Plovers and lapwings | Charadriidae

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Compact birds with a large head, short neck and a short bill thickened towards the tip, made for picking prey from the surface rather than probing into the ground. They feed with a characteristic run, stop and peck pattern, also in the dark, and some species patter one foot on wet ground to bring prey to the surface. Black bands across breast and head break up the outline on bare ground. The clutch usually consists of three or four pear-shaped eggs in a scrape on bare sand, gravel or short-grazed grassland; when danger threatens the parents lead an intruder away with a feigned broken wing. In Mexico and Central America some species are resident, such as the Killdeer and the plovers of sandy beaches and salt flats, but most are migrants from the far north that winter here or pass through, with long, pointed wings for the flight from the tundra. The Southern Lapwing is a newcomer that has been spreading north from Panama in recent decades; it carries a sharp spur at the bend of the wing and noisily attacks anyone who approaches its nest.