Lapwings and Hare.. The lapwing's call heralded of the start of Spring and many Easter customs are linked to it. Most birds eggs were eaten at Easter but the lapwing suffered most being a ground nesting bird, it became a vast commercial market, Queen Victoria favoured her plover eggs cooked in aspic. Within 20 years they had stripped the whole of the south of England as far as Lincolnshire. Nearing extinction in 1926 the introduction of the Lapwing Act officially stopped this practice although farming practices and habitat loss still drastically threaten them still. The Easter bunny was originally a Hare but it was so steeped in Pagan folklore that it was deemed 'unfitting' for Christian purposes. Hares, hide from predators by making a shallow indentation in the soil known as a form. Lapwings classically inhabit the same territories as hares and make a scrape of a nest on the ground. Lapwings were know to use a hare's form as a nest and so eggs where often found in a form and occasionally assumed to have been laid by the Hare

via Instagram https://ift.tt/2Yzwip1