The northern lapwing was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Tringa vanellus.

[5][6] The scientific name Vanellus is Medieval Latin for the northern lapwing and derives from vannus, a winnowing fan.

This is a vocal bird in the breeding season, with constant calling as the crazed tumbling display flight is performed by the male.

It is highly migratory over most of its extensive range, wintering further south as far as North Africa, northern India, Nepal, Bhutan and parts of China.

National surveys of England and Wales have shown a population decline between 1987 and 1998, and since 2009 the northern lapwing has had red list conservation status in the United Kingdom.

[13] In addition to agricultural intensification and land-use change, predation of nests and chicks contributes to wader declines, including of lapwing.

[15] In the Middle East, the northern lapwing is threatened by overhunting as it is shot in large quantities along its winter migration routes.

"Plover's eggs" were an expensive delicacy in Victorian Europe, mentioned in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, about aristocratic British society in 1920–40.

This is ascribed to both increased use of fertiliser and climate change, causing the growth of grass needed for egg laying to occur earlier.

[23] The northern lapwing was declared the Republic of Ireland's national bird by a committee of the Irish Wildlife Conservancy in 1990.

Tereus is turned into an epops (6.674); Ovid presumably had the hoopoe in mind, whose crest indicates his royal status and whose long, sharp beak is a symbol of his violent nature.