The field lark is a feathered species belonging to the lark family. These birds live in open spaces: on forest edges, meadows and clearings. Field larks avoid wooded areas.

The habitat includes the forest-steppes and steppes of Asia and Europe. These birds were brought to North America, New Zealand and Australia.

Appearance of a lark

The bird is small. Females are smaller than males, there are no other differences between the sexes.

Males reach a length of 16-20 centimeters, and the body length of females is 14-19 centimeters. Representatives of the species weigh an average of 40 grams.

The wingspan of females is 30 centimeters, while that of males is 35 centimeters. The length of the wings in this case is 10-12 centimeters. And the length of the tail reaches 6-7 centimeters.

The plumage of field larks is faded, with its help the birds are well camouflaged in the grass. The back of birds is dark gray or pale brown with a slight yellowness. Dark blotches are clearly visible on the main background. The belly of the larks is white, and the chest is brown with streaks. The head is decorated with a motley crest. The tail is framed by a thin border white color. There are white stripes above the eyes, stretching to the very back of the head. Legs are dark brown. In winter, the plumage of these birds is brighter than summer attire.

The behavior and nutrition of the lark

Field larks eat plant foods, as well as insects. They feed on the ground or eat vegetation at height. These birds prefer cereal crops, so they constantly fly to fields with oats and wheat. To improve the digestion process, birds swallow small pebbles. From insects, larks feed on locusts, beetles, leaf beetles, ground beetles, ants and caterpillars. That is, these birds are useful for agriculture.

Listen to the song of the lark

Distinctive feature these birds is their singing. And only males sing. The most beautiful songs can be heard at the beginning of the mating season. At this time, males sing all day long, stopping only for sleep. Their singing is incredibly beautiful. Trills shimmer with a variety of sound shades. Birds often fly so high that they are almost invisible from the ground. But the singing can be heard for miles. Each male has an individual voice, which depends on age, experience and body structure.

Reproduction and lifespan

Before the onset of cold weather, birds go to the southern warmer regions. But at the same time, birds are not too far away from nesting places. Inhabitants of warm regions, as a rule, lead a sedentary lifestyle. This behavior is observed in field larks living in the southern regions of Europe and in the steppes of the Crimea.

Birds return to nesting places early, sometimes there is still snow. The males arrive first, and the females arrive a few days later. Birds form pairs and start building nests. Nests are always built on the ground, but only in grassy areas. Birds make a hole in the ground or find a ready-made depression. This recess is lined with twigs, leaves, grass, down and feathers. The nest is imperceptible among the vegetation, it almost completely merges with it.

Most often, the clutch consists of 4-5 eggs, but there may be 3. The incubation period begins in mid-December and lasts 2 weeks.

Newborn chicks have no vision. Their body is covered with light brown fluff. The chicks grow very quickly, after 10 days they are already crawling out of the nest. The babies run around trying to take off for another 10 days, and then they become winged. A month after birth, the young flies perfectly and independently obtains food.

In June, the female makes the 2nd clutch, and by the end of June, the second generation becomes independent. Juveniles gather in separate flocks and fly over meadows and fields.

Field larks begin to fly to warmer climes in the first ten days of September, and in the middle of the month they already migrate en masse. The last birds leave their nesting sites at the beginning of October. In mid-October, all larks fly away. In the wild, the life expectancy of these birds is 4-5 years, and in captivity this figure increases to 10-11 years.

field lark best known to lovers of Russian nature. This bird inhabits the temperate zone of Eurasia, Northwest Africa and was acclimatized by the first settlers in Australia and New Zealand.

The field lark is slightly larger than the house sparrow, but its head is more accurate, as if chiseled, its chest is wider, and its wings are more authentic. The coloring of larks is patronizing - the color of withered grass and brown earth. The back is darker than the abdomen and is covered with longitudinal brown streaks. Males differ from females in their larger size and vertical proud posture, as well as the presence of a song, which is completely absent in females.

More often, field larks can be found in open spaces overgrown with short grass, salt marshes, fields, especially after plowing, or young winter crops. In the forest zone, they are found on bare hills and on the shores of the seas - along sandy spits overgrown with a rare grate. Sometimes they penetrate even into the tundra zone.

