Black crested lapwing
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Black crested lapwing ( Vanellus tectus ) |
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| ( boddaert , 1783) |
The black crested lapwing ( Vanellus tectus ) is an African species from the plover family. There are two subspecies. It is a character bird of the Sahel zone and adapted to life in semi-arid regions.
description
The black crested lapwing reaches a body length of 25 to 27 centimeters and is therefore about the same size as a black-tailed lapwing . There is no sexual dimorphism . The black crested lapwing is characterized by the short, black feather hood and the red skin flap in front of the eye.
The head is black with a small, white area on the forehead and the base of the beak. A wide white stripe over the eyes extends to the neck. A thin black line runs from the front neck across the center of the chest. The rest of the underside of the body is white. The top of the body and the sides of the chest are pale brown. The wings are black. The upper wing coverts are predominantly pale brown, with the white tips of the large arm coverts and the hand coverts forming a white wing band. The iris is yellow. The beak is red with a black tip. The legs are crimson. Young birds differ from the adult black-headed lapwing by cream-colored feather edges on the upper side of the body.
Excited black-headed lapwings jerk their bonnets upright and pull in their heads and necks as they twitch their tails.
distribution
The black crested lapwing occurs in an area that stretches from Senegal and the Gambia and Mauritania to the coast of the Red Sea and in a southerly direction to northern Uganda, eastern Kenya and southern Somalia. In Kenya, the black crested lapwing is relatively rare and only occurs in the semi-arid plains south and southeast of the central highlands, which is due to competition with the red lapwing . In Ethiopia, the species is usually found at altitudes below 1,200 meters above sea level, but is occasionally observed at altitudes of 1,500 to 2,000 meters.
The subspecies Vanellus tectus tectus is the more widespread subspecies and occurs in the Sahel belt from Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia to the African Rift Valley and northeast Somalia. The subspecies Vanellus tectus latifrons colonizes southern Somalia and eastern Kenya. It differs from the nominate form by its smaller body size, shorter wing length and by a wider over-eye stripe.
The black crested lapwing is predominantly a resident bird. However, depending on rainfall, there seem to be local migratory movements.
Habitat and way of life
The habitat of the black crested lapwing are dry and hot regions. It occurs predominantly in sandy terrain with individual grass bushes and low shrubbery as well as in the arid thorn bush savannah. Black crested lapwings mostly look for their food during the night. This consists of various insects and mollusks.
Like most lapwing, the black-headed lapwing scratches a shallow hollow that is padded with grass or other available material. The clutch consists of two to three eggs. These are spotted and spotted black on a clay-colored background.
supporting documents
literature
- Peter Colston , Philip Burton: Limicolen - All European wading bird species, identifiers, flight images, biology, distribution , BLV Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-405-13647-4
- Simon Delany, Derek Scott, Tim Dodman, David Stroud (Eds.): An Atlas of Wader Populations in Africa and Western Eurasia. Wetlands International , Wageningen 2009, ISBN 9789058820471
- Collin Harrison and Peter Castell: Fledglings, Eggs and Nests of Birds in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Aula Verlag, Wiebelsheim 2004, ISBN 3-89104-685-5
Single receipts
Web links
- Vanellus tectus inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Endangered Species . Listed by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved October 6, 2013.