The Lapwing

Michael Shrubb

• Publisher: T & AD Poyser
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780713668544
• eBook ISBN: 9781408108987
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Zoology
• Index: Biological Sciences

A detailed, authoritative yet highly readable monograph on one of Britain's best-loved farmland birds, the Lapwing.

With its striking green-black and white plumage and distinctive pee-wit call, the Lapwing is one of Britain's best-known birds. Lapwings depend on agricultural land to breed and are considered a barometer of the health of this habitat; the population has crashed over recent decades, partly due to changes in farming practices. In winter, Lapwings switch to coastal areas and to wetlands, including those in suburban areas, where large, noisy flocks can gather.

Michael Shrubb's The Lapwing is a thorough review of Lapwing biology contains sections on population dynamics, feeding ecology, habitat use, migration, and conservation; there is an impressively detailed review of our current understanding of breeding biology, plus discussion of some other species in the genus.

The Lapwing is a superb addition to the Poyser list. Of interest to both amateur naturalists, who will enjoy insights into the birds' lives, and to academics, who will appreciate the broad overview of current research, this title will remain the definitive work on the species for many years to come.

CHAPTER ONE

The lapwing species

The Northern Lapwing was formerly placed in a monotypic genus—Vanellus, part of a group of related and distinctive species in the subfamily Vanellinae of the plover family Charadriidae. These species and genera are listed in Table 1.1 but the whole group is now more usually treated as a single genus Vanellus, following Sibley & Monroe (1990).

Lapwings are distributed worldwide, except in the Nearctic region. By biogeographical region (Figure 1.1) the greatest concentration of species is in the Afrotropical region, with 11 species breeding: the Spur-winged, Long-toed, Blacksmith, Black-headed, White-headed, Crowned, Senegal Wattled, Senegal, Black-winged, Spot-breasted and Brown-chested Lapwings. The last two have very restricted distributions in the Ethiopian Highlands and West Africa respectively but the remainder are widely distributed south of the Sahara. Three more winter in the Afrotropics: the Sociable, White-tailed and (just) Red-wattled Lapwings. Four species breed only in the Palaearctic region but only the Northern Lapwing is widespread. Sociable, White-tailed and Grey-headed Lapwings occupy restricted ranges in Central Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East, and in northeast China and Japan respectively. Two other species extend into the Palaearctic, the Spur-winged Lapwing from Africa into the Middle East and southeast Europe and the Red-wattled Lapwing from the Indomalayan region into eastern Arabia, Iraq and Iran. Three species breed in the Indomalayan region, the River Lapwing in Bangladesh and neighbouring parts of India and much of southeast Asia, the Yellow-wattled Lapwing over the bulk of the Indian subcontinent and the Red-wattled Lapwing throughout the Indian subcontintent and southeast Asia. Only the Javanese Wattled Lapwing bred on any Indonesian island but it is almost certainly extinct. Northern, Sociable, White-tailed and Grey-headed Lapwings also winter in the Indomalayan region. Two species, the Banded and Masked Lapwings, breed in the Australasian region, the Masked Lapwing being found in New Zealand and New Guinea as well as Australia. Three species breed in the Neotropical region: the Pied, Southern and Andean Lapwings (Vaurie 1965, Cramp &Simmons 1982, Hayman et al. 1986, Hagemeijer & Blair 1997).

Table 1.1. Historic arrangement of genera and species comprising the subfamily Vanellinae. All species now have the English name ‘Lapwing’ and are placed in the genus Vanellus.

Figure 1.1. The six main zoogeographical regions of the world.

Although the group is now absent from the Nearctic region except as passage vagrants, the Southern Lapwing has been found in fossil deposits in Florida (Newton 2003).

Lapwings are birds of short grasslands, cultivation and bare ground, often dry, but marshland, pools and river and lake sides are important habitat features and apparently essential to 11 species.

As a group lapwings typically exhibit several common structural and plumage characteristics. Structurally they have broader and more rounded wings than other plovers, a feature which is most marked in the Northern Lapwing. Their flight often therefore lacks the winnowing dash of species such as the golden plovers, although many species have acrobatic display flights and can move very rapidly. It is the character of this looser and more ‘floppy’ flight that has given rise to the traditional name of lapwing. Although those of the Northern Lapwing are rather short, most lapwings are noticeably long-legged, with the feet extending partly or wholly beyond the tail in flight in 20 species (Table 1.2). Three species have crests, the only waders to do so, 15 have prominent carpal spurs and 11 have facial wattles (eight have both). Only Sociable, White-tailed, Senegal, Crowned and Black-winged Lapwings lack any such adornments. However all lapwings lacking prominent carpal spurs have vestigial ones in the form of bony excrescences under the skin of the carpal joint (Cramp & Simmons 1982).

Lapwings are birds of bold contrast in plumage, with white underwings and most often white underbodies, black primaries and, in many species, bold white bands on the upperwings. Thus even those species which are cryptically coloured at rest are boldly patterned in flight. In tumbling display flights the black/white effect is conspicuous. These bold patterns may also be an effective deterrent against the trampling of nests by large herbivores (Chapter 11). In all species the upper tail is also boldly patterned: white with a bold black terminal band, except in the White-tailed Lapwing, where the tail is all white.

Although the plumage shows sharp contrasts, bright colours are lacking, these being mainly confined to the bare parts. Bills, legs, facial wattles, irides and/or eye rings nearly all exhibit areas of red or yellow (Table 1.2). Only the Sociable Lapwing lacks any such adornment and this species is unique among lapwings in showing a distinct and colourful summer plumage. Seasonal variations in plumage amongst lapwings are otherwise minor and are most marked in Northern, Grey-headed and Yellow-wattled Lapwings.

