There are some people who say that the blue heron is good for food, but those who have once tried it do not care for another plate. They are the most suspicious of our birds and the hardest to be approached for they are constantly on the lookout for danger and with their long necks, keen eyes, and delicate organs of hearing, they can detect the approach of a hunter long before he can get within gunshot. They have a very unmusical voice, their call being a hoarse guttural "honk."
Once they were found in larger numbers, but now are seldom seen but in pairs or singly, and what a pity that foolish fashion of trimming ladies' hats has nearly exterminated so many varieties of beautiful birds! God gave us many beautiful things to enjoy in this world, and are they not more beautiful when we can see them alive in nature just where God placed them, than they are when dead and taken by pieces to adorn our heads?
Dr. Livingstone described a relative of this bird which he met with in Africa as "a most plaguey sort of public-spirited individual that follows you everywhere, flying overhead, and is most persevering in his attempts to give fair warning to all animals within hearing to flee from the approach of danger," a characteristic which has caused the killdeer to be an object of dislike to the gunner. It is usually the first to take alarm at his approach and starts up all other birds in the vicinity by its loud cries. It can run with such swiftness that, according to Audubon, to run "like a killdeer" has in some parts of the country passed into a proverb. It is also active on the wing and mounts at pleasure to a great height in the air, with a strong and rapid flight, which can be continued for a long distance. In the love season it performs various kinds of evolutions while on the wing.
This plover is found throughout temperate North America to Newfoundland and Manitoba, nests throughout range, and winters south of New England to Bermuda, the West Indies, Central and South America. From March to November, and later, it is resident, and is very abundant in spring and autumn migrations. These birds are generally seen in flocks when on the wing, but scatter when feeding. Pastures and cultivated fields, tracts of land near water, lakesides and marshes seem necessary to it. The sound uttered by it, _kildeer_, _kildeer_, _dee_, _dee_, is almost incessant, but it is often low and agreeable, with a plaintive strain in it. When apparently in danger the voice rises higher and shriller. Cows, horses, sheep, and the larger poultry that wander over a farm are said not to alarm these birds in the least. But they are wild in the presence of man wherever they have been persecuted. They will often squat till one is close upon them, and will then suddenly fly up or run off, startling the unwary intruder by their loud and clear cry. In winter the killdeer is an unusually silent bird, in which season it is found dispersed over the cultivated fields in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and other southern states, diligently searching for food. Davie says that it may often be heard on moonlight nights. The nest is placed on the ground, usually in the vicinity of a stream or pond, often on an elevated spot in the grass or in a furrowed field. It is merely a slight depression in the ground. The eggs are drab or clay color, thickly spotted and blotched with blackish brown and umber, small and quite pointed. They are generally four in number, measuring 1.50 to 1.60 long by about 1.10 broad.