Vanellus coronatus
Silhouette: Rebecca Groom · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~90% in a week >90%
The crowned lapwing (Vanellus coronatus), crowned plover or kiewiet (in South African English), is a bird of the lapwing subfamily that occurs contiguously from the Red Sea coast of Somalia to southern and southwestern Africa. It is an adaptable and numerous species, with bold and noisy habits. It is related to the more localized black-winged and Senegal lapwings, with which it shares some plumage characteristics.
The crowned lapwing was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1781 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected in the Cape of Good Hope region of South Africa. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Charadrius coronatus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The crowned lapwing is now placed in the genus Vanellus that was erected by the French zoologist... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Johannesburg | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 2 | Pretoria | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 3 | Cape Town | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Karlsruhe Zoo | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 2 | Cologne Zoological Garden | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 3 | Attica Zoological Park | 🇬🇷 Greece | |
| 4 | Le Cornelle | 🇮🇹 Italy | |
| 5 | Santillana Zoo | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 6 | Vogelpark Heiligenkirchen | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 7 | Volière | 🇨🇭 Switzerland | |
| 8 | Cologne Zoo Aquarium | 🇩🇪 Germany |
Likely
About 50% of wildlife watchers report a Crowned Lapwing sighting in Masai Mara National Reserve on a given day, based on 1,914 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 8th most-seen of the 398 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.
April, July–August and November
In those months about 60% of wildlife watchers report a Crowned Lapwing in Masai Mara National Reserve on a given day, against about 40% in March, May and December–January, the lowest months.
Between 3 and 6 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Crowned 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.
4th of 44
Of the 44 parks where we can rate Crowned Lapwing sightings, Masai Mara National Reserve ranks 4th at about 50%. The best odds are in Amboseli National Park (Kenya, about 60%), De Hoop Nature Reserve (South Africa, about 60%) and Serengeti National Park (Tanzania, about 50%). All parks ranked.
Same genus: Vanellus
The closest relatives of the Crowned Lapwing that you can see in Masai Mara National Reserve (genus Vanellus, Lapwings) are African Wattled Lapwing (about 40%), Spur-winged Lapwing (about 30%) and Black-winged Lapwing (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Crowned Lapwing is recorded against all the birds logged in Masai Mara National Reserve (1,914 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.
