Latin: Dolichonyx oryzivorus. Latin: Spiza americana. Latin: Sturnella magna. Latin: Icterus parisorum. Membership benefits include one year of Audubon magazine and the latest on birds and their habitats. Your support helps secure a future for birds at risk. Our email newsletter shares the latest programs and initiatives.
Remarkably similar to the Eastern Meadowlark in colors and pattern, this bird is recognized by its very different song and callnotes. The two species of meadowlarks evidently can easily recognize their own kind the same way; even where their ranges overlap in the Midwest and Southwest, they almost never interbreed. However, the two species do seem to see each other as potential rivals, and they actively defend territories against each other. Photo gallery. Feeding Behavior Forages by walking on the ground, taking insects and seeds from the ground and from low plants.
Eggs , usually about 5. Young Both parents feed nestlings but female does more. Diet Mostly insects and seeds. The songs are quite different, as are the call notes. Visual differences are more subtle, but they do exist. One mark is the yellow malar region of a Western Meadowlark, as opposed to white in Eastern. The yellow of the throat extends higher up onto the face in the Western. This is an Eastern.
If you find your meadowlark in the morning or late afternoon, you'll probably notice that he's facing the sun, as if his own warm color is drawn magnetically toward its source. Or perhaps he orients himself that way to maximize the impressiveness of his appearance. From the top side, meadowlarks make no impression at all. Their streaked backs so much resemble dried grass that a meadowlark on the ground is almost impossible to spot from above.
Hard luck for hawks. By the time the females arrive, the males have pretty well worked out the boundaries of their estates. A successful male reigns over six or seven acres of pasture or hayfield.
Now his primary attention turns to mating. Male and female meadowlarks look alike. You can tell them apart only by their behavior. I like to imagine what the female meadowlark sees when this knight in golden armor prances up close, carefully keeping his colorful front toward her, and points his bill up in the air to show off his yellow throat and swells out his yellow breast and flicks his wings above his back and leaps up and down to get her attention.
If he succeeds in wooing her, they will mate, and the female will begin construction of a nest. She starts with a hoofprint or natural depression in the ground, which she shapes by digging with her bill. She lines the nest with fine grasses. She creates a roof by pulling the adjacent vegetation over her nest to form a dome, weaving it together with dried grasses that she carries to the site.
She makes hundreds of trips bringing materials. When she's finished, the thatched dome is waterproof. The nest looks like an ordinary tuft of green and brown weeds. It is open only on one side, and this entrance may also be hidden by overhanging weeds or by a roofed run. For birds who nest on the ground, in easy reach of predators, concealment is the best defense. Concealment does nothing however to protect them from their worst tiger, the mower.
More News. How Birding Lists of the Deceased Are Finding New Life on eBird News To salvage invaluable insights from moldering notebooks, scientists are painstakingly compiling and digitizing decades-old data. News New research provides support for splitting the Northern Cardinal into multiple species. Explore Similar Birds. The Bird Guide Adopt a Bird. Bobolink Latin: Dolichonyx oryzivorus. Dickcissel Latin: Spiza americana. Scott's Oriole Latin: Icterus parisorum.
Western Meadowlark Latin: Sturnella neglecta. These birds need your help. Get Audubon in Your Inbox Let us send you the latest in bird and conservation news. Email address. Find Audubon Near You Visit your local Audubon center, join a chapter, or help save birds with your state program. Explore the Network.
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