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The masked lapwing (Vanellus miles) is a large, common and conspicuous bird native to Australia (particularly the northern and eastern parts of the continent), New Zealand and New Guinea. It spends most of its time on the ground searching for food such as insects and worms, and has several distinctive calls.
The traditional terms "plover", "lapwing", and "dotterel" do not correspond exactly to current taxonomic models; thus, several of the Vanellinae are often called plovers, and one a dotterel, while a few of the "true" plovers (subfamily Charadriinae) are known colloquially as lapwings. In general, a lapwing can be thought of as a larger plover.
These were rather vague terms which were not applied with any great consistency in the past. In general, larger species have often been called lapwings, smaller species plovers or dotterels and there are in fact two clear taxonomic sub-groups: most lapwings belong to the subfamily Vanellinae, most plovers and dotterels to Charadriinae.
There are 25 extant species of lapwings. [5] Africa has the most species of lapwings, while North America has none. [5] Australia has two native species, the masked lapwing and the banded lapwing. [6] The masked lapwing is split into Vanellus miles miles and Vanellus miles novaehollandiae. [7]
The masked lapwing (also known as the spur-winged plover) has carpal spurs. Nesting pairs defend their territory against all intruders by calling loudly, spreading their wings, and then swooping fast and low, and where necessary, striking at interlopers with their feet and attacking animals on the ground with the conspicuous yellow spurs.
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The full-size ("large fowl") American Game is not recognized by the American Poultry Association, which in 2009 recognized the American Game Bantam in ten colors. The American Game is not among the fifty-three chicken breeds reported by the National Animal Germplasm Program of the USDA Agricultural Research Service to the DAD-IS database of the ...
These lapwings breed in the dry season with peak breeding in March to May ahead of the monsoons. [15] The nest territory has been estimated, based on the distance to nearest neighbours, to be about 2.7 acres. [16] They lay four eggs in a ground scrape. [17] A nest in a clump of grass has been noted as exceptional. [18]