Sergey Dereliev

Largely distributed across farmlands of Eurasia, from the British Isles to Korea, though monotypic. Present all year long at mid latitudes in Europe and Turkey. Northern populations truly migratory, winter range extends south from North Africa, the Middle East to China.

Season of assessment

B

Population trendDecreasing
Population size
(min-max, best estimate)		3180000-4590000,3820000
Red List categoryVU
Franks, S., Fiedler, W., Arizaga, J., Jiguet, F., Nikolov, B., van der Jeugd, Ambrosini, R, Aizpurua, O., Bairlein, F., Clark, J., Fattorini, N, Hammond, M., Higgins, D, Levering, H., Skellorn, W., Spina, F, Thorup, K. Walker, J., Woodward, I. and Baillie, S.R. (1) (2022) Online Atlas of the movements of European bird populations. https://migrationatlas.org EURING/CMS (1) Principal investigator
Map

Overall Connectivity for Northern Lapwing

The overall direction of observed movements is towards the SW across Europe, with also longitudinal E-W movements between Europe and Kazakhstan and eastern Russia. Movements within the British Isles and West Europe are also oriented NE to SW. Northern breeders move to the West and South-West, as do birds from Central and East Europe. North-West birds stay in the British Isles or move SW to the continent. Birds from Central and South-Central Europe can move to North Africa. Main ringing effort is from West Europe (the Netherlands), so most information comes from birds breeding or wintering there.

Recoveries by Condition for Northern Lapwing

There is a large majority of dead recoveries from hunted birds, as the lapwing is a game species in most of Europe. The increasing effort in colour ringing increased the proportion of live recoveries to over 60% after 1990, but the numbers of re-encounters was high even before 1960 (and started in 1910!).

Annual Movements for Northern Lapwing

There are some movements within wintering regions in case of harsh climatic conditions. Tracking of Dutch birds (Eichhorn et al. 2017) reported that birds from a colony had widely separated wintering grounds, from the colony to Ireland and Morocco, but individuals are faithful to their wintering area. Movements are direct and fast, some birds covering 2000 km within 2-4 days. A large variation in migration strategies supports the species’ responsiveness to recent climate change (shortened migration distance, advanced breeding timing).

Connectivity by Month by Region for Northern Lapwing

Only birds from the North, Central and East Europe leave completely their breeding grounds between September and November, and mainly start the spring migration in March (February in Mediterranean countries), with arrivals on breeding grounds done achieved in May. In the North-West and West, birds are present year-round and wintering grounds in the South-West are largely empty in March, and provide again numerous recoveries in December.

Frédéric Jiguet

References

Statistics Map
N records N individuals N recoveries
Mapped data*
Total available data
*Mapped data include only distant (>= 50 km) recoveries
References Map
Eichhorn, G., Bil, W., Fox, J.W.2017 . Individuality in northern lapwing migration and its link to timing of breeding. Journal of Avian Biology 48 Link to Article (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jav.01374) : 1132–1138

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