(Charadrius vociferus)
Summer
Year-round
Winter
HABITAT: Open country almost everywhere: cultivated fields, pastures, golf courses, parking lots, and gravel rooftops, often far from water
DESCRIPTION: Large and noisy plover; white below with white collar and two black chest bands, brown back; longish tail is orange above, seen mainly in flight, and longish wings bear broad white stripe
By sight, Killdeer are certainly distinctive, but it’s rare to see one before you hear it. They weren’t named vociferus on a whim—Killdeer are the sentinels of the open country, alerting all within earshot of the slightest disturbance. Most of its sounds are some variant of the bird’s name: killdeer, kill-dee, dee-ee, or the like.
Perhaps the first sound you’ll hear is a simple, tonal dee, suggesting mild alarm on the part of the Killdeer. The note may be steady in pitch, rise, or rise and then fall. If the Killdeer becomes a little more agitated, it might draw out the dee to a two-noted dee-ee. As danger increases, the dee-ee can run into a string of up to ten or more dit notes, sometimes so brief and so rapidly repeated that they form a trill: dee-dit-dit-dit-dit . . . . Watch the bird run from the disturbance and take flight, and you’ll no doubt hear its full name, kill-deer, kill-deer, slurred distinctly down.
Killdeer are well known for feigning injury, floundering on the ground and “screaming,” distracting humans or predators from a nest or young. An incubating bird will also rush from the nest at an approaching cow, screaming and fluffing its feathers, thereby appearing larger and more threatening.
If you can hide yourself from their view, you might hear them court, too. The male flies about his territory, sometimes high in the air, calling his name. Sometimes both partners give stuttering trills during courtship.
Dee-dit-dit-dit call Down-slurred kill-deer kill-deer kill-deer kill-deer . . . 
