With the changes in land use techniques in the last decades, ground-breeding birds of the agricultural landscape have suffered severe declines in many parts of the world. Today, such species - the northern lapwing among them - often need special conservation measures for local populations to survive. Korner et al. followed a lapwing population in central Switzerland since 2005 with the aim to identify the critical measures needed for survival. In their study, they analyse nest and chick survival as these are now known to be most crucial. They find that hatching and fledging success depended on protection from agricultural activities and from ground predators that cannot be driven away by the adult lapwings, e.g. red fox. Second, early clutches had better hatching chances, while late clutches were more often abandonned by the female when the vegetation, e.g. maize, grows too tall. The lapwing can be a breeding species of the agricultural habitat in Switzerland, but it needs adequate conservation measures implemented on sufficiently large areas. Credits: Marcel Burkhardt, Swiss Ornithological Institute.

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