ABSTRACT Northern Lapwings ( Vanellus vanellus ) have been in a decades‐long population decline in Europe. Previous studies have shown that declines in lapwings and other meadow‐breeding waders can be explained by reduced reproductive success instead of low adult survival. Here, we assessed pressing threats to the successful nesting of lapwings in the southern part of their breeding range, in France, which hosts an estimated 12,000–18,000 breeding pairs. We monitored nests of lapwings with nest cameras and weekly visits during the 2021 and 2022 breeding seasons at inland sites in Alsace in eastern France, and at coastal sites in Hauts‐de‐France along the English Channel in northern France. We compared nest survival rates between regions and monitoring methods, and examined the effects of the microclimate at the nest on daily nest survival. Nest survival was high overall, and at least 66% of monitored nests successfully hatched and produced nestlings. We found that nest survival rates were lower in Alsace than in Hauts‐de‐France, especially when wind speeds at the nest sites were lower. Nests equipped with pole‐mounted cameras had higher rates of nest survival, particularly in Alsace. Model‐based estimates of nest survival for a 27‐day exposure period were 0.66 and 0.59 for nests with and without camera‐monitoring at Hauts‐de‐France, but 0.43 and 0.007 for nests with and without camera‐monitoring at Alsace. The main causes of failure were damage by agricultural equipment (11% of nests), abandonment (8.2%), and depredation (7.5%). Losses to agriculture were more common in Alsace than in Hauts‐de‐France. Where nest predator species could be determined from camera images, mammals were responsible for all but one depredation event. Our study suggests that the reproductive success of lapwings in France could be increased by limiting losses to agriculture through the use of nest marking or by deploying fences to reduce mammalian predation.
Berg et al. (Wed,) studied this question.