Skylarks sing on the wing—and moult every chick feather
Larks are passerines of family Alaudidae: ninety-eight living species in twenty-four genera, richest in Africa, with only the horned lark in North America and Horsfield’s bush lark in Australia. Unspecified “lark” often means the Eurasian skylark, famed for extravagant flight songs.
Nicholas Vigors named the group in 1825. Odd tarsus scutes and a missing syrinx pessulus set them apart; classifications bounce them between basal oscines and Passerida’s Sylvioidea, where they sister the bearded reedling. A 2023 phylogeny by Per Alström and colleagues reshuffled genera and proposed splitting Mirafra. Size runs about 12–24 cm and 15–75 g, from tiny Spizocorys to the Tibetan lark. Long hind claws steady ground stance; streaked browns camouflage nests. Adults mainly eat seeds yet feed chicks insects for at least a week; bills range from seed-crackers to diggers.
Uniquely among passerines (where known), chicks shed their entire first plumage in one moult—perhaps because parents switch them early to easier seed diets. Males advertise with elaborate aerial songs that won European literature: Shelley’s 1820 “To a Skylark,” Meredith’s 1881 “The Lark Ascending,” and Vaughan Williams’s 1914 violin romance (orchestrated soon after). Ground nests hold one egg (Sclater’s lark) to six–eight (calandra and black larks); incubation lasts 11–16 days. Desert species may nest low in bushes for cooling airflow. Pipits look similar on the ground, yet only larks show a single rounded scale plate on the rear tarsus instead of two meeting edges.
Historically eaten whole—even prized tongues—lark meat is now scarce outside southern European restaurants. Beijing keepers once trained birds through “thirteen songs” of mimicked sounds. Dawn singing birthed “up with the lark” for early risers.
From Chaucer to Flanders Fields, the bird still signals daybreak, lovers, and ascent.
Source: Lark
