Southern Lapwing

Fascinating facts about the Southern Lapwing

• A southern lapwing will dive-bomb anything it sees as a threat to its eggs — including humans, horses, and jaguars — with a piercing alarm call that can be heard a kilometre away. The bird's wings fold at an angle that lets it twist mid-air like a fighter jet, and it will strike predators on the head repeatedly until they flee. This aggressive parenthood has made them common across South American grasslands because few predators bother returning to a nest they've already been attacked from.
• Southern lapwings have a 17-millimetre spur on their wing — a sharp, bony spike that juts from the leading edge like a medieval weapon — which they use to rake across the faces of animals that get too close to chicks. No other common bird in South America has this adaptation. Fossil records suggest this weapon evolved over millions of years as these birds shifted from forest life to open grasslands where eggs were far more exposed.
• Chicks hatch fully feathered and can run within hours of hatching, following their parents across muddy ground in single-file lines. Unlike most bird chicks, they feed themselves by pecking at insects — parents only watch and warn. By day three they can fly short distances. This "precocial" strategy means a southern lapwing chick faces the full hazards of predation from its first morning alive, which is why the adults are so violent in defence.
• Southern lapwings have colonised cities and pastures across South America over the last 50 years, expanding their range northward from the southern grasslands into Venezuela and Colombia. They now breed in cattle pastures, airports, and roof gardens in Buenos Aires — habitats that barely existed a human lifetime ago. Their willingness to nest on flat open ground, combined with their fearless attacks on larger animals, has made them one of the continent's most adaptable birds.
• A southern lapwing's call is a two-syllable 'kee-hee' that sounds almost like laughter, and local people across its range know it as the 'Tero' or 'Terero' — onomatopoeia so embedded in Spanish that it became the bird's common name. In Argentina, the bird is so iconic that a children's book character is named after its call. Few wild animals have been given names by the cultures that share their land based purely on what they sound like.

At a glance

About the Southern Lapwing

Across the sun-baked grasslands, the Southern Lapwing strides with purpose, its long legs eating up the distance as it patrols its territory with a fierce devotion. With a crest raised high and a piercing call, it commands attention, its very presence a testament to the resilience of life in these unforgiving yet beautiful landscapes. As it moves, its wings beat in a slow, deliberate rhythm, a mesmerizing dance that belies the sharp instincts and cunning that have allowed this remarkable bird to thrive in its domain.

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