Over many seasons, I’ve observed a pair of masked lapwings hatch their chicks in a natural wetland close to my home. Nature did not prime these parents to care for their young. My lapwing neighbours would walk their downy chicks into the open and fly away when noisy miner birds approached. The weeks-old young were left to defend themselves from vicious, swooping attacks.
As I walked the wetland each day, I counted the young with a heavy heart: one day there were four, the next there would be two and a week later there were none.
