Een vreemde broedplaats van Kieviten Vanellus vanellus

In 2000 and 2001, Lapwings used a fenced gravel bed of a newly constructed storage yard for gas as a breeding site. The gravel bed ('the Arena') was surrounded by a sandy strip with sparse vegetation. A breeding attempt in 2000 was not successful. In 2001 several pairs started a clutch on the gravel, but out of five breeding attempts not even a single young hatched. However, between 23 July and 6 August two chicks were observed on the gravel. They had probably hatched from a nest on the sandy area surrounding the gravel and slipped underneath the fence to the open gravel as foraging conditions deteriorated with increasing coverage of the sandy strip by dense vegetation in the course of the summer.