Efforts are now underway to conserve a rare bird slowly disappearing from Wiltshire. 

Wiltshire & Swindon Biological Records Centre (WSBRC) and Wiltshire Wildlife Trust are rolling out a landscape-scale project to locate, monitor and conserve the remaining breeding lapwing.

A spokesperson for the project said: "The lapwing is deeply ingrained within Wiltshire landscapes and understanding their current status and distribution and working alongside landowners is crucial to help us conserve and protect this precious bird."

And this is important because across the UK, six out of every ten lapwings have vanished since 1967 and as a breeding species, lapwing have declined dramatically across Wiltshire.

This could be for a number of reasons, but part of this vital work will be to help identify the issues affecting chick survival and look for solutions to mitigate them.

Project Peewit (taken from a local name for lapwing) will survey across the North Wessex Downs, Salisbury Plain and Cranborne Chase to find the remaining breeding lapwing and begin to work with landowners and farmers to improve the landscape for them.

The spokesperson added: "Project Peewit is the first step in changing the fortunes of Wiltshire’s breeding lapwing.

"The work this year will help locate key sites where lapwing remain and identify potential threats and problems they may face there. This information can then be used to form a long-term plan to conserve this wonderful bird species across Wiltshire landscapes."