The Eurasian Skylark (Alauda arvensis) is the farmland's high, unbroken singer, hovering motionless high in the air for up to fifteen minutes while pouring out a rich, trilling stream of song — one of the surest signs of spring when it returns in March. It is a streaky brown bird, 16–19 cm long with a 30–36 cm wingspan and a weight of 25–50 grams, rusty-brown above with darker feather centres giving heavy streaking, paler beige below with darker streaking on the breast and sides and a white belly, a small crest it raises when alarmed, a dark tail with white outer feathers, and a broad white trailing edge to the wing, all visible in flight; sexes look alike.
Its song is an uninterrupted, complex, trilling performance full of varied phrases, mimicry and fine trills, delivered while hovering at 50–100 metres for up to fifteen minutes at a stretch, with a softer "chirrup" contact call in flight and a harsher alarm near the nest. Breeding throughout Sweden except the mountains, most densely in the farmland of Götaland and Svealand, with an estimated 500,000–1,000,000 pairs, the Skylark is a short-distance migrant wintering in southern Europe and North Africa and arriving in the south as early as late February. It nests always on the ground, in a grass-concealed scrape built solely by the female, laying 3–5 greyish-white, brown-speckled eggs incubated for 11–13 days; the young leave the nest after 18–20 days, before they can fly. Its diet is insects and larvae in summer, crucial for the chicks, switching to seeds and green plant matter in autumn and winter. The population is declining sharply, driven by autumn ploughing and sowing that destroys ground nests, reduced fallow land, and a decline in the insects chicks depend on.
Read about this species in Swedish →