At work there is a killdeer that put its nest right at our walkway to the door of the building. She sure gets a lot of work in protecting her nest from us scary humans. Funny little critter.
In the various buildings and office parks I've worked in I have noticed certain critters especially birds become very tolerant of being in close proximity to people if they are left alone. When I smoked I would sit on the loading dock taking a break and many times chickadees sparrows or crows would land on the dock just a few feet away from me. As long as I was still it felt like they were there for a visit.
There were a number of kildeers who nested on the ground of our lumber yard years ago. I loved to see them running away from the nest, pretending to be injured, so I (the predator) would follow them.