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In flight with wing spurs clearly visible. The masked lapwing is the largest representative of the family Charadriidae.It measures from 30 to 37 cm (12 to 15 in) in length and has a wingspan of 75–85 cm (30–33 in), and has a conspicuous yellow spur on the carpal joint of each wing.
Pacific golden plovers gather in flocks some days prior to migrating north, and fly at altitudes of about 3,000 ft (910 m) to as high as 16,000 ft (4,900 m). [7] Some birds do not migrate. These are usually first-year, older, injured individuals, or birds without enough fat reserves to make the journey.
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 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 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 ...
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 first fossils of the Vanellus species were from Belgian deposits retrieved from the middle Oligocene dating back 30 million years ago, the time when the first ...
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.
The semipalmated plover (Charadrius semipalmatus) is a small plover. Charadrius is a Late Latin word for a yellowish bird mentioned in the fourth-century Vulgate. It derives from Ancient Greek kharadrios a bird found in ravines and river valleys (kharadra, "ravine"). The specific semipalmatus is Latin and comes from semi, "half" and palma ...