Credits

Charles Homler (FocusOnWildlife)

An adult killdeer in sharp profile on wet mud, the two black breast bands and bright orange eye-ring clearly visible against a softly blurred shoreline.

Wikimedia Featured Picture and Quality Image. Original 5800x4143 PNG; served as 3000x2143 JPEG at quality 85. Original archived in src/assets/killdeer/originals/.

Frank Schulenburg

An adult killdeer standing on wet beach sand at Rodeo Beach, Marin County, California, head turned slightly to the right with the double black breast band and rufous rump visible.

Wikimedia Featured Picture and Quality Image.

Rhododendrites

An adult killdeer in upright stance on sparse coastal vegetation at Sherwood Island State Park, Connecticut, with low afternoon light catching the white forehead band.

Wikimedia Quality Image. Pairs with chick photos taken at the same site.

Rhododendrites

An alert adult killdeer photographed at South Cape May Meadows, New Jersey, body angled three-quarters to the camera, both breast bands and the bright eye-ring crisp against open ground.

Wikimedia Featured Picture and Quality Image.

Frank Schulenburg

An adult killdeer standing at the edge of mudflats at Richardson Bay, California, slim grey-brown back and white underparts split by the two distinct black breast bands.

Cephas

An adult killdeer foraging on damp grass at Cap Tourmente National Wildlife Area, Quebec, head lowered as it inspects the ground.

M. L. Haen

An adult killdeer in side profile on a gravelly shoreline at a Kansas lake, the bird centered against ripples of shallow water.

Paul Danese (Pdanese)

A sharply lit adult killdeer standing in short farm-edge grass at Longo Farm in Glastonbury, Connecticut, in late spring 2025.

Recent (May 2025) high-resolution capture. Pairs with the Longo Farm video.

Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren

An adult killdeer crouched low with its tail fanned and one wing dragged out and twisted, performing the broken-wing distraction display on bare ground.

Iconic broken-wing display image. CC-BY (not -SA), so no share-alike inheritance on derivatives.

Audrey

An adult killdeer with one wing splayed sideways over a rocky scrape, mid-distraction display, drawing attention away from a nearby nest.

Dick Daniels

An adult killdeer in a low crouched display posture on sandy ground at Assateague Island, Virginia, with wings partly opened and tail spread.

Source metadata calls this a mating display; verify the on-page caption matches the behavior rather than calling it broken-wing.

Dick Daniels

A second view of the same adult killdeer on bare sand, body lowered with one wing held out and the rufous rump exposed.

Dick Daniels

An adult killdeer standing upright on a sandy patch at Cape May, New Jersey, in a relaxed posture with both breast bands clearly visible.

Filename suggests broken-wing display but the image shows a standing portrait - treat as profile alternate.

Вasil

Four buff and dark-speckled killdeer eggs arranged in a shallow scrape lined with bits of dry grass, photographed from above.

Used in the Wikipedia article on the species.

Brentf777

An adult killdeer standing close to four eggs in a gravel-lined scrape at a cemetery in Durham, North Carolina, the bird looking warily toward the camera.

Joe Schneid

An adult killdeer settled low over four eggs in a stone-edged scrape in Louisville, Kentucky, body flattened in incubation posture.

Wikimedia Quality Image. Strong candidate for the incubation-section hero.

Audrey

A female killdeer crouched in a shallow nest scrape on a Pennsylvania gravel patch, body pressed close to the eggs and head turned to one side.

Roger Culos (Ercé)

Three killdeer eggs laid out on a neutral grey studio backdrop, each speckled with dark brown blotches over a pale buff ground colour. From the Muséum de Toulouse zoology collection.

Wikimedia Quality Image and Valued Image. Studio quality; ideal for an anatomy/markings close-up.

Rhododendrites

A downy killdeer chick on pale beach sand at Sherwood Island, Connecticut, single black neck band visible above oversized pink legs.

Wikimedia Quality Image.

Rhododendrites

A second view of a downy killdeer chick at Sherwood Island, Connecticut, body angled away to show the rufous-tipped tail starting to come in.

Leilah Thiel

A two-week-old killdeer chick foraging on damp soil at Flora Farm in Lynden, Washington, the body fluffy with the first dark band starting to define across the throat.

Triple-licensed at source (CC-BY-SA-3.0 / CC-BY-2.5 / GFDL). Listed under CC-BY-SA-3.0 here for simplicity; CC-BY-2.5 may be selected at use time to avoid share-alike inheritance.

Salvez Dodd

Two newly hatched downy killdeer chicks crouched on gravel in Portland, Oregon, their oversized pink legs and feet visible beneath a still-damp coat of down.

