Overview
- Elemans located the fresh egg Thursday morning in a field near his home in Ravenstein, Brabant, and reported it immediately for inspection.
- LandschappenNL received the report shortly before 9:30 a.m. and confirmed the egg’s status after checks required for first-find recognition.
- The confirmation officially opened this year’s coordinated protection effort for meadow birds including lapwing, black-tailed godwit and redshank.
- In Gelderland, veteran protector Bram Koudijs found the province’s first egg at 13:58 in Ede, a single-egg nest on maize stubble.
- The tradition spans more than a century, collection has been banned since 2015 due to declines, and BirdLife Netherlands reports lapwing numbers falling by under five percent annually.