killdeer
i saw so many of these birds when i was working at an airport in minnesota. they nest on open ground, so they had to come up with a pretty crazy way of protecting their eggs — they flop on the ground with one wing dragging and the other flapping about to lure the intruder towards them and away from the nest. if you get too close, they’ll leap up a little ways away and repeat the show until you’re far enough from the eggs. really quite cool.
