Somewhere between the echoing foghorn off Race Point and the moans of Gov’t Bell buoy outside the ferry slip, if you listen very carefully during the cacophony of swirling grackles and red-winged blackbirds, you just might hear the high pitched and the drawn out piping of “kill deer- kill deer-kill deer.”

I have been neck and neck with this upland plover as I scout out returning oyster catcher pairs this week. Up east, atop dunes at the Big Club, they scurry across the airport runway and even tease me while running for home plate at the softball field!

I had nearly given up trying to capture this “flighty” shorebird on camera when later in the evening, a killdeer happened to casually walk over from the Fort Wright Parade Grounds and join me, for just a second.

Justine Kibbe is the island naturalist for the Fishers Island Conservancy. A lifelong environmentalist, Kibbe spent six years on Alaska’s Island of St. Paul among the native Unungan people to study fur seals. Now a Fishers Island resident, Kibbe offers weekly wildlife snapshots from her observations around the island in “My Neck Of The Woods.” You can reach her at bjkibbe@gmail.com.