(_Sturnella magna_) Blackbird family
_Called also_: FIELD LARK; OLDFIELD LARK
(Illustration facing p. 135)
_Length_--10 to 11 inches. A trifle larger than the robin.
_Male_--Upper parts brown, varied with chestnut, deep brown,
and black. Crown streaked with brown and black, and with a
cream-colored streak through the centre. Dark-brown line
apparently running through the eye; another line over the eye,
yellow. Throat and chin yellow; a large, conspicuous black
crescent on breast. Underneath yellow, shading into buffy
brown, spotted or streaked with very dark brown. Outer tail
feathers chiefly white, conspicuous in flight. Long, strong
legs and claws, adapted for walking. Less black in winter
plumage, which is more grayish brown.
_Female_--Paler than male.
_Range_--North America, from Newfoundland to the Gulf of
Mexico, and westward to the plains, where the Western
meadowlark takes its place. Winters from Massachusetts and
Illinois southward.
_Migrations_--April. Late October. Usually a resident, a few
remaining through the winter.
In the same meadows with the red-winged blackbirds, birds of another
feather, but of the same family, nevertheless, may be found flocking
together, hunting for worms and larvA|, building their nests, and
rearing their young very near each other with the truly social
instinct of all their kin.
The meadowlarks, which are really not larks at all, but the
blackbirds' and orioles' cousins, are so protected by the coloring of
the feathers on their backs, like that of the grass and stubble they
live among, that ten blackbirds are noticed for every meadowlark,
although the latter is very common. Not until you flush a flock of
them as you walk along the roadside or through the meadows and you
note the white tail feathers and the black crescents on the yellow
breasts of the large brown birds that rise towards the tree-tops with
whirring sound and a flight suggesting the quail's, do you suspect
there are any birds among the tall grasses.
Their clear and piercing whistle, "_Spring o' the y-e-a-r, Spring o'
the year!_" rings out from the trees with varying intonation and
accent, but always sweet and inspiriting. To the bird's high vantage
ground you may not follow, for no longer having the protection of the
high grass, it has become wary and flies away as you approach, calling
out _peent-peent_ and nervously flitting its tail (again showing the
white feather), when it rests a moment on the pasture fence-rail.
It is like looking for a needle in a haystack to try to find a
meadowlark's nest, an unpretentious structure of dried grasses partly
arched over and hidden in a clump of high timothy, flat upon the
ground. But what havoc snakes and field-mice play with the
white-speckled eggs and helpless fledglings! The care of rearing two
or three broods in a season and the change of plumage to duller winter
tints seem to exhaust the high spirits of the sweet whistler. For a
time he is silent, but partly regains his vocal powers in the autumn,
when, with large flocks of his own kind, he resorts to marshy feeding
grounds. In the winter he chooses for companions the horned larks,
that walk along the shore, or the snow buntings and sparrows of the
inland pastures, and will even include the denizens of the barn-yard
when hunger drives him close to the haunts of men.
* * * * *
The Western Meadowlark or Prairie Lark (_Sturnella magna neglecta_),
which many ornithologists consider a different species from the
foregoing, is distinguished chiefly by its lighter, more grayish-brown
plumage, by its yellow cheeks, and more especially by its richer,
fuller song. In his "Birds of Manitoba," Mr. Ernest E. Thompson says of
this meadowlark: "In richness of voice and modulation it equals or
excels both wood thrush and nightingale, and in the beauty of its
articulation it has no superior in the whole world of feathered
choristers with which I am acquainted."