Northern Lapwing

Voice

A nasal, plaintive pee-wit, which gives the bird its English name. In display it becomes a drawn-out, swooping kee-oo weet-weet, backed by the throbbing hum of the wings. Mostly March to May; winter flocks are largely silent.

Identification

Medium-sized plover with a thin upswept crest, broad rounded wings and a black-and-white effect that resolves into green and purple gloss at close range. Orange-buff undertail coverts and short reddish legs. Flight is a floppy, flickering flap. Males show a longer crest and black throat; winter birds have a white throat and buff-fringed feathers.

Confusion species

Distant flocks in flight recall Golden Plover, with which they often mix; Golden Plovers have pointed wings, faster beats and look golden rather than pied. On the ground the rare Sociable and White-tailed Lapwings are the trap: sandy brown, crestless and with a pale supercilium.

Habitat

Open, short and damp grassland, spring-tilled arable fields, saltmarsh and drained mud, always with a clear horizon. In winter on ploughland, stubble and flooded meadows, often in mixed flocks with Golden Plovers and Black-headed Gulls.

Range and movements

Breeds from Ireland east into Russia, with the Dutch farmed countryside a stronghold. Hard frost sends flocks streaming to France and Iberia, where flooded dehesa, rice fields and arable land in Extremadura, La Mancha and the Guadalquivir basin take the wintering birds.

• Resident
• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• Migration direction
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

March, early morning, along a wet polder road: display flight is at its best then, males tumbling and swooping low with humming wings. In December a sharp frost sets off big cold-weather movements to the south-west, worth watching from any open vantage point.

Conservation status

Near Threatened globally and one of the fastest declining meadow birds in the Netherlands. Earlier mowing, drainage, conversion of grassland to maize and heavy predation destroy clutches and chicks; wet, herb-rich fields with delayed mowing offer the best prospects.