Vanellus melanocephalus
Silhouette: Rebecca Groom · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~90% in a week >90%
The spot-breasted lapwing (Vanellus melanocephalus), also known as the spot-breasted plover, is a species of bird in the family Charadriidae. It is endemic to the Ethiopian Highlands. There are no known subspecies of the bird.
The bird is a chunky lapwing of the Ethiopian highlands. It has a black cap, white eyebrow, black throat, and coarse spots across the breast. Found in both wet and dry montane habitats, including grassland, moorland, and marsh. It is a non-migratory bird that occurs over 247,000 square kilometers.
The spot-breasted lapwing is not migratory, but does move locally north during the rainy season. The species largely occurs in grasses, marshes, and meadows. Very little information is known about its nesting habits. Due to climate change, and the acute vulnerability caused by being a confined endemic species, habitat loss is expected to be 86.6 percent or more by 2070. Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bale Mountains National Park | 🇪🇹 Ethiopia |
More parks will be added in future updates.
Likely
About 50% of wildlife watchers report a Spot-breasted Lapwing sighting in Bale Mountains National Park on a given day, based on 142 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 16th most-seen of the 117 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 90%, and over a week to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May
In that month about 70% of wildlife watchers report a Spot-breasted Lapwing in Bale Mountains National Park on a given day, against about 40% in November to February, the lowest months. March and September have too few records to rate.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Spot-breasted Lapwing sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Bale Mountains National Park, in our data
Bale Mountains National Park is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Spot-breasted Lapwing sightings: about 50% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Spot-breasted Lapwing is recorded against all the birds logged in Bale Mountains National Park (142 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
