Almost 120,000 people took part in the fourth public vote organised by NABU, the German Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union, and its Bavarian partner, the Bavarian Association for Bird and Nature Conservation (LBV). The lapwing received the most votes with 33,289 (27.8 per cent). It was followed by the little owl, grey partridge, barn swallow and honey buzzard.
"The interest in native birdlife is unbroken. We are very pleased about this," says NABU Federal Director Leif Miller. "With the lapwing, people have chosen a bird that has declined massively in many areas due to the draining of wet meadows and more intensive agriculture. The new annual bird is listed as critically endangered in the Red List."
It owes its name to its reputation
The roughly pigeon-sized plover owes its name to its distinctive call "Kie-wit". There is no mistaking the appearance of the bird of the year with its shiny metallic green or purple plumage in the light. The feather plume on the head and the broad, rounded wings are also striking. Lapwings were originally mainly found in moors and wet meadows. Today, lapwings have adapted to humans and the associated loss of land and also breed in fields and meadows. Their nest consists of a hollow in the ground in which they usually lay four eggs.
Lapwings are partial migrants. Some spend the winter in Germany when the weather is mild, while others migrate to wintering grounds in France, Spain, Great Britain and the Netherlands. The flight manoeuvres during the mating season are impressive: the "jugglers of the skies" make loops over their territory, swooping towards the ground in acrobatic flight manoeuvres and singing audibly from afar. The male lapwings also try to convince their chosen one of their nest-building qualities with so-called "mock nesting": they scratch small hollows in the ground and pluck grasses.
