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The northern lapwing ( Vanellus vanellus), also known as the peewit or pewit, tuit or tewit, green plover, or (in Ireland and Great Britain) pyewipe or just lapwing, is a bird in the lapwing subfamily. It is common through temperate Palearctic.
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 Onomatopoeia and refer to the bird's characteristic call.
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.
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 and cattle.
In winter, it forms huge flocks on open land, particularly arable land and mudflat.
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. Additionally, they use one leg to beat the ground until worms surface, known as a variation of worm charming.
Like the golden plovers, this species prefers to feed at night when there is moonlight.
The northern lapwing is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.
In Armenia, the population decline and loss of breeding habitats was also documented; the threats are thought to be intensification of land use and hunting, but further investigations for threat clarification are required. In the Middle East, the northern lapwing is threatened by overhunting as it is shot in large quantities along its winter migration routes. Several photos surfacing from the region show many Northern lapwings, alongside other migratory birds including the threatened European turtle dove and European golden-plover.
Behaviour
It is highly bird migration 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.
Population decline
National surveys of England and Wales have shown a population decline between 1987 and 1998, and since 2009 the northern lapwing has had red list conservation status in the United Kingdom. The numbers of this species have been adversely affected by intensive agricultural techniques. In the this includes the loss of rough grassland, conversion to Arable land or improved grassland, loss of mixed farms, and switch from spring- to autumn-sown crops. In the uplands, the losses may have been due to increases in grazing density. Natural England gives grant aid to help restore lapwing habitat within its Environmental Stewardship Scheme. The organisation suggests an option within this scheme called 'Fallow plots for ground-nesting birds'. Uncropped plots at least in size provide nesting habitat and are located in suitable arable fields, which provide additional foraging habitat. Locating the plots within of extensively grazed grassland will provide additional foraging habitat. The plots are cultivated in the spring to produce a rough fallow, which is retained without the input of fertiliser or pesticides. In addition to agricultural intensification and land-use change, predation of nests and chicks contributes to wader declines, including of lapwing. By radio-tagging lapwing chicks, and using automatic radio tracking systems, the timing of chick predation can be revealed, which provides additional insights into the importance of different predators. Lapwing chicks are predated both in the day and at night, with mammalian predators having the greatest impact.
Cultural significance
Harvesting eggs
"Plover's eggs" were an expensive delicacy in Victorian era, mentioned in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, about aristocratic British society in 1920–40. In the Netherlands, there is a cultural-historical competition to find the first peewit egg of the year ( het eerste kievietsei). It is especially popular in the province Friesland, but there are also regional competitions. Gathering peewit eggs is prohibited by the European Union, but Friesland was granted an exception for cultural-historical reasons. The Frisian exception was removed in 2005 by a court, which determined that the Frisian executive councillors had not properly followed procedure. As of 2006 looking for peewit eggs is permitted between 1 March and 9 April, though harvesting the eggs is now forbidden. In 2008 the first egg was found on 3 March, in Eemnes, Utrecht, and the first egg of 2009 was found on 8 March in Krabbendijke. Over the last century, the first peewit egg has been found earlier and earlier in the year. This is ascribed to both increased use of fertiliser and climate change, causing the growth of grass needed for egg laying to occur earlier.
In Ireland
The northern lapwing was declared the Republic of Ireland's national bird by a committee of the Irish Wildlife Conservancy in 1990. In the Irish language it is called pilibín, "little Philip", supposedly a reference to Philip II of Spain (King of Ireland 1554–58), who often wore a feather in his cap.
Mythology
The bird referred to in English translations of Ovid's Metamorphoses, book 6, as lapwing is probably the northern lapwing. Tereus is turned into an epops (6.674); Ovid presumably had the Eurasian hoopoe in mind, whose crest indicates his royal status and whose long, sharp beak is a symbol of his violent nature.
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