SPECIES LIST

Lapwing

BREEDING LAPWING

You can spot the tumbling high-low display of male Lapwings from fields away. It tells you where they are setting up a breeding territory. After their wheezy whistling calls make you look up, the bold black and white underside and distinctive wide, paddle-ended wings do not need a second glance to confirm identification. From close to you can make out beautiful iridescent greens, blues and violets on the back and a wispy crest blowing this way and that in the wind. They were once so common that they were taken for granted but Lapwings are in real trouble over the whole country now. Pevensey Levels was a stronghold for them but even here they almost disappeared. Special efforts by farmers have recovered a fraction of their former population but they are not out of danger. The very large area of wet grassland on the Levels gives us an unrivalled potential to get them back again. Shorter sward is the preferred nesting habitat. Returning good numbers of this flagship species would be a very significant conservation success.