Predatory Behavior and Foraging Site Selection of the Grey-Headed Lapwing in Paddy Field Area

Abstract

Main habitat of Grey-headed Lapwing (Vanellus cinereus) is rice fields. Recently, it is reported that habitat area of this species has been expanding in rice paddy districts in Japan. On the contrary to this, rice field area has decreased and fallow field has increased during the last few decades because of rice acreage decrease policy of the Japanese government. Thus, we examined how increase of fallows field influences the habitat area of this species by observing its predatory behavior and foraging sites.
Our observation revealed that this species used the run-stop-peck method as visual feeding and the analysis of its predatory behavior demonstrated that open field was required to have good visibility as foraging environment. In addition, as a foraging site, this species preferred the place where the plant height was low, and the ground surface was partially or not flooded. Therefore, this species moved from the rice paddy fields to weeded or plowed fallow fields after the stage of midterm drainage when rice plants became higher than this species and feeding became difficult in the rice fields.