September is a month of movement for many of our birds, as the breeding season draws to a close and birds develop a larger territory, or move completely in readiness for the winter months.
For some species, it is a time when individual pairs and family groups form up into larger flocks, enabling many eyes to be on the look out for predators while birds try to find enough food or safe places to rest.
One species that becomes quite noticeable in flocks this time of year is the Lapwing.
The Lapwing was once very common and widespread and these birds have been known by many names as a result. Some, such as the Pee-Wit relate to the calls the birds make when you get too close. Others such as Green plover come from the lovely iridescent black/ purple/ green colour of their back and wing feathers when they catch the sun. It is a medium sized wader, about the size of a pigeon, and although it is quite colourful up close, from a distance they can appear quite black and white. Both the male and the female have a fetching black-tufty head piece and large dark eyes (which allow them to feed well at night).
They breed in a variety of habitats including moorland fringe, grassland, pasture and in lowland areas in particular they will use arable. The male birds have a fantastic display they use to attract a mate where they whizz about in flight, in a roughly figure of eight shape with dramatic twists, dives and turns all while singing in a way that resembles some sort of lazer.  It is lovely to note that several pairs of lapwing nested at Revesby Estate this year with at least one pair managing to get their chicks to fledge (which is no mean feat!).
Over the autumn and winter months, lapwing will form sometimes very large flocks that will use habitats like saltmarsh, arable and wet grassland to feed and will roost in similar habitats and other wetland habitats such as gravel pits.  They can be surprisingly difficult to spot as they huddle together on the ground but they readily take flight if something startles them and then become quite obvious. They have very rounded wings – almost like table tennis bats and while much of their underside is white, the ends of the wings have large dark patches as if dipped in ink. The also have a dark band across the chest. In the sun, their strongly contrasting colours almost look like they are ‘flickering’, especially as often they take flight but don’t always fly strongly away but may flutter at height while assessing the true risk and identifying a safe place to settle.
Lapwing are still quite common, though they have experienced population declines of 65% since the 60s and have been lost as breeding species from most of south west England, west Wales and Western mainland Scotland.
They rely on the abundance of invertebrates at or near the surface of the ground. They especially favour molluscs, earthworms, beetles, spiders, grasshoppers, crickets craneflies, other flies and moth larva and habitats managed in a way that supports invertebrates are likely to be of most value to lapwing.
Breeding Lapwing can be quite vulnerable in the farmed environment since nests can be difficult to spot from a tractor until it’s too late. It may be possible in the future to identify the presence of nesting lapwing in fields using drones equipped with thermal imaging scanning fields prior to physical cultivation or harvesting work and that will enable farmers to more easily protect nests wherever practical.