Southern Lapwing

Vanellus chilensis

eBird gives this description for the Southern Lapwing:  Raucous, conspicuous shorebird. Distinctive color pattern with black breast, white belly, gray head, and bronzy shoulder. Wings boldly patterned in flight. Often in pairs or small flocks in open habitats, usually near water but also in dry pastures. Loud grating call is a good clue to its presence.

The Birds  of the World website introduces this bird with the following descriptive information:  The Southern Lapwing is a conspicuous inhabitant of grasslands and pastures from Panama and northern South America south to Tierra del Fuego. A large, crested lapwing, the Southern Lapwing has gray brown upperparts with a bronze sheen, a black breast band that extends up to the bird’s forehead, wing spurs, and a white belly and undertail coverts. Southern Lapwings feed mainly on insects, as well as small fish and aquatic invertebrates. Southern Lapwings are largely sedentary, but populations in the extreme south of their range migrate to warmer areas in the winter. These large plovers are well adapted to human disturbance and are increasing their range in response to deforestation and cultivation.

I saw and photographed a pair of Southern Lapwings on the afternoon of February 10, 2023 while taking a boat tour on the Tárcoles River in Costa Rica.  These unusual shorebirds gave us a number of good looks and opportunities to photograph.

I had another opportunity to watch and photograph a small group of Southern Lapwing on the morning of August 19, 2023 during my trip to Brazil.  Our tour group with Jeff Parker tours was on a boat in the Juruena River in the Amazon Basin Region when we spotted this group of birds and had an opportunity to watch and photograph them.  Here are some of the photos I took that morning.