Photo courtesy Charles Martinez
This week’s Bird of the Week, compliments of the Weminuche Audubon Society and Audubon Rockies, is the horned lark.
This bird prevails in treeless, sparsely vegetated environments which are unwelcoming to lots of other songbird types. They prevent locations where yard is over 2 inches high, living rather in open locations from water level to 13,000 feet that include overgrazed pastures, beaches, deserts and tundra.
Across the majority of the lower 48 states they are resident birds. Some breed throughout areas in Alaska and Canada however they prevent the boreal forest areas so essential to the approximated 5 billion of North America’s birds which nest there. Instead, these horned larks spend the summer season on the open tundra, pulling away south for the winter season.
At this time of year, horned larks are frequently found here in locations along Roush Drive when they flush from the ground in a low, twisted flight. Both sexes have actually cryptically colored plain brown backs. Their deal with markings with pale yellow extending from the neck, a black mask, head stripe and breastband are vibrant. Curled tufts of black plumes which can be put up at will are the “horns” in this lark’s name.
Males don’t wow possible mates with intense coloring. Instead, they catch a female’s attention with significant aerial display screens. After rising directly for numerous feet, he circles around and sings his “tinkling” tune for numerous minutes prior to diving headfirst to the ground where he raises his horns and struts prior to a female.
Where conditions enable, horned larks begin nesting as early as February and might raise 3 broods each year. The female builds her nest, and a pathway paved in pebbles, in a shallow anxiety on the ground. In heat she will stand with wings infected shade her eggs and chicks.
Despite staying many, Partners in Flight notes the horned lark as “a common bird in steep decline” due to long-lasting population patterns.
For details on occasions, see www.weminucheaudubon.org and www.facebook.com/weminucheaudubon/.
