Conflict between animals can make for tense sightings regardless of the size of the creatures involved. This fight between a mongoose and some lapwings is a great example of smaller animals, but not smaller stakes.
Peter Goedbloed spotted this foraging mongoose at the Dinokeng Game Reserve in South Africa, and caught it on camera as the lapwings grew too uncomfortable with its presence to let it stay in the area.
Not Quite As Camouflaged As It Thought
At the beginning of Peter’s footage, the lapwing was looking on from the side while the mongoose crouched low in a patch of pale grass. The mongoose’s coat blended in almost perfectly with its environment, making it difficult to spot.
It looked like the mongoose was foraging in the grass, but it was alone and this made it vulnerable to attack by the angry lapwings that were clearly very unhappy with its presence.
Although it was trying to ignore the birds, the mongoose must have known they were observing it and that its time was running out. Soon the risks would become untenable and it would have to leave the area.
The Changing Of The Tides
Although only a single lapwing was keeping a close eye on the intruder, there were others in the wings, so to speak, waiting to swoop down and add their own weapons to a potential assault.
Given a mongoose’s dietary habits, the presence of this individual nearby was enough for the lapwings to consider it an existential threat. A mongoose might be small, but it is still a carnivore that would eat a bird like a lapwing if it managed to catch it.
More worryingly for the lapwings was that this mongoose would also happily eat their eggs if they had a nest nearby, which seemed likely given their reluctance to simply leave the area.
A Time For Action
If the mongoose was allowed unfettered access to the area then it might stumble across either lapwing eggs, or chicks, and a massacre would ensue. The lapwings would have to act quickly if they were to keep their territory safe.
The moment the lapwings took to the air, the mongoose knew that its time to forage had come to an end, and it would need to vacate the area as quickly as possible to keep itself safe.
The mongoose might have known a lapwing nest was likely in the area, and perhaps it was even attempting to find it, because it knew the lapwings weren’t just flying away, but they were instead readying themselves for an attack.
Get our Best Sightings as they Come in
Harried Retreat
The lapwings began swooping the mongoose almost immediately as it gave up its foraging attempt and sprinted for the cover of the long grass. Out in the open it had no way to avoid the pointed beaks and sharp claws of the birds.
Against a single lapwing, it might even have stayed and attempted to catch it, after all a meal is a meal, but as it was outnumbered it clearly considered the risk of injury to be too great.
Alone and unable to defend itself against multiple dive-bombing birds, the mongoose quickly sought shelter. Not every sighting needs to feature eagles or lions to be incredible, and this smaller scale conflict still meant life or death for the animals involved.