Two of the latest visitors to the Metro Regional Center have taken a liking to the building's roof, setting up home there.
The visitors are a pair of killdeer, shorebirds that don't stick to beaches, and they have set up a nest on the roof. Killdeers are in the plover family and like open ground with either low or no vegetation, including lawns, golf courses, athletic fields, parking lots and gravel-covered roofs.
The Metro roof isn't your standard roof. It's a green roof, covered with the type of vegetation killdeers like, small and low shallow-rooted plants. Red cinder rock gravel creates the bed for the plants, instead of traditional drainage mats. The cinder rock gravel improves drainage in wet months like this June has been as well as keeps the plants from drying out in the summer months. Metro's green roof was installed in August 2005.
The killdeers have adapted fairly well to urban landscapes but the birds are having a hard time maintaining their numbers in the Portland area so it is particularly exciting to see one nesting on the Metro roof. Now the watch for the babies begins. The mother bird keeps going back to the same spot and settling in, puffing out her feathers which indicates she is incubating eggs. During this time, the Metro green roof has been placed off limits - to humans.