Larks are migratory birds, but they fly relatively close for wintering and are among the first to return back in the spring; So, in the Moscow region, they appear already at the end of March, when their mass passage is underway. Adult males are the first to fly; they occupy the first thawed patches, where they keep in small groups. At this time - upon arrival they are caught by "hunters before songbird", as they were called in Russia. The experience of amateurs showed that the birds caught later may turn out to be females or young males that do not sing "in full swing." Males differ from each other in the quality of their song performance and the richness of their knees. The best singers are birds whose song rich in scattering, iridescence, trills, whistles and peals.Like good mockingbirds, larks constantly replenish their song with knees from the songs of other passerines, as well as lapwings, carriers and other waders.Larks perform their endlessly sounding song high in the sky, descending to the ground or They also sing while sitting on a hummock or stone.Males are very territorial, they drive away rivals that have appeared from their nesting area.<

Larks are typical monogamous. But the activity of marriage partners at first is different. If the male is busy singing and guarding the territory, then the female looks for a place convenient for nesting - a hole in the soil or a hummock and arranges her simple cup-shaped nest here. The tray is usually lined with hair. The clutch consists of 5-6 reddish-white or yellowish-green eggs, covered with a pattern of grayish-brown spots. The incubation period is 12-14 days. The birds incubate in turn and so diligently that they do not take off from people passing by. They fly up or run away from the nest only when they are sure that they have been found. But the bird also returns to the nest with cunning. To begin with, it sits down somewhere nearby, and then moves in short dashes to the nest.

Chicks appear blind, but covered with sparse fluff. Their development is proceeding quite rapidly. They rise to the wing at the age of 10-12 days, but even before that they can leave the nest, which often saves them from numerous enemies. Small ground birds have many enemies - weasels and ermines, ferrets, foxes, shrews, voles, falcons and hawks, harriers and crows, as well as snakes. Therefore, a species like the lark can survive only by greatly increasing its numbers, which is what happens in nature. The first laying is followed by the second, and sometimes the third. Instead of lost eggs or chicks, new eggs are laid.

Larks are kept only by experienced amateurs, because these birds are quite shy and require a special diet. If the content is wrong, you will not hear his famous song from the lark. For the first time after catching or acquiring a bird, the cage should be placed higher and covered from people with light cloth.

Grain mix is ​​used as food for adult birds., consisting of millet, oatmeal, canary grass, rape, colza, lettuce, flax with the addition of crushed hemp and sunflower, as well as field grass seeds (screenings). Soft food is also absolutely necessary, consisting of grated carrots with breadcrumbs, chopped chicken eggs, cottage cheese, minced meat (raw or boiled), gammarus. In the evening, it’s good to give 5-6 flour worms (per bird, and at the height of singing or during the nesting period, the portion can be increased to 10-15 worms. Small shell rock, crushed eggshells, river sand and occasionally charcoal are given from mineral feed .

Freshly caught birds should be fed mealworms and white bread dipped in milk.. A variety of grain feeds are a must. Later, you need to accustom the bird to soft food, gradually replacing insects with it, but flour worms should be constantly in the diet. Their number can be small, 5-6 per day. The lark of flour worms and other treats that have become accustomed to the new environment should be tried to be given from the hand - so the birds will rather get used to you and begin to sing in your presence. With the right content, larks live for 10 or more years and delight with their magnificent song for up to 9 months a year. They stop singing during the molting of plumage, which occurs more often at the end of summer.

In the basins of the Syrdarya and Amudarya rivers, there lives close to the field lark lesser field lark (Alauda gulgula). Outwardly, they are very similar, but the small one is somewhat smaller and its tail is shorter than that of the field one. I also managed to meet this species in the south of Vietnam, where it is very common in steppe areas of land and along the sea coast. The songs of two close species are similar to each other, but the smaller one, perhaps, has fewer knees. He is often caught by the Vietnamese and kept in cages. It is interesting that on the sea coast, in addition to the usual food, larks eat small gastropod mollusks - right with shells. Probably, the shells of marine littoral mollusks serve as a source of minerals for birds.

