From My Cyberjournal 18 November 2003

While on my usual walking route, I had an encounter with a curious-looking bird at the cemetery. In a small clearing (to build more space for more tombstones), I glimpsed a yellow beak with black head and eyes peeping out among the grass. It was a bird nesting on the ground. When I approached, camera in hand, the bird immediately gave an alarming kekekeKEK cry, and it's mate quickly appeared in front of me and tried to lure me away from the nesting hen by running and pretending to be injured. I followed a few steps then turned to approach the nest slowly, at which point the male then changed tactic and flew directly at me with wild KekekeKEK screeches, swooshed past me, then turned for another sweep. It took several passes from the bird and several shots from me (had to calculate the distance as the autofocus was too slow for a zooming bird) before I managed to get a few arial shots. I documented the nesting pair as well. The bird is called a Masked Plover, and as you will see in the photo in flight, it has spurs sticking out of its wings, like the extinct flying pterosaurs of the dinosaur age.