BS: Skylarks

Subject: BS: Skylarks
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 04 Feb 23 - 08:54 AM

There used to be a thread about where to hear skylarks but I can't find it.

I just heard the first skylark of 2023 soring upward over our house in Rossendale today, 4th Feb.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Skylarks
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Feb 23 - 09:13 AM

That's early. I heard a great tit singing last week, and yesterday I heard the first wren song of the year so far. I do miss things due to my high-frequency hearing loss. Skylarks are on the red list of the most endangered birds. Up there in Rossendale you have lots of good open-country habitat for them. In Cornwall we have open coastal heath and short grassland which are ideal. A major cause of their decline is farming practices, not just use of pesticides which can pass up the food chain but also of the proliferation of winter wheat and winter barley (replacing spring-sown crops), which are both too tall by breeding season for skylarks to nest.

Subject: RE: BS: Skylarks
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Feb 23 - 09:34 AM

...I want to walk the green lanes and hedgerows
And feel the heart beating fierce and strong
I want to stand deep in central London
And hear the notes of a skylark's song...

-from our very own Tabster

Subject: RE: BS: Skylarks
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Feb 23 - 10:05 AM

Did you know that they sing and fart at the same time. That's how they hover.

Subject: RE: BS: Skylarks
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Feb 23 - 11:32 AM

Well, Mrrzy, you're as likely to hear a skylark deep in central London as you'd be to hear a nightingale singing in Berkeley Square...

Subject: RE: BS: Skylarks
From: leeneia
Date: 06 Feb 23 - 09:06 PM

That's great, Robin. I'm glad your heard the skylark.

In 1995, I was on a beach in Scotland, and we saw a bird flying high in the air over the nearby land, singing beautifully. I think it was a skylark.

Subject: RE: BS: Skylarks
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 09 Feb 26 - 03:50 AM

First skylark singing this year yesterday, despite the very wet weather we have been having. Not quite as bad with us as other parts of the UK, we have had a couple of days when it has not rained, but very little sunshine.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Skylarks
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Feb 26 - 04:13 AM

Skylarks can sing and breathe at the same time

   They achieve this due to a specialized respiratory system and a unique syrinx (vocal organ) that allows them to produce sound on both inhale and exhale, effectively using continuous, circular breathin

---

Still posting AI (and you chopped off the end of the sentence.) Post your own words, Dick, not AI slop. ---mudelf

Subject: RE: BS: Skylarks
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Feb 26 - 08:33 AM

Thanks to the mudelves,
the top of this page has a link to
Where can I hear a lark sing? thread.

The only larks I have heard were
American meadowlarks,
as I've never been to the continent of skylarks.

Subject: RE: BS: Skylarks
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Feb 26 - 09:48 AM

This post has a map and song links.

Skylark Alauda arvensis by Vladimir Arkhipov is the sound Soundcloud link.

Subject: RE: BS: Skylarks
From: Paul Burke
Date: 09 Feb 26 - 04:57 PM

All birds have uniflow lungs and a syrinx. What bothers me is that what we were taught in school biology turns out to be stories for children. We were told that erythrocytes (red blood corpuscles) don't have nuclei (true - I've seen them), and this is so they can fold up small to get through tiny capillaries and get oxygen right into muscles. But birds (and reptiles) do have nucleated erythrocytes. I've not noticed that birds' muscles are noticeably less powerful or have worse endurance than mammals. Not many mammals can fly, but most birds can; swallows fly to Africa and back every year.