By Jennifer DeSelle-Milam
During the 2017-2018 school year, the Olympia School District unknowingly created the perfect habitat for killdeer at Pioneer Elementary School. Our new mini-building was under construction, and the rain and heavy equipment made a muddy mess of our school grounds. The district brought in loads of gravel to remedy this problem, and it didn’t take long for the Killdeer to move in.
I had noticed the pair of Killdeer from my classroom window. After a few days of watching them, I became suspicious. I went outside to inspect more closely and verified that there was a female sitting on a nest. My principal and I set up some cones and caution tape to keep people from disturbing it and contacted the district. A couple of days later someone came out and set up snow fencing around the perimeter. That spring our pair of Killdeer successfully raised 2 clutches of adorable, fluffy chicks! My class delighted in watching them run around outside our classroom.
The following spring it was a different story. The gravel area had been opened up to staff parking and was not the safest place for nesting. I noticed the pair of Killdeer hanging out and even found a few experimental scrapes (nest sites). However, the traffic left them discouraged and they eventually gave up. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing I would not have to spend the spring stressing out about the fate of our Killdeer.
But they didn’t give up. A volunteer group had just finished constructing a new garden on our campus and discarded the rocks they uncovered while building our garden beds. And so, the Killdeer set up shop, nesting in a pile of rocks on our school playground. As soon I was alerted to the new nest site I contacted our garden coordinators, who brought over some materials and built a small enclosure around the nest. The crisis was temporarily averted until a young student reached into the enclosure and plucked a newly hatched chick off the nest and brought it back into the classroom. I was able to successfully reunite the parents with their chick, but this was more stress than I could handle! I decided that NEXT year I would come up with a better Killdeer solution.
This February I began talking with my principal about creating a Killdeer plan. Would he give me the okay to set up an enclosure in the gravel area, in hopes that the Killdeer would choose it over the playground? It was a long shot, but he agreed to give it a try. I contacted BHAS to ask if they would be willing to purchase fencing supplies and help get together a work party. Deb Nickerson gave us her full support, and on Friday, February 21st our work party gathered after school to set up the enclosure. Audubon members and friends constructed the fence: thank you Jennifer DeSelle, her son Forrest Milam, Eric and Carla Miller, Robyn Muzatko, and Annie Burks. The following week staff members began reporting to me that they noticed a pair of Killdeer hanging out in the enclosure. And on Wednesday, March 18th one of our volunteers photographed mom on her nest, inside the enclosure. Success! Thank you, Black Hills Audubon Education Committee, for helping Pioneer staff and students to create a safe space to share with our local wildlife!
