Aerial Application Is Environmentally Friendly
By Ronnie Taylor, Deep South Flying

In early April, one of my loaders came into the office and informed me that once again, a mother Killdeer bird had returned this year and was nesting on the side of our loading pad. Killdeers are known for returning to the same area year after year to lay their eggs. As we approached the mother, she began her act of bluffing to draw us away from her nest – running off, pretending to have a broken wing. As we got closer, sure enough, we noticed she had been sitting on four eggs. The minute we walked away she scurried back to her nest.

As you know, the loading pad is the center of activity around a flying service. Not only is our pad used for loading pesticides, but it is also our wash rack. Working in rice country, our aircraft are loaded up with herbicides for grass control during the morning and then rinsed out  and converted to dry for seeding and fertilizer the rest of the day. During the day, there is constant fueling and at the end of the day the aircraft are washed and converted back to wet for the next day.

When we had deliveries of Jet A fuel, we caution the 18 wheeler drivers to navigate around the mother Killdeer. There she sits, with a tanker truck pumping fuel behind her and planes loading in front of her. When we are loading to spray, her nest lays under the right wing of our aircraft and as the plane exits the pad, the prop blast is aimed right at her. But she still remains and hunkers down and protects her eggs. Day after day mother killdeer sits on her eggs watching the daily goings on of a crop dusting operation.

Mother Killdeer became so familiar with our daily chores that she would only squawk when we came within two or three feet of her. This continued for over three weeks, and one Saturday morning, as I was getting another load of spray, my son Stuart grabbed his camera and took photos of the eggs hatching with mother kill deer supervising and cleaning the nest of egg shells as each bird hatched. After a couple of hours, all of the eggs hatched and mother Killdeer guided her four chicks (which look like golf balls on stilts) into an adjacent pasture.

We find it amazing that mother Killdeer has chosen this area to create her nest. With the use of safe selective pesticides and approved loading facilities, a wild mother bird feels safe and secure to nest around crop dusters. I always said the greatest danger she faced around Deep South Flying Service was the hanger cat.