Crowned Lapwing
Vanellus coronatus
A large, alert-looking, white-bellied, brown lapwing with a distinct white “halo” around the dark crown. The immature is duller, but it retains the distinctive crown pattern. Small groups occupy open dry country, preferring cropped and recently burnt grasslands, where they forage for termites, ants, and other invertebrates. Commonly resident, but it also disperses when conditions become unfavorable. It gives a series of noisy, scratchy “kirre” calls that are distinctive.
Identification
The crowned lapwing is easily recognized by its combination of brown and white colours, with most tellingly, a black crown intersected by an annular white halo. Adults are noisy and conspicuous.<p>Males measure on average 3% larger than females. Juveniles are dull versions of adults, vermiculated on the wings and mantle, the legs yellowy rather than red and the bill lacking the red base.
Taxonomy
The crowned lapwing was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1781 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected in the Cape of Good Hope region of South Africa. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Charadrius coronatus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The crowned lapwing is now placed in the genus Vanellus that was erected by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. The generic name Vanellus is the Medieval Latin for a "lapwing". It is a diminutive of the Latin vanus meaning "winnowing" or "fan". The specific epithet coronatus is Latin for "crowned".<p>Three subspecies are recognised:
- Scientific name
- Vanellus coronatus
- Authority
- (Boddaert, 1783)
- Order
- Charadriiformes
- Family
- Charadriidae
- Genus
- Vanellus
Range and habitat
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
Crowned lapwings and the more localized black-winged lapwings sometimes associate and do not show mutual aggression, even within breeding territories. Different crowned lapwing males do however posture aggressively when nesting territories are established. The loser in an encounter assumes a special posture to signal his defeat.<p>Bare-part colours of males brighten in the breeding season. Different types of display flights lure the female to the defended territory. A female accepting the male and territory will follow the male during his display flight. Mates may be retained for life. Egg-laying is timed to precede the rainy season and most incubating is done by the female. The male assists only on hot days, when he either incubates or shades the nest.
Conservation
- Population trend
- rising
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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