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For the past 12 days I have been keeping an eye on
a Masked Lapwing sitting on a nest within a metre of the pool in the
backyard of a house in Percy Crescent Chapman. Lapwings were calling there
this afternoon, and I managed to sneak up and see one runner before it froze on
the ground. I was alerted to this breeding event later than in previous
years (described below) as in this case the other parent did not stay nearby on
sentry duty, characteristically giving out the alarm as soon as I appeared on
the horizon.
There was a similar event in exactly the same place
as last year, but about a month later. However, the timing is very similar
to an attempted breeding on the front lawn of this house in 2005, which was
either abandoned or predated at a very late stage of incubation. Lapwings
bred on the front lawn successfully in 2004 but eggs did not hatch until the
first week of October. I now expect the parents to move the chick(s) about
200 metres to the nearby horse paddocks as they have done in previous
years.
Jack Holland
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