Eastern and Southern Africa: Ethiopia, Somalia - S Angola and south excluding E of Lake Malawi and much of Mozambique.
Savannas
Resident
Plover evolution began late in the Cretaceous period. The plover family Charadriidae is one of the nine families of waders. Of 190 wader species, 63 of them belong to the plover family.
Perception Channels: visual ; tactile ; acoustic ; chemical
This species is widespread throughout its range and in no need of conservation attention. To make sure the species population remains at a safe size, open African habitats must be maintained.
US Federal List: no special status
CITES: no special status
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: least concern
The crowned plover opportunistically forages on a wide variety of insects, but mostly ants and termites. These insects are often extracted from the dung of large mammals. They feed mainly by surface pecking as opposed to digging. One curious feeding habit of all plovers, which has not fully been analyzed, has been called foot paddling or foot trembling. The plover stamps the ground with its foot. Worms mistake the noise for the pattering of rain and burrow up to the surface where they are eaten by the plover.
Resident in eastern and southern Africa, crowned plovers are found from Ethiopia in the north to South Africa in the south and east to Kenya. Recorded as high as 3000 m above sea level, this bird is absent from coastal lowlands south of Malindi and from much of the Lake Victoria basin.
Biogeographic Regions: ethiopian (Native )
Crowned plovers are widespread over Africa. They are found where the grass is short or has been burned, such as on dry grassland, open savanna, and cultivated lands. Habitats with low rainfall are acceptable as long as the lacking of precipitation does not affect food availability.
Terrestrial Biomes: desert or dune ; savanna or grassland ; chaparral
Female crowned plovers are identical to males. Adults are uniformly brown on the back and chest. The white belly is separated from the breast by a narrow black line. The tail is white with a broad black band while underneath the tail and wing are also white. The crowned plover has a broad, diagonal white wing-stripe. Its black crown is encircled by a white ring. The eyes are yellow during the breeding season and brownish orange when not breeding. The bill is red with a brownish tip, and the long legs are also red. This large plover has a length of 30-31 cm. Juveniles have a duller head pattern.
Other Physical Features: endothermic ; bilateral symmetry
Breeding occurs in the spring months from July to October. The nest is in a shallow depression in the soil with a lining of vegetation and other debris. The nests are on flat ground near a shade tree and mammal droppings that are the same color as the eggs. There are normally 3 eggs, sometimes 2 or 4. Incubation requires 28 to 32 days and is done by both sexes. Immediately after hatching the young leave the nest while both parents look after them.
Key Reproductive Features: iteroparous ; gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate); sexual ; oviparous
This is a citizen science project where users play an online game and help scientists study camoflauge by spotting camoflauged birds (nightjars, plovers,and coursers) and their nests.
The crowned lapwing (Vanellus coronatus), or crowned plover, is a bird of the lapwing subfamily that occurs contiguously from the Red Sea coast of Somalia to southern and southwestern Africa. It is an adaptable and numerous species, with bold and noisy habits. It is related to the more localized black-winged and Senegal lapwings, with which it shares some plumage characteristics.
The crowned lapwing was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1781 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected in the Cape of Good Hope region of South Africa.[2] The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text.[3] Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Charadrius coronatus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées.[4] The crowned lapwing is now placed in the genus Vanellus that was erected by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760.[5][6] The generic name Vanellus is the Medieval Latin for a "lapwing". It is a diminutive of the Latin vanus meaning "winnowing" or "fan". The specific epithet coronatus is Latin for "crowned".[7]
Three subspecies are recognised:[6]
The crowned lapwing is easily recognized by its combination of brown and white colours, with most tellingly, a black crown intersected by an annular white halo. Adults are noisy and conspicuous.
Males measure on average 3% larger than females. Juveniles are dull versions of adults, vermiculated on the wings and mantle, the legs yellowy rather than red and the bill lacking the red base.
Crowned lapwings prefer short, dry grassland which may be overgrazed or burnt, but avoid mountains. In higher-rainfall areas such as parts of Zambia and Zimbabwe, they occur mainly as dry-season visitors. In dry regions of northern Botswana, however, they are attracted in large numbers when good rainfall occurs. In southern Africa their highest concentrations are to be found in the dry central Kalahari region.
Although generally outnumbered by blacksmith lapwings, they are the most widespread and locally the most numerous lapwing species in their area of distribution. Their numbers have increased in the latter part of the 20th century after benefiting from a range of human activities. They live up to 20 years.
The crowned lapwing is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.
Crowned lapwings and the more localized black-winged lapwings sometimes associate and do not show mutual aggression, even within breeding territories. Different crowned lapwing males do however posture aggressively when nesting territories are established. The loser in an encounter assumes a special posture to signal his defeat.
Bare-part colours of males brighten in the breeding season. Different types of display flights lure the female to the defended territory. A female accepting the male and territory will follow the male during his display flight. Mates may be retained for life. Egg-laying is timed to precede the rainy season and most incubating is done by the female. The male assists only on hot days, when he either incubates or shades the nest.
Their diet consists of a variety of insects, but termites and ants form an important component.[8] These insects are often extracted from the dung of large mammals.[9] They feed mainly by surface pecking as opposed to digging.[10]
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The crowned lapwing (Vanellus coronatus), or crowned plover, is a bird of the lapwing subfamily that occurs contiguously from the Red Sea coast of Somalia to southern and southwestern Africa. It is an adaptable and numerous species, with bold and noisy habits. It is related to the more localized black-winged and Senegal lapwings, with which it shares some plumage characteristics.