Movements are varied (Table 1.3). In general those lapwings with breeding ranges extending into cool temperate zones in the northern and southern hemispheres are most strongly migratory, moving away from severe conditions in winter. But several species are true migrants within Africa, moving in response to the cycle of wet and dry seasons: seasonal shifts in response to rains also occur in some species which are otherwise sedentary. One species, the Masked Lapwing, has no regular migrations but a marked post-breeding dispersal has assisted range expansion.

Table 1.2. Colour of bare parts, leg length and other adornments in adult lapwings.

Data from Hayman et al. 1986.

* Under leg length ‘short’ indicates that feet do not extend beyond the tail in flight, ‘medium’ that feet protrude and ‘long’ that the whole foot shows.

** probably extinct.

Five lapwing species breed in the Western Palaearctic: the Northern, Spur-winged, Sociable, White-tailed and Red-wattled Lapwings. Only the Northern Lapwing is generally distributed. The Spur-winged Lapwing breeds in Greece, Turkey, the Levant, the Middle East, Sinai and Egypt and the Sociable Lapwing in Russia and Kazakhstan between 47°N and 53°N, between the Volga and Ural rivers. Apart for occasional records for Turkey, Syria, Armenia, Azerbaijan and the north Caspian coast, the White-tailed Lapwing breeds only in Iraq in this region, although its breeding status there is likely to have been damaged with the drainage of the Euphrates marshes in the 1990s, for this is a species that depends on slow-moving waters. The Red-wattled Lapwing is also confined to Iraq (Cramp & Simmons 1982, Hagemeijer & Blair 1997).

Table 1.3. Patterns of movement in lapwings.

Scientific names are shown in Table 1.1. Sources Cramp & Simmons 1982, Hayman et al. 1986, Urban et al. 1996.

* African breeding populations of Spur-winged Lapwings are sedentary, European ones migratory.

**Breeding populations of White-tailed Lapwings are sedentary in southern Iraq and Iran but migratory in Central Asia and northern Iraq.

THE NORTHERN LAPWING

The Northern Lapwing, which is hereafter called throughout this book by its older and simpler name of ‘Lapwing’, is the most numerous and widespread representative of the group in the Palaearctic, breeding right across the region (Chapter 2). It is the only lapwing over much of the Western Palaearctic with a range extending from the Mediterranean countries, where it is more sparsely distributed, to the Arctic Circle and to nearly 70oN in Scandinavia. Over most of this range it is, or was, an abundant species of open countryside, especially agricultural land. Its historical familiarity to country dwellers in Britain is demonstrated by a wealth of vernacular names—Green Plover, Peewit, Puit, Peeseweep, Pyewipe, Bullock-a-week, Teufit, Tewit, Hornpie and Flapjack are a selection: their relationship to call or flight is obvious.

The Lapwing is a beautiful bird. A distinctive medium-sized plover (about the size of a Woodpigeon) of rather stocky build, it looks black and white at any distance. At close range it shows a marked green and, in breeding males, a purple iridescence on the dark upperparts. The underparts are white with a broad black breastband and orange undertail coverts. The wispy crest sweeps up boldly from the rear crown in the male but is shorter and straighter in the female. The wings are rounded and broad, particularly so across the primaries: males have more rounded wings than females. In flight at all seasons it shows plain dark upperparts with white tips to some primaries and a white tail with a broad black terminal band, whilst the underwing is black on the primaries and secondaries but otherwise white. In breeding plumage the adult male’s face is black with a black line across white cheeks and a pale grey nape. Females have the black areas on the face and breast variably speckled with white. Seen together, males and females are usually quite easily separable in the breeding season, males being much darker on the back, looking very black and white in many lights (Plates 1 & 2). They are also distinctly larger and, in flight, obviously broader winged across the primaries. My impression is that the wings are longer as well. Females, by contrast, are much duller and browner-green looking on the upperparts and blend in well with the poor unimproved grassland habitats they prefer for nest sites. There is much individual variation in the markings in both sexes which can be useful in studies where individuals need to be recognised.

In winter, adults have a white chin and throat, a buffish nape and face, buffish tips to the mantle and covert feathers and, like breeding females, white specklings to the black breastband. Juveniles are usually distinguishable by their very short crest, buff face, marked pale markings or scalloping to feathers of the back and wings and an incomplete breastband. In flight they show a shorter wing with a distinctly narrower primary area, a difference which is often very obvious in flocks mixed with adults. After their first post-juvenile moult they resemble winter adults. Adults undergo a complete moult from May/June to August/September, occasionally into October, and a partial pre-breeding moult in February/March, occasionally April. The latter involves particularly the feathers of the head, neck and upper breast and change is most marked in males. There is a partial post-juvenile moult in young birds from July-December and a first pre-breeding moult as in adults. Juveniles are indistinguishable from adults after their first post-breeding moult (Cramp & Simmons 1982, Hayman et al. 1986, Svensson et al. 1999). Despite the extent of the species’ range...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Introduction and acknowledgements
• 1. The lapwing species
• 2. Breeding distribution and populations
• 3. Breeding habitat and causes of population change in Europe
• 4. Breeding habitat and causes of population change in Britain
• 5. Distribution and populations in winter
• 6. Winter habitat use
• 7. Food and feeding behaviour
• 8. The breeding season: arrival and territory
• 9. The breeding season: courtship, display and pair formation
• 10. The breeding season: laying, incubation and hatching
• 11. The breeding season: nesting success
• 12. Rearing the chicks and fledging success
• 13. Movements and mortality
• 14. Conservation and the future
• Appendix 1. Changes in breeding populations in the 19th and 20th centuries
• Appendix 2. Habitats used by breeding Lapwings in Europe
• Appendix 3. The diet of the Lapwing
• Appendix 4. Scientific names of species mentioned in the text
• References