Thread: Spur winged plovers

THEY DID

Spur-winged Plover
Vanellus V. miles

The Spur-winged Plover that is found here in New Zealand is a self-introduced bird that was originally a native to Australia only, where it is called the masked lapwing. In fact this name is actually more accurate because it is not a true plover. Further confusion occurs when discovering that the northern hemisphere spur-winged plover, which breeds in the Mediterranean, is not related to this species either, and is also a lapwing rather than a true plover.

There are many different species of lapwing all around the world, but only 1 breeds in Australasia of which there are 2 sub-species. The northern sub-species V. miles miles breed in northern Australia and now New Guinea. The smaller sub-species V. miles novaehollandiae, which was originally confined to south-eastern Australia, extended its range to include Tasmania and then New Zealand as a self-introduced species.

Although vagrants of this sub-species were seen much earlier on, it wasn’t until the 1930’s that a pair were recorded as breeding here, at Invercargill airport. Initially, they stayed within coastal Southland, but by the 1950’s they had spread to inland areas, then central Otago. By the late 1960’s they had spread to the rest of the South Island and Stewart Island, and in the 1970’s were first recorded as breeding in the North Island.

This species is now considered to be quite abundant in the South Island and in some areas of the North Island, where it continues to become more common. They are classified as a protected self-introduced native.