Birds foraging in the operational areas of airports, which are vast open spaces with trimmed grass, isn’t unusual. But one of the Airports Authority of India operations wing employees on a routine inspection at Chennai airport was in for a rare surprise: a red-wattled lapwing with two eggs presented him with a video that can go viral.
The video, shot from the ground on which Nidhin, the employee, shows a flight taking off, with some grass and stones in the foreground.A few seconds after the plane disappears from the frame, the bird walks in, cocks its head, shuffles, and sits on two relatively big ‘stones’ that turn out to be its eggs.

“Earlier, I saw the bird near the boundary wall. I went there to take a closer look, but it hopped away. I found it had laid two eggs,” said Nidhin. “I placed my phone perched on a stone aiming the camera at the eggs, knowing I could capture the bird when it returned. And it did. The plane take-off just made it more spectacular.
“The bird doesn’t appear to be bothered by the noise of the planes, but it’s wary of people,” he said.
The red-wattled lapwing is an Asian lapwing or a large plover bird of the wader family. It doesn’t perch on trees, and it flies short distances. Found in pairs in grasslands and agricultural fields, they nest on the ground.
Chennai airport, which has 1,300 acres of grass and moisture by the Adyar river, attracts many birds.