3 minute read
The Spur Winged Lapwing: Pearl of Entebbe
By Mark Kaheru, Public Information Officer, RSCE
Uganda is one of the most endowed countries in the world. It is no wonder it was named ‘The Pearl of Africa’ by Sir Winston Churchill.
In his book, My African Journey, written in 1908, he writes “But for the forests of Uganda, for magnificence, for variety of form and colour, for profusion of brilliant life – plant, bird, insect, reptile, beast – for vast scale and awful fecundity of the natural processes that are beheld at work…Yet it is not possible to descent the Nile continuously from its source at Ripon Falls without realizing that the best lies behind one. Uganda is the pearl.” Powerful words from a great leader, one might say, but was he wrong?
Uganda is a hotspot for biodiversity with 345 mammal species, 142 reptiles, 86 amphibian, 501 species of fish, 1,242 butterflies, 4,500 species of vascular plants and 1,020 species of bird. With 10 National Parks, 12 Wildlife Reserves, 5 Community Wildlife Management Areas and 13 Wildlife Sanctuaries, you would think that all these species are confined in these protected areas. Well, you would be wrong.
We know that here at the RSCE, we have our fair share of these beautiful creatures. Maybe not the thousands but surely in the hundreds. And I am not talking about only the lake flies that greet us almost every morning. We have butterflies and birds, bees and flies, monkeys and cats, snails and lizards, we even have some dogs. One particular animal family stands out though.
The Spur Winged Lapwing.
She has made the area behind the gazebos her home and can be seen nesting there throughout the year. Her companion always nearby, either on the gazebo roof or strolling about keeping her safe.
After a few attempts at bringing up her chicks and being foiled by the cats on the campus, the Director RSCE instructed the Engineering Unit and the Environment Focal Point to come up with a way to protect the family and ensure they raised their young. That led to the construction of a cage that you have most certainly seen erected around the Lapwing whenever she nests.
This small innovation has enabled the birds to raise 3 deceits of lapwings. (Yes, a ‘deceit’ is a group of lapwings named after the way the parent bird lures predators away from their nests by pretending to have a broken wing.)
The Spur Winged Lapwing is the most famous bird on the campus but we have many other species whose nests we are yet to study, since they all traditionally build in trees and on roofs.
For the Spur Winged Lapwing, in case you have not had a chance to see her nest, visit the gazebos but beware, her companion may swoop down to attack you if she does not do so herself.
A few facts about the Spur Winged Lapwing:
They feed on insects and invertebrates picked from the ground.
They lay four blotchy yellow eggs on a ground scrape.
The bird’s name refers to a small claw or spur hidden in each of its wings.
They use the wing-claws to attack animals and (rarely) people that get too close to their chicks.
Lapwings are nicknamed ‘Peewits’ in imitation of their display calls.
