Southern Lapwing

Vanellus chilensis

The southern lapwing, commonly called quero-quero in Brazil, or tero in Argentina and Uruguay, tero-tero in Paraguay, and queltehue in Chile is a wader in the order Charadriiformes. It is a common and widespread resident throughout South America, except in densely forested regions, the higher parts of the Andes, and the arid coast of a large part of western South America. This bird is particularly common in the basin of the Río de la Plata. It has also been spreading through Central America in recent years. It reached Trinidad in 1961, Tobago in 1974, and has rapidly increased on both islands, sporadically making its way North to Barbados where one pair mated, nested, and produced chicks in 2007. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this bird was recorded 51,019 times across 26 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

See the Southern Lapwing on the live map

Movement and weather

Each season it is first heard regularly where daytime highs are around 31°C (typically 30 to 33°C, from 6 areas). That holds across 40° of latitude, which suggests its timing follows temperature more than the calendar.

Over the weeks it was present in the past year, its centre in South America ranged from 40°S in September to 7°N in November, about 5,300 km apart.

Arrival dates

The week it was first heard regularly in each region, after at least six weeks away. Dates differ from south to north, so a region has a range.

Download every area as CSV

Figures are effort corrected and come from automatic sound identification, which makes mistakes. How this is measured and how it compares with human observers.