When I first saw these Lapwings- I thought, Ah! this looks like a Yellow wattled lapwing, so commonly found in India. But this is Australia- and I had a closer look again- this one looked different and indeed it was. This turns out to be a Masked Lapwing ( Vanellus miles ) which looks so similar to its Indian cousin. I saw these birds, mostly spending their time foraging on the grass looking for what looked like insects- rest of the time though was spent meditating. Lapwings, make their nests on the ground and protect their eggs by deceitfully luring the predator away. When they feel that a predator is close to their nest it lures the egg hunter away from the nest by flapping its wings on the ground, pretending to have a broken wing and distracting its predator away from its nest. So in ancient time this bird was called ' lappewinke '. This has today become a lapwing.
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