Nesting Spur-Wing Plovers

Spotted a pair of southern Spur winged plovers (Masked Lapwing) at a friends house near MacLean in Northern NSW. One was sitting on four eggs while the other was feeding nearby - saw the change over as they swapped incubation duty. The nest is just off the road on flat lawn and in the open, just like you see sometimes at airports where they nest next to runways. This is their fourth clutch and out of their first three clutches of 12 eggs only one made it to hatching. The house owners tell me predators such as dogs, Kookaburras and large goannas prey on the eggs. So each time that's six weeks of sitting on the eggs for no result, apart from once. Yet, they persist in almost the same location each time. Fiesty blighters too and not afraid of people.