The Lapwing Vanellus vanellus is a species with a deep connection to the rolling landscapes of Wiltshire. Once widespread, numbers of breeding Lapwing have crashed in recent decades resulting on them landing firmly on the UK’s Red List. There is a very real chance that the iconic ‘peewit’ calls of the Lapwing will fade only into memory.
This decline is attributed to several interlinked factors, including:
- Loss and degradation of suitable breeding habitat, particularly due to drainage of wetlands and intensification of agriculture.
- Increased predation, often exacerbated by changes in land use.
- Reduced availability of invertebrate prey, especially in intensively managed farmland where pesticide use and simplified vegetation structure limit invertebrate diversity and abundance.
The Project
Partnering with the North Wessex Downs and Cranborne Chase National Landscapes—and supported by a number of other conservation organisations—WSBRC is working to better understand the current status and distribution of breeding Lapwing across the county, and develop strategies to mitigate its decline.
During 2024 (first year of the project), large areas of Wiltshire were re-survey for breeding Lapwing and a small selection of plots was intensively monitored with breeding activity and predators carefully recorded.
In 2025 the aim is to monitor breeding productivity, understand what Lapwing chicks eat and how this relates to the availability of invertebrates in their environment; pitfall trapping will be employed in breeding plots to assess the composition and abundance of ground-dwelling invertebrates and metabarcoding of chick faeces will be carried out to identify their diet.
This work will help us to form a long-term strategy to conserve and protect Wiltshire’s breeding Lapwing.
How You Can Help
Become a Project Peewit Volunteer
We are in need of volunteers to help us survey key sites for Lapwing. The surveys are simple. Each survey will involve visiting a 1km square during April and early May and checking all suitable fields for Lapwing.
The survey sites are spread across the North Wessex Downs and Cranborne Chase. We can provide training and support as needed.
If you are interested, please contact us at
Submit your Lapwing Records
Records of Lapwing from anyone out and about in Wiltshire’s countryside provide valuable data to help us identify previously unknown Lapwing sites and help build a more complete picture of breeding Lapwing in the county.
If you have seen Lapwing that appear to be breeding anywhere in Wiltshire please email .
Photo credits: © Jeff Barber