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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.
Plovers (/ ˈ p l ʌ v ər / PLUV-ər, [1] also US: / ˈ p l oʊ v ər / PLOH-vər) [2] are members of a widely distributed group of wading birds of subfamily Charadriinae. The term "plover" applies to all the members of the subfamily, [ 1 ] though only about half of them include it in their name.
It has been suggested that most plovers originated from the Southern Hemisphere and evolved under arid and semi-arid conditions. [5] 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]
Plover eggs were a form of eggs as food, and a seasonal delicacy of western Europe. [1] Gathered from wild green-plover nests, [ 2 ] a practice called plover egging , these eggs were perceived to be particularly flavorful and were snatched up by avid rural foragers and, in turn, their urban customers, as soon as nesting season began each year.
The trend in recent years has been to rationalise the common names of the Charadriidae. For example, the large and very common Australian bird traditionally known as the 'spur-winged plover', is now the masked lapwing to avoid conflict with another bird with the same name; and the former 'sociable plover' is now the sociable lapwing.
The hooded plover was formally described in 1818 by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot under the current binomial name Charadrius cucullatus. [3] The binomial name Charadrius cucullatus was at one time treated as a junior synonym of Charadrius rubricollis Gmelin, 1789, [4] [5] but in 1998 the American ornithologist Storrs L. Olson designated a lectotype for C. rubricollis and made ...
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.
The red-capped plover is a seasonal breeder on the coasts of Australia, but breeds in response to unpredictable rains inland. [3] The plover nests on the ground close to wetlands; the nest is a small depression in the ground, with minimal or no lining. The clutch of two pale yellowish-brown eggs are speckled with black spots.