The lapwing, with its distinctive iridescent plumage and tumbling display flight, has declined 80% in the UK. Its ground-nesting habits make it vulnerable to both agricultural intensification and predation.
Lapwing chicks face welfare threats from agricultural machinery, drainage of wet grassland, and predation. Adults expend enormous energy in repeated dive-bombing of predators — a welfare cost that becomes unsustainable when nest density falls and predator pressure is high. Drainage of wet meadows eliminates the earthworm-rich soil on which chicks depend. Agri-environment schemes that create shallow scrapes and wet flushes have demonstrated measurable improvements in lapwing productivity and individual bird condition.