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Southern Lapwings Defend Their Nest
Shorebirds that swoop at any intruder to protect their young.
Nature educator Johanne Ryan shares her observations of Southern Lapwings, shorebirds that make their nests on the ground in open areas and vigorously defend them. If a potential predator approaches, the parent will sound a piercing alarm call. If that doesn’t work, the lapwing will charge the opponent, using a secret weapon – sharp, bony spurs on the bird’s “wrists.”
BirdNote®
Southern Lapwings Defend Their Nest
Written by Johanne Ryan
This is BirdNote. I’m Johanne Ryan, a nature educator in Trinidad and Tobago.
[Field soundscape from Trinidad]
Day and night, I often hear the piercing cackles of Southern Lapwings right from my home. They are familiar sights in my neighborhood.
[Southern Lapwing call]
In a shallow depression on a grassy cricket field are three olive brown, mottled eggs. A Southern Lapwing mother carefully covers the clutch before leaving to look for food. But this clutch of eggs needs more than just camouflage to evade predators like reptiles on the ground or hawks in the sky. If an unfamiliar creature approaches, the Southern Lapwing parent, usually the male, sounds his alarm.
[Southern Lapwing call]
He then charges towards his opponent – wings open and head low, ready to peck with his sharp beak. If that doesn’t work, the lapwing takes flight, where he becomes a feathered fighter jet swooping at the intruder. And the lapwing has a secret weapon: sharp, red, bony spurs that stick out from the birds’ ‘wrists’.
My heart jumped the first time I had to duck to avoid a lapwing’s flying attack. I thought I was a good distance away, but the bird thought otherwise.
This is why humans can never get too close to a Southern Lapwing’s nest. These ferocious defenders simply won’t have it!
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Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Producer: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Ariana Remmel
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. ML48706421 recorded by Tom Johnson, Southern Lapwing ML217029 recorded by Robert Bochenek, and Southern Lapwing ML189516 recorded by Matthew D. Medler.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2023 BirdNote August 2023 / September 2025 Narrator: Johanne Ryan
ID# SOLA-01b-2023-08-23 SOLA-01b
Reference:
https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/soulap1/cur/introduction
Johanne Ryan
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