Eurasian skylark

Description

Eurasian skylarks are medium-sized, slender larks with rather long wings, a light cap that can be raised in the male, a strong beak, a relatively long tail and a long hind talon. The bird's body length is 16 to 18 cm and it weighs 30 to 45 g. The basic colour of the upperparts is beige to reddish brown. The top of the head and the back including the rump are finely streaked with blackish brown and dotted. The upper breast and flanks are clearly dark longitudinally streaked and dotted on a yellowish white or light brownish ground, the rest of the belly and the flanks are white.

The wingspan ranges from 30 to 35 cm. The wings are dark grey-brown, the inner primaries and secondaries have a narrow whitish terminal band. The tail is grey-brown, on the fifth tail feather counted from the inside outwards the outer vane is narrowly whitish fringed, on the outermost (sixth) tail feather the outer vane is almost completely whitish and also the inner vane on the distal half is predominantly whitish.

The yellowish white, strong over-eye stripe ends at the rear edge of the ear coverts. These are strong reddish brown and lightly edged. The moustachial stripe is broad white, the weakly developed chin stripe is dark grey-brown, the throat white.

The legs are light brown. The beak is horn-coloured, the lower beak is lightened at the base. The iris is dark brown in adults and light brown in juveniles.

The eurasian skylark inhabits not too wet, wide open spaces with low and often patchy vegetation of grasses and herbs. In Central Europe, it is largely bound to agriculturally used areas, the main breeding habitats being fertilised meadows, pastures and fields.

The text is a translation of an excerpt from Wikipedia (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feldlerche). On wikipedia the text is available under a „Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike“ licence. Status: 14 December 2021