come anyway for the rich supply of food and the several acres or more of natural habitat within an urban environment.

Every spring for the past ten years or more, several pairs of Killdeer, a type of shorebird, have been making their home along the waterfront in South Amboy. They fly around searching for one small patch of ground to make a nest and to raise a family.

The bird gets its strange name from its voice. Killdeer are very vocal birds that will call at any disturbance or the smallest sign of a threat. The bird will make a clear, high pitched sound like kil-deeeeah and ti-dee-dee-dee.

Last week I spotted my first pair of Killdeer of the season that I've seen or heard. The birds came as a noisy flyover on a scrap of gravel beach. They were probably nervous about me taking pictures. Once on land, the Killdeer were set in motion. They started to scurry back and forth, perhaps looking for a quick meal or a good place to make a nest.

One of the Killdeer might have been the same bird I observed over the winter at this same spot. Some Killdeer have been known to be permanent residents around Lower New York Bay, including Raritan Bay and Sandy Hook Bay. This time, however the bird was bright with its spring plumage: two black chest bands of feathers, a shiny white collar, and a long tail with vibrant orange feathers.

For the next several weeks, the Killdeer pair will nest along the shoreline of South Amboy and take turns incubating the usually 3 to 5 eggs, buff in color, but with black and brown blotches. If a Killdeer feels threatened by a predator, it will try to trick the larger animal away from the nest with its legendary broken-wing act. The bird will flutter, struggle, and jump around on the ground to try to show that it's injured and an easy meal, luring the intruder far away from its eggs. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but if one brood fails, they will just try again.

A member of the plover family, these adaptable birds are not picky where they nest. It can be on lawns, near driveways or roads, in athletic fields, parking lots, or golf courses; near the water or in dry fields. Its flexibility makes the Killdeer one of the most widespread and abundant plovers in North America, including in the New York metropolitan region. 

Killdeer have leaned to adapt and even thrive next to or even in human disturbance. The birds have become one of the real survivors in the frequently frenzied urban wilds of South Amboy along Raritan Bay.

For more information, pictures and year-round sightings of wildlife in or near Sandy Hook Bay, please check out my blog entitled, Nature on the Edge of New York City at http://www.natureontheedgenyc.com