Vladimir Ostapenko. "Birds in your house". Moscow, "Ariadia", 1996

“Among the ears he lives. His little house is small, But He needs the whole heavenly vault for sonorous songs ”(Samuil Marshak).

Previously, larks were often shown in - a piece of nature, amazing silence, an endless sky and the song of a lark soaring in it. But probably, there is not a single person who has never heard a lark live. Even those who live in the metropolis, from time to time leave for a year or to the country.

The bird is migratory, but even in central Russia this bird arrives very early, as soon as the snow melts. If the spring is warm, then the larks arrive in late March - early April.

A popular sign said that if the lark arrived, spring had come. In the old days, upon the arrival of larks, they were guided by whether it was time to plow and sow.

The lark has a very interesting peculiar flight pattern. He first rises up and then falls down, while the sound of his gentle and pleasant song also changes. Previously, in Russia they said this about this flight: "The lark plows the sky."

Larks inhabit open spaces - meadows, steppes, slopes of mountains and hills, on which there is no forest, and even semi-desert.

More than 90 species of larks live in the world, in Russia you can find several types of larks - crested, horned, forest, but more often field lark.

field lark - Alauda arvensis - This bird is not much larger than a sparrow. But the lark itself looks graceful - a beautiful head with a tuft, a light eyebrow above the dark eyes, a beak of an average length - straight and strong enough. The broad chest has brown variegated feathers. The wings are wide, slightly longer than those of the passerines. The general color of the plumage is dull gray-brown, the back is darker than the whitish abdomen - brown-yellow or clay-colored, covered with longitudinal streaks. On the hind toe, the spur is a long, sharp, slightly curved claw.

Field larks prefer open areas - meadows, fields. They never sit on branches or wires. They feed and nest on the ground among winter crops, grasses, and this despite the fact that larks fly swiftly and tirelessly. The long strong paws of birds allow them to easily move on the ground, and birds spend most of their time on it. And only during the mating season, males are in the air almost all the time.

In spring, summer, early autumn, larks feed mainly on insects - butterfly pupae, small bugs, spiders, various insect larvae and immature grass seeds.

Larks do not catch insects in flight, but only those that crawl along grass stalks.

In early spring, as soon as they arrive, the birds may eat the germinating crops. And from autumn to spring, they eat plant seeds. Larks just love the sparrow seeds and all wild types of millet. They also make raids on fields sown with oats and wheat. But rye and barley do not favor these.

In order for hard grains to be well digested in the stomach, larks, like domestic chickens, swallow small pebbles.

Larks are monogamous birds. The males arrive first in the spring. Sometimes there is still snow, and they sit in the sun and bask in the thawed patches, then young birds and females arrive, who are looking for the most convenient place for nesting. The male, meanwhile, is engaged in singing and guards the selected site. If another contender for the occupied territory appears, then the male drives him away from his nesting area.

While the female has not yet laid eggs, the male flies over his site and sings. The female, having found a place convenient for nesting, for example, a hole in the soil in a meadow or among a grassy edge, begins to equip her nest.

It is a not too deep bowl, the height of the nest, as a rule, does not exceed half a meter. She lines the nest with stems, grass roots, wool, fluff, horsehair.

It is almost impossible for an amateur to find a lark's nest, it is so well camouflaged.

At the end of April, the first clutch of larks appears, which consists of four to six white-reddish or yellow-greenish eggs, covered with small dark specks, which sometimes make up a whole pattern.

It happens that at this time a cold snap sets in, the female does not leave the nest and continues to endure the cold and hatch the chicks. The male also helps incubate the eggs. This process takes approximately two weeks. Birds are so focused on hatching that they do not take off even if someone passes by the nest.

Chicks are born blind, their body is covered with sparse fluff. They fly on the wing after two weeks and can leave the nest to hide in the grass somewhere nearby. They learn to feed themselves.

