This is a common nighthawk nest. you can tell it is a nest because of the eggs. Otherwise it would just be sandy ground. They don't put much effort into nest building. But they do have nicely camouflaged eggs (you do see two eggs, don't you?).
The birds themselves are rather well camouflaged. Mom is sitting on two chicks in this picture. Mom is the striped bump in the center of the image (click any image to bigafy).
Here are the two chicks mom was incubating. I think they are facing away from us. I was standing two feet away and couldn't tell. What do you think?
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Not all birds are so well camouflaged. Nor need to be. This prairie warbler chick was able to get about easily enough on its own. Although it still depended on mom and dad for food. And neither mom nor dad seemed all that happy when it wandered over to check us out. It was the presence of mom and dad that clued me into the fledgling's species.
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City birds are much easier to recognize. Like this fledgling robin on a car outside my girlfriend's house in Philadelphia. If you look closely you'll see that it is perched on a branch. It seemed quite unconcerned with me or any of the other passersby. A true denizen of the city.
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Back in the country and not all that far form the nighthawks, I came across this now empty nursery. It is a turtle nest. The hole in the center is where the baby turtles crawled out. If you look closely you can see some eggshells. Curled up white things. There are two directly below the hole. I've found plenty of such nests in my wanderings. I've yet to be there when the turtles emerge. I'll just have to keep looking.
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