Lapwings have declined dramatically in UK farmland and require targeted agri-environment scheme management to provide the wet grassland and invertebrate prey their chicks need.
Lapwing welfare demonstrates the complex habitat requirements of ground-nesting farmland birds and the precision with which agri-environment scheme management must be tailored to deliver real welfare benefits. Individual chick welfare in the weeks after hatching depends almost entirely on invertebrate prey abundance in accessible wet areas: chicks that cannot find sufficient earthworms, tipulid larvae, and other prey in the first weeks of life starve. Wet grassland management that creates shallow flooding encourages the surface-active invertebrates on which lapwing chicks depend, providing direct welfare benefit through improved nutritional access. Vegetation management is equally critical: nest sites require short sward for visibility of approaching predators, while chick-rearing habitat benefits from taller grass for shelter and thermoregulation. Lapwing nest exclosures - small wire cages that exclude mammalian predators - have been used on some reserves to improve nest survival, but chick survival rather than nest success is typically the critical limiting factor. The integration of multiple management prescriptions - wet grassland, appropriate sward height, reduced predation, and stable breeding areas free from agricultural disturbance - delivers the welfare improvements that individual prescriptions in isolation cannot.