The plumage of young larks completely merges with the surrounding vegetation. If a predator noticed a male in flight, then he falls to the ground like a stone, but never immediately runs to the nest, so as not to lead the predator to the female and chicks.

In June, the larks may have a second clutch, and the chicks of the first clutch begin to live independently at the end of July.

At the end of summer, at the beginning of autumn, larks can be seen in the fields where they have been harvested, they fly in flocks and pick up fallen cereals. So they feed on compressed fields until the time comes for departure for wintering.

Larks fly away from our places, as a rule, in September - early October to the south of Europe.

Little larks have a lot of enemies. In the air, it is a hobby falcon that preys on males keen on singing. They are also caught by hawks and harriers. On the ground, these are ferrets, shrews, foxes, stoats, weasels, crows and snakes. These animals eat both lark eggs and chicks.

Larks are one of the best songbirds in Russia, and it is the field lark that sings best of all. While singing, the lark flutters its wings, and its neck trembles, and trills pour out of it, iridescent, sonorous, like from a silver jug. In mid-May, the male sings all day long, so loudly that his song is carried for kilometers. The song itself consists of placers, peals, trills, overflows, whistles.

Sometimes several males sing at once, and the feeling is truly amazing. In addition, the song of each male is different, and depends on age, mood, talent.

Larks sing both in the sky and sitting on a stone, on a hummock. They stop singing only at the end of summer, when molting begins.

Because of its beautiful song, the lark often falls into the hands of the birder.

But personally, it seems to me that there is

Larks are birds that live on almost all continents, but the main number of species of this family nest in Eurasia or are endemic to Africa. The lark bird is a resident of open spaces. Larks settle in steppes, meadows, fields, deserts, semi-deserts, and only a few species (and there are 75-90 of them in total) are found in forest glades, forest edges, in mountains (up to 4000 m in height).

Birds have a protective color to match the color of the soil, very small or medium sizes: weight 15-80 g, length 10-25 cm. , molluscs, parts of plants (buds, seeds, flowers, etc.). On the ground, the lark builds a nest, masking it with a bunch of grass, a bush, a stone.

Having built a nest, the female incubates 2-8 eggs for 10-12 days, and then, together with the male, feeds the chicks for about 10 days. After that, having not yet learned to fly, the chicks leave the nest, but for another 7-10 days the parents continue to feed them. In one season, a pair of larks can lay 1-2 eggs.

A photo. Nest and lark chicks.

Birds living in the southern regions do not fly away from their habitats in winter. Larks nesting in the northern regions fly south with the onset of late autumn, but their stay in the southern regions is short. They are the first to return in the spring, when the snow is still incomplete, and immediately begin to sing. The singing of larks is amazing in its beauty, and many nature lovers find it more beautiful than even the trilling of a nightingale.

A photo. Lark.

You can listen to the singing of the lark immediately after its arrival from the wintering grounds, but its beautiful song becomes especially strong and skillful before the start of nesting. Features of singing depend on the type of lark, its age, experience, individual abilities, habitats. The ability of larks to imitate the sounds made by other animals and birds is great.

A photo. Lark.

Video: forest lark sings.

A small bird of the lark family. The male is larger than the female, its length from the tip of the beak to the tip of the tail is on average 19 cm, its - 17 cm. The lark is slightly larger than the sparrow, but next to it it looks frail and lanky.

He does not like to attract the attention of fans, and therefore wears a rather modest suit in muted shades: a gray jacket on the back, more extravagant personalities choose a yellow-brown jacket. The lark, although he does not like to stand out, still follows fashion trends: he wears a shirt with a fashionable degraded effect, it is brown on the chest, but turns white on the tummy. Such a costume helps the field lark to successfully disguise itself in order to avoid the attention of annoying fans and annoying paparazzi.

Source: http://www.rbcu.ru

The lark pays much attention to his hairstyle: he has a small neat Mohawk-tuft on his head.

The field lark does not have an outstanding appearance, but nature has fully compensated for its unremarkable appearance with a huge vocal talent.

Nature has prepared for the females of the lark the role of listeners, they do not sing, they prefer to enjoy the singing of their boyfriends.

