Northern Lapwing
Vanellus vanellus
A handsome and striking large wader (shorebird) with long wispy crest. Fairly common in open habitats, from grassland and farmland to wetlands, and locally on coastal mudflats. Declining in some areas with land-use changes. Forms flocks from late summer through winter, locally in hundreds or even thousands. Boldly patterned plumage looks black and white overall, but back shows green gloss in good light. Flies with deep, rather floppy wingbeats and dives steeply in breeding display; wingtips notably broad and rounded, not pointed like most waders.
Identification
The northern lapwing is a 28–33 cm (11–13 in) long bird with a 67–87 cm (26–34 in) wingspan and a body mass of 128–330 g (4.5–11.6 oz). It has rounded wings and a crest. It is also the shortest-legged of the lapwings. It is mainly black and white, but the back is tinted green. The male has a long crest and a black crown, throat and breast contrasting with an otherwise white face. Females and young birds have shorter crests, and have less strongly marked heads, but plumages are otherwise quite similar.<p>This is a vocal bird in the breeding season, with constant calling as the crazed tumbling display flight is performed by the male. The typical contact call is a loud, shrill "pee-wit" from which they get their other name of peewit. Displaying males usually make a wheezy "pee-wit, wit wit, eeze wit" during their display flight; these birds also make squeaking or mewing sounds.
Taxonomy
The northern lapwing was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Tringa vanellus. The species is now placed with the other lapwings in the genus Vanellus that was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. The scientific name Vanellus is Medieval Latin for the northern lapwing and derives from vannus, a winnowing fan. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.<p>The name lapwing has been variously attributed to the "lapping" sound its wings make in flight, from the irregular progress in flight due to its large wings (the Oxford English Dictionary derives this from an Old English word meaning "to totter"), or from its habit of drawing potential predators away from its nest by trailing a wing as if broken. The names peewit, pewit, tuit or tew-it are onomatopoeic and refer to the bird's characteristic call.
- Scientific name
- Vanellus vanellus
- Authority
- (Linnaeus, 1758)
- Order
- Charadriiformes
- Family
- Charadriidae
- Genus
- Vanellus
Range and habitat
- Breeding range
- PAL : widespread inland temperate and subarctic Eurasia: British Is., Scandinavia and Baltic states to Iberian Pen. e through s, c Russia to se Russia and ne China, s through Turkey and Caspian region, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, and Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia (nw, nc China)
- Non-breeding range
- to n Africa, Arabian Pen., sub-Himalayan n Pakistan and n India, c, s Japan, Korean Pen., e China, Taiwan and n Vietnam
- Migration
- Complete migrants
Behavior
It is highly migratory over most of its extensive range, wintering further south as far as North Africa, northern India, Nepal, Bhutan and parts of China. It migrates mainly by day, often in large flocks. Lowland breeders in westernmost areas of Europe are resident. It occasionally is a vagrant to North America, especially after storms, as in the Canadian sightings after storms in December 1927 and in January 1966.<p>It is a wader that breeds on cultivated land and other short vegetation habitats. 3–4 eggs are laid in a ground scrape. The nest and young are defended noisily and aggressively against all intruders, up to and including horses and cattle.<p>In winter, it forms huge flocks on open land, particularly arable land and mud-flats.<p>It feeds primarily on insects and other small invertebrates. This species often feeds in mixed flocks with golden plovers and black-headed gulls, the latter often robbing the two plovers, but providing a degree of protection against predators.<p>Like the golden plovers, this species prefers to feed at night when there is moonlight.<p>The northern lapwing is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
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