The lark of the meadows

Meadowlarks have a way to bring a song into your day. I remember as a boy listening to the buoyant, flute-like melody of the Western Meadowlark ringing out across a field in May outside my fifth grade classroom in a rural school. A song like that can brighten anyone’s day.

Recently I was in a grassy field in Boundary County when I heard the song of a meadowlark. I knew he was close by the sound, but it was difficult to spot him. Then he perched nearby and sang his heart out. Meadowlarks are often more easily heard than seen, but this was a male singing for all his was worth and not paying any attention to me. After he finished his wonderful song he quickly dove into tall grass and disappeared.

This bird resides in open country throughout Boundary County and Idaho. They are named “Meadowlark” because they are a bird of meadows and sings like the larks of Europe. This colorful member of the blackbird family flashes a vibrant yellow breast crossed by a distinctive, black, V-shaped band. Look and listen for these stout ground feeders in grasslands, meadows, pastures, and along marsh edges throughout the state, where flocks strut and feed on seeds and insects.

Western Meadowlarks eat both grain and weed seeds along with insects. They forage for grain during winter and early spring and for weed seeds in the fall. In late spring and summer they probe the soil and poke beneath dirt clods and manure piles seeking beetles, ants, cutworms, grasshoppers and crickets. As they forage, meadowlarks use a feeding behavior called “gaping” — inserting their bill in the soil and prying it open to access seeds and insects that many bird species can’t reach. Western Meadowlarks occasionally eat the eggs of other grassland bird species.

Working alone, the female meadowlark uses her bill to shape a depression in the soil into a cup-like shape, and then lines the nest with soft, dry grasses and the pliable stems of shrubs. Although some nests are simple grass-lined bowls, meadowlarks often use the vegetation around the nest cup as an anchor to create a hood-like, waterproof dome over the nest by weavings together grass and shrub stems. When finished the nest is 7-8 inches across, with a cup that is 4-5 inches across and 2-3 inches deep. It can take 6-8 days for the female to build the season’s first nest. As the parents move back and forth from the nest they create short “runways” into surrounding grasslands.

A meadowlark typically has a clutch size of 5-6 eggs with 1-2 broods per year. Their incubation period is 13-16 days and generally has a 10-12 day nesting period. The hatchlings are born with their eyes closed.

Flocks of the stout-bodied meadowlark forage along the ground in open fields, probing the soil for insects, grain, and weed seeds. When taking to the air, they fly in brief, quail-like bursts, alternating rapid, stiff wingbeats with short glides. In spring, males establish territories and chase intruders away in “pursuit flight,” springing straight up into the air several feet and fluttering their wings over their back with their legs hanging limp below. Males can spend up to a month establishing and defending a breeding territory before females arrive. Successful males typically mate with two females during the breeding season, bringing food to the nest once the chicks are hatched and noisily chasing intruders away. Meadowlarks are extremely sensitive to humans when nesting and will abandon a nest if they are disturbed while incubating their eggs.

The oldest recorded Western Meadowlark was at least 6 years, 6 months old when it was found in Colorado. It is also the state bird for six states. Only the Northern Cardinal is a more popular civic symbol.

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