Skylarks

What are they?

The skylark is Wordsworth’s ‘ethereal minstrel,’ and Shelley’s ‘blithe spirit', while John Clare proposes we ‘listen to its song, and smile and fancy’: the song of the skylark has inspired more poets than any other. A tiny speck high in the sky, the skylark soars and falls, singing beautiful, complicated songs over grasslands, rolling downs, coastal saltmarshes, and wide arable fields. Changes in farming have led to skylark populations crashing, and they are now a Red List species of conservation concern.

What to look for

In spring and summer, the sound of this bird is bewitching.

Watch out for males rising from the ground in display song-flights that can last from several minutes to an hour and reach 300m. When you see or hear one stop awhile – or better still, lie down and give your neck a rest so you can enjoy an ‘exaltation of skylarks’ - the wonderfully descriptive collective noun for this little bird.