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Meadow

Skylark

Alauda arvensis

A streaky brown bird with a small crest, famous for singing high in the sky.

Size
About 18cm long
Look for it
All year round
Where
Open fields, meadows, moors and dunes

My spotter's list

Walks and flutters after you, and flies when you get far ahead. Move your pointer and see.

When to look

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Skylark

Good to know

Six things about the skylark

Song

Singing in the sky

The male climbs almost straight up, singing all the way, and can hang high in the air for several minutes without a break.

Height

A speck in the sky

A singing skylark may be 50 to 100 metres up. You can often hear it clearly before you can find it.

Nest

A nest on the ground

Skylarks nest in a small hollow on the ground, hidden in grass or crops.

Crest

A little crest

It can raise the feathers on its head into a small crest when it is alert or excited.

Decline

Fewer than before

Skylark numbers have fallen a lot since the 1970s, mostly because of changes in farming.

Help

Skylark plots

Some farmers leave small bare squares in their crops so that skylarks have somewhere to land and feed.

The real thing

Photos of the skylark

Skylark, photo 1
Photo: Alun Williams333, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Skylark, photo 2
Photo: Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Skylark, photo 3
Photo: Ssprmannheim, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Out and about

How to spot one

Stand in open farmland or on moorland from February to July and listen for a long, pouring song overhead. Then search the sky for a hovering speck.

Lend a hand

How to help

Stick to paths across fields from March to July, and keep dogs close: the nests are on the ground and very hard to see.

Keep going

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