Western larkbird
| Western larkbird | ||||||||||||
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Western larkbird ( Sturnella neglecta ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Sturnella neglecta | ||||||||||||
| ( Audubon , 1844) |
The western larkbird ( Sturnella neglecta ), or meadow blackbird, is a North American songbird from the starch family (Icteridae).
features
The 25 cm long western larkbird is gray-brown and black-striped on the top and yellow on the underside with white flanks. Further features are a dark eye stripe and a black V-shaped chest band. It can best be distinguished from the very similar Eastern Larkbird by its more complex song. It is a clearly accentuated, fluting series that can be described as sliep lu lidi lidijuvi , for example. It is often performed from elevated singing rooms. There is also a faster, more excited-sounding variant that is brought forward from the flight.
Occurrence
The Western Larkbird lives in meadows, fields and embankments in southern Canada and large parts of the USA, but only rarely in the east. For the winter it moves to central Mexico.
behavior
The bird looks for invertebrates, berries and seeds in small flocks on the ground, while solitary animals often sit at vantage points.
Reproduction
The Western Larkbird builds a bowl-shaped nest with a dome-shaped roof in dense vegetation on the ground. Three to seven eggs are hatched by the female for about two weeks. The male defends the territory and later occasionally helps with the feeding of the young. Often times, the male has two partners at the same time.
Others
The western larchbird is the state bird of Kansas , Montana , Nebraska , North Dakota , Oregon, and Wyoming .
literature
- Colin Harrison, Alan Greensmith: Birds: with more than 800 species . Dorling Kindersly, Starnberg 2005, ISBN 3-8310-0785-3 .
- Bryan Richard: Birds: over 400 species from around the world . Parragon, Bath 2006, ISBN 1-4054-5506-3 .
Individual evidence
- ^ DA Sibley: The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America. AA Knopf, New York 2003, ISBN 0-679-45120-X , pp. 398f.
- ↑ Stephen K. Davis, Wesley E. Lanyon: Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta) . In: A. Poole (Ed.): The Birds of North America Online Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca 2008, doi : 10.2173 / bna.104 , section Sounds
Web links
- Sturnella neglecta in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2008. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2004. Retrieved on January 4 of 2009.
- Videos, photos and sound recordings of Sturnella neglecta in the Internet Bird Collection