Lapwing Display — Somerset Levels Spring

Each February and March, the wet grasslands and flooded moors of the Somerset Levels host the most accessible and densely populated lapwing spring display in southern England, as hundreds of pairs of lapwings perform their extraordinary tumbling display flights above the flooded fields — the males' broad rounded wings creating the distinctive 'peewit' sound as they roll and dive in elaborate territorial and courtship displays that fill the March air of the Levels with continuous motion and sound. The Somerset Levels hold one of England's most significant lowland wader breeding populations, and the wet grassland restoration work at RSPB Ham Wall, Shapwick Heath, and the surrounding SSSI flood meadows has rebuilt lapwing numbers from a low of just a few dozen pairs to over 500 displaying males in peak years. Watching fifty lapwings simultaneously performing tumbling display flights above the reflecting floodwater, with the Glastonbury Tor visible on its sacred hill above the flat moor and cattle egrets — a recent Levels colonist — gleaming white on the ditch margins below, creates a Somerset spring experience of considerable atmospheric richness. Black-tailed godwits in breeding plumage feed on the wet meadow margins simultaneously, and the winter duck flocks are still present on the flooded fields in early March. The dawn light on the flooded Levels with displaying lapwings is one of England's finest winter-to-spring wildlife transitions.