The lark sings

The singing of the lark is not rich in variations, but is very melodic and full-sounding. In the song of a little singer, the following sounds are distinguished: a low “chrrik”, a whistle with metallic notes, a long ringing trill. The lark is a skillful combinator: he can assemble his small supply of sounds into unique and unique songs. A feathered vocalist can sing for a very long time: his ringing trills shimmeringly follow each other.

The lark does not hesitate to imitate the singing of other, more vociferous birds.

The lark greets the sun with a song. The morning concert starts at about 3 am and lasts about 11 am, then the bird announces an intermission and goes to rest. At 4 p.m., she again takes the stage and continues to perform until dusk. Experienced singers can sing without a lunch break. Field lark tours begin in early spring and continue until mid-July, until the second brood leaves the nest. After that, the lark announces the cessation of performances and until the fall he is preparing for the flight and winter holidays. Larks prepare for wintering with special care and before departure they pick up a new wardrobe for themselves, that is, they molt.

It happens that larks stretch their vocal cords in the fall: sometimes their soft singing is heard.

Lark - loves to sing so much that he does it at any opportunity. Lark never ceases to delight listeners with his vocals even in the sky. He hangs at a decent height (up to 100 m) and rotates his compositions from there.

Source: http://aves-taganrog.ucoz.ru

The lark's love of extreme singing makes it vulnerable and highly attractive prey for birds of prey. For example, the lark is a desirable prey for the Hobby Falcon, which hunts in flight. True, a high-altitude singer can be saved thanks to his ability to rapidly fall to the ground, but, despite this ability, a lot of birds die because of passion and devotion to art. A beautiful song requires sacrifice...

The habitat of the field lark is extensive and includes almost all of Europe, Asia and the mountains of North Africa.

Larks are migratory birds, but they do not fly far from the nesting place and are among the first to return to Ukraine. They winter in the southern part of Western Europe. During wintering in a foreign land, they are so homesick that at the first opportunity they fly to their native lands. They arrive at the nesting place in early spring, when there is still really no food, but they are not afraid of a temporary hunger strike, they are artists, so a forced diet is a great opportunity to put your figure in order before concert activities.

Males always arrive first to scout the situation and understand what's what, they look for thawed patches warmed by the sun, and hide from the wind and rain on the edges. Temporary deprivation unites the larks. Before warming, they stay in small flocks (5-7 birds each). Following the males, females arrive in a few days and the larks break into pairs. The mission of the females is to find a suitable place for the nest, while the male brightens up her search work by singing and, of course, guards his lady.

The lark chooses open grassy spaces as a place of residence: meadows, fields, steppes and mountains, you will never meet a little singer in the forest.

The lark loves to nest in fields sown with winter or spring cereals. The construction of the lark's house begins at the end of May, when there is already grass in the fields and grain sprouts. His nest-dwelling is very simple. The couple builds it together, on the ground in a hole-deepening. Building material: stems and roots of herbs. Inside, the nest-house is trimmed with down and animal hair, horsehair.

Source: http://genntal.livejournal.com

Since the lark is not a public bird, it camouflages its home very well in the grass, the nest is almost impossible to find.

Birds stick to their nesting territory and rarely leave it. There is a family of artists on the field almost every 50-100 m. If, for some reason, you have to leave your lands, then the lark is attacked by a relative, into whose territory it has not sanctioned climbed, as a rule, the troublemaker hastily leaves.

The female lays 4 to 6 yellowish, brown-flecked eggs.

She incubates the offspring for two weeks. The chicks hatch blind, and their body is covered with fluff.

Source: http://birdchuvashia.ru

Children grow by leaps and bounds and grow up early. Already 10 days after birth, they are ready for independent swimming, that is, for independent living. It is noteworthy that they then leave the nest, but they still do not know how to fly, only after a few weeks they have enough strength to take to the air for the first time and start getting food. Until then, they are forced to hide in the grass.

In June, early-lark parents may decide to start a second "batch" of chicks, that is, to postpone the second clutch. They make such a decision only if the weather conditions are conducive to laying eggs and raising babies.