Killdeer Magnets
Description: Single Killdeer ©Debra Martz In February I came across a pair of Killdeer (a type of Plover) on a backroad in northern Oklahoma. One stayed still and back a little ways while this one stopped near the edge of the dirt road and started its call which sounded like it was repeating its name...kill deer kill deer...then it would pause and listen. I took a few photos from the vehicle and moved along. ©Debra Martz, All Rights Reserved In My Gallery/Collection: "Feathered Friends" 2024/20200222-DSC_7064.NEF
Description: On a cool rainy afternoon, she didn't move. Water beaded on her feathers like she had made a treaty with the storm — you may touch me, but you will not move me. Below her, hidden in the gravel, everything that mattered. This is what devotion looks like at ground level. Part of The Scrape — a fine art photography series about a killdeer who chose a parking lot and stayed.
Description: She has seen you. She has assessed you. She has decided you are not a problem worth moving for. From ground level, the double bands across her chest read like a warning written in her own feathers — small, yes, but not soft. Never soft. Part of The Scrape — a fine art photography series about a killdeer who chose a parking lot and stayed.
Description: No softer place existed and she didn't look for one. Just gravel, green shoots pushing through stone, and the quiet certainty of a decision already made. She is barely distinguishable from the ground itself — which was always the point. Part of The Scrape — a fine art photography series about a killdeer who chose a parking lot and stayed.
Description: She is not hiding. She is watching. From the gravel she chose as her home, she levels her gaze at anyone who dares come close — double bands like a warning, eyes like a verdict. Small does not mean unaware. Part of The Scrape — a fine art photography series about a killdeer who chose a parking lot and stayed.
Description: For a moment she rose — alert, watching, the double bands vivid against her white chest. Behind her, barely visible in the gravel, the speckled egg she would not leave. This is what it looks like when something small decides to be immovable. Part of The Scrape — a fine art photography series about a killdeer who chose a parking lot and stayed.
Description: She stood in the open and dared the world to notice. The bokeh blurs everything behind her into memory while she stays sharp, present, singular — a small bird holding the whole frame by sheer force of stillness. Part of The Scrape — a fine art photography series about a killdeer who chose a parking lot and stayed.
Description: She chose this place and she meant it. Among the wet stones and new green shoots, she spread herself low and wide — not hiding, just committed. The egg beneath her barely visible, like a secret she was keeping with her whole body. Part of The Scrape — a fine art photography series about a killdeer who chose a parking lot and stayed.
Description: Behind her, a chain link fence. Beneath her, a gravel parking lot. Around her, the small green things pushing through stone anyway. She surveyed her options and this is what she picked — not despite the hardness of it, but unbothered by it entirely. Part of The Scrape — a fine art photography series about a killdeer who chose a parking lot and stayed.
