On the route my wife and I walk early each morning is the front lawn of a neighbour’s house. There we watch every day for the resident Spur-winged Plovers. They are permanent residents in our area.<\/p>\n
We watch Mr and Mrs Plover nesting every six months or so, sitting on their eggs, and caring for their chicks. It was only a few months ago when we were watching four balls of fluff, walking awkwardly over the lawn.<\/p>\n
Now they are back on the same nests with another four eggs in the shallow nest. They come back every year to raise their chicks on the same spot.<\/p>\n
There are usually around 3-4 speckled eggs in the nest. The parents are very protective of their chicks, and swoop on any who come too close. They can look very serious with their wings spread out, each with a small spur, the yellow flesh or wattle over their beaks puffed out, and with a pointed beak thrust out behind a lowered neck as they run towards the danger. Most dogs, cats and people retreat at their ground attack.<\/p>\n
However, the plovers are unlikely to cause any harm, because most of the time when they swoop or attack they are bluffing. Often they threaten intruders by extending their wings and making a loud screeching cry as they make their frontal attack. But other times they retreat, trying to draw potential predators away from the nest by feigning injury, dragging their wings on the ground and pretending they are injured.<\/p>\n
The Spur-winged plover is so named because it has a sharp, yellow, black-tipped spur on each wing. It is also known as the Masked lapwing and Masked plover. It is a long-legged wading bird with a black head, white belly and yellow facial wattles. Plovers are found Australia-wide. The Spur-winged plover is found mainly in South and Eastern Australia.<\/p>\n
Spur-winged plovers are ground-nesting birds, and they usually have two to four chicks. These birds used to migrate from Australia to Siberia, where they could nest in peace without any predators around. However, they now breed in Australia, and so have to constantly defend their chicks against intruders.<\/p>\n
Plover eggs are very well camouflaged. If there are plovers in your area, be careful not to step on the eggs or run them over with the lawn mower. My neighbour mows up to about a metre on all sides of their nest and they seem comfortable with that, except if his dog wanders over or if we pause near the front gate. Plovers will only swoop for about three weeks, so simply stay away from them during this time.<\/p>\n
Plovers return to the same nesting site every year and place the nest in the exact same spot. When there are eggs in the nest (just a depression in the ground) the male stands guard and warns of anything approaching.<\/p>\n
Masked Lapwings are also found in Indonesia, New Guinea, New Caledonia and New Zealand. The New Zealand and New Caledonian populations have been formed from birds that have flown there from Australia.<\/p>\n
The Masked Lapwing inhabits marshes, mudflats, beaches and grasslands. Our area is on the Central coast, but we also have the huge Tuggerah and Macquarie Lakes and lots of large water retention dams near creeks. They have long legs and the wide spread feet typical of waders.<\/p>\n
In our urban area, filled with McMansions, the birds are used to human presence. So they tolerate close proximity but otherwise they are very wary of people, and seldom allow close approach.<\/p>\n
Masked Lapwings – our plovers – feed on insects and their larvae, grubs and earthworms. Most food is obtained from just below the surface of the ground, but some may also be taken above the surface. Birds are normally seen feeding alone, in pairs or in small groups. Both sexes share the building of the nest, which is a simple scrape in the ground away from ground cover. This nest is often placed in inappropriate locations, such as school playing fields or the roofs of buildings.<\/p>\n
Both sexes also incubate the eggs and care for the young birds. The young birds are born with a full covering of down and are able to leave the nest and feed themselves a few hours after hatching. They are lovely to watch, but just stand back. Mr and Mrs Plover do defend their home and offspring.<\/p>\n
Rev the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes AC MLC<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On the route my wife and I walk early each morning is the front lawn of a neighbour’s house. There we watch every day for the resident Spur-winged Plovers. They are permanent residents in our area. We watch Mr and Mrs Plover nesting every six months or so, sitting on their eggs, and caring for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}