Lapwings in lark winter
Web camera image: Bleggi from LK forum
Photo: Arne Ader
Translation: Liis
Lapwings in forest camera view
| Lapwing | Kiivitaja |
This is early migrant life: you arrive with a south wind and the next day you are in lark winter. News of lapwings came from southern Estonia some days ago, yesterday they were already in northern Estonia. The risk of perishing in a severe cold wave is great for early arrivals and because of exhaustion from food shortage nesting may not come about but the same thing is repeated from year to year.
Among the early spring heralds rooks and skylarks have arrived, and starlings and stock doves have been seen. Lapwings are at first seen at puddles in places where the snow has melted. The water thaws the frozen ground and in such places there is likely to be something to eat.
In flight the black and white wings with rounded tips show. The male and female are quite similar: the male’s crest is longer and more impressive, the throat is black. The female has a smaller crest, the throat is mottled, for young birds quite light-coloured. Very colourful birds in a good light.
Until mid-April a great migration of lapwings nesting in the north passes through Estonia; at about the same time the local nesters have settled in. Twenty to thirty thousand lapwing pairs are estimated to nest in Estonia.
Lapwing
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