Neal Herbert (NPS, Yellowstone National Park)

An adult killdeer beside two small downy chicks on the warm grey sinter surrounding Doublet Pool in Yellowstone National Park, low steam rising in the background.

U.S. federal work - public domain. Excellent family-group hero; courtesy credit to NPS / Neal Herbert.

CheepShot

A killdeer in flight against an overcast sky in Algonquin, Illinois, long wings extended to show the bold white stripe and dark trailing edge.

CC-BY (not -SA). Source title misspelled as "Kildeer".

Dominic Sherony

A pair of killdeer in flight, both birds banking together to reveal the white wing stripe and the warm rufous patch above the tail.

Putneypics

A killdeer captured at full wing-spread in flight over a field near Lisle, Illinois, both wings horizontal and the body in profile.

Mykola Swarnyk

A killdeer flying low over the Humber River in Toronto, wings angled in a downstroke, water and shoreline blurred below.

Mykola Swarnyk

A killdeer caught mid-landing at James Gardens, Toronto, legs lowered and pink feet reaching forward as the wings cup air to brake.

John James Audubon

A hand-coloured aquatint engraving from Audubon's Birds of America showing two killdeer plovers: one with wings and fanned tail spread wide in a broken-wing display posture, and one standing upright on a rocky outcrop, both facing each other on a Florida shoreline.

John James Audubon (1785-1851), Birds of America, Havell double-elephant folio edition, engraved/printed/coloured by Robert Havell, London, 1838 (the killdeer plate is dated 1838 in the lower-right inscription). Public domain. Source scan: Wikimedia Commons, original 16040 x 11248 px JPEG. Web derivative cropped to printed plate area (2400 x 1457 JPEG, q86 mozjpeg). A high-contrast 1-bit lineart derivative is also produced at /media/illustrations/audubon-killdeer-plate-lineart.png via Sobel-edge convolution in scripts/process-audubon-killdeer.mjs and used as the printable coloring sheet on /kids/coloring.

National Park Service

A short clean 3.4-second recording of the two-note kill-deer call, isolated from background noise.

Primary call sample for the /call page and any "press to hear" affordance. Federal work - public domain. Ogg Vorbis container.

Peter Comley (NPS, Yellowstone National Park)

A 1 minute 40 second stereo field recording of multiple killdeer calling near Anemone Geyser in Yellowstone, layered with faint thermal hiss.

Jonathon Jongsma

A 17-second recording of roughly ten killdeer calling together at Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge, the calls overlapping in agitated chorus.

Originally xeno-canto XC62728; mirrored to Wikimedia Commons.

kvgarlic

A long stereo soundscape from the Ohio River near Rosiclare in summer, with persistent killdeer calling, distant boat noise, and ambient wind.

CC0 - no legal attribution obligation. Served as Freesound 320 kbps HQ MP3 preview.

TRP

A 58-second clean stereo recording of killdeer calling at Tommy Thompson Park in Toronto, with the two-note call repeated against a quiet background.

CC0. Strong candidate as a spectrogram source on the /call page (clean signal, low noise floor).

aguasonic

A 1 minute 19 second post-sunset field recording at Sherman Island, California, with killdeer calling alongside other shorebirds.

Mixed-species ambience; use for atmosphere only, not for species ID demonstration.

Randy Rodgers

A 28-second video clip of an adult killdeer dragging one wing across the ground and calling while moving away from its nest, performing the broken-wing distraction display.

Source is Theora .ogv at 640x480 with very quiet Vorbis audio (mean -29.7 dB). Re-transcoded 2026-05-18 with ffmpeg loudnorm (I=-16 LUFS, TP=-1.5) to H.264 MP4 (killdeer-distraction-display.mp4) and VP9/Opus WebM (killdeer-distraction-display.webm) for web playback; final peaks sit safely below -1 dBFS. Same files mirrored to /media/broken-wing.{mp4,webm} for the BrokenWing section. Original archived at /media/video/originals/.

Paul Danese (Pdanese)

A 29.5-second video clip of an adult killdeer foraging slowly across short grass at Longo Farm in Glastonbury, Connecticut, in late spring 2025.

Source was 4K VP9 WebM (~172 MB) - transcoded to 1080p H.264 MP4 (killdeer-longo-farm.mp4, ~21 MB) and 1080p VP9 WebM (killdeer-longo-farm-1080.webm, ~19 MB) for web. Source not retained.

Cephas

A range map of North and Central America showing killdeer breeding range across most of the continental United States and southern Canada, year-round range across the southern United States and Mexico, and non-breeding range extending into northern South America.

Vector SVG. Range data adapted from BirdLife International / IUCN Red List. Any recoloring inherits CC BY-SA 4.0.