Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Stur­nella magna is found in the east­ern United States, as well as parts of the south­west U.S. and Cen­tral Amer­ica. The sum­mer breed­ing range in­cludes parts of south­ern Canada. ("East­ern Mead­owlark", 1992; Camp­bell, 1973)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • native
• neotropical
  • native

Habi­tat

East­ern mead­owlarks breed in na­tive grass­lands, pas­tures, sa­van­nas, al­falfa and hay fields, crop­land bor­ders, road­sides, or­chards, golf courses, air­ports, re­claimed strip mines, over­grown fields, and other open areas. In the west­ern range, the breed­ing range also con­sists of tall-grass prairies and desert grass­land. In the win­ter they are gen­er­ally found in open coun­try, cul­ti­vated fields, feed­lots, and marshes. East­ern mead­owlarks are gen­er­ally found in habi­tats that are more mesic than their close rel­a­tive, west­ern mead­owlarks (S. ne­glecta). ("East­ern Mead­owlark", 1992; El­liott and Read, 1998; Lanyon, 1995)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• tropical
• terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• savanna or grassland

• Other Habitat Features
• suburban
• agricultural

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

East­ern mead­owlarks are medium-sized song­birds, with long, slen­der, light gray bills and dark brown eyes. The tails are short and have rigid rec­tri­ces. The legs and toes are long. Male S. magna have gray­ish heads with black­ish stripes, a yel­low “eye­brow”, and dark crowns with a me­dian stripe. The wings and tail are streaked and barred with dark and light brown. Males have a broad white mous­tachial stripe and a yel­low chin, which is di­vided from the un­der­parts by a broad black breast band. The un­der­parts turn off-white on the streaked flanks and under the tail coverts. The pale un­der­tail coverts are streaked and spot­ted dusky black. Fe­males are sim­i­lar to males ex­cept that they are smaller, paler, and have a nar­rower breast band. Males are slightly larger than fe­males, from 21 to 25 cm in length, fe­males are from 19 to 23 cm. Ju­ve­nile east­ern mead­owlarks have masked black areas and the white areas are buff­ish. Ju­ve­niles also have more brown plumage in the win­ter. East­ern mead­owlark eggs are white, speck­led with red­dish-brown. When these birds walk, the tail con­stantly jerks open. These birds fly by beat­ing their wings vig­or­ously and then glid­ing. ("East­ern Mead­owlark", 1992; "Birdnature.​com", 2002; Camp­bell, 1973; Lanyon, 1995)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• homoiothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• male larger
• sexes colored or patterned differently

• Range mass

  90 to 150 g

  3.17 to 5.29 oz

• Range length

  19 to 26 cm

  7.48 to 10.24 in

• Range wingspan

  35 to 40 cm

  13.78 to 15.75 in

Re­pro­duc­tion

Male east­ern mead­owlarks are polyg­y­nous, with most males hav­ing two to three mates. Fe­male S. magna have only one mate per breed­ing sea­son, pro­vided that the male suc­cess­fully de­fends the ter­ri­tory. Males es­tab­lish their ter­ri­to­ries ap­prox­i­mately two to four weeks be­fore fe­males ar­rive. Male S. magna dis­play their ter­ri­to­ries with flight dis­plays and by singing. Fe­male east­ern mead­owlarks choose their mates by se­lect­ing ter­ri­to­ries, which are de­fended by males with con­spe­cific vo­cal­iza­tions. Once the pair bond forms the pair re­mains close to­gether while for­ag­ing and search­ing for nest sites. A male S. magna de­fends its ter­ri­tory against ri­vals by fluff­ing out its plumage and point­ing its bill up­wards. Males guard their mates from neigh­bor­ing males by con­stantly guard­ing their mate. (Camp­bell, 1973; "Be­hav­ior", 2005; Lanyon, 1995)

Males es­tab­lish their ter­ri­to­ries in March, fe­males ar­rive about two to four weeks later fe­males. Male east­ern mead­owlarks rarely en­gage in body con­tact and fight­ing when de­fend­ing their ter­ri­to­ries, how­ever, when it does occur it can be quite se­vere. Pair­ing oc­curs im­me­di­ately after fe­males ar­rive. The "aer­ial chase" oc­curs within min­utes of a fe­male choos­ing a male. The fe­male typ­i­cally ini­ti­ates the chase, al­though some­times the chase in­cludes two fe­males and one male. The aer­ial chase con­sists of ei­ther a se­ries of short flights or as brief flights in­ter­spersed with pe­ri­ods of pos­tur­ing and rest. Ad­di­tion­ally, the male is typ­i­cally silent dur­ing the aer­ial chase. These chases usu­ally carry the par­tic­i­pants well be­yond the bound­aries of the male’s ter­ri­tory. When a fe­male east­ern mead­owlark is re­cep­tive, she even­tu­ally as­sumes the re­cep­tive pos­ture, at which time the male will ap­proach, paw the fe­male’s back and then mount. Af­ter­wards the fe­male re­mains in a semi-re­cep­tive po­si­tion and flut­ters and shakes its plumage, chat­ters sev­eral times, then vig­or­ously preens it­self. The fe­male re­cep­tive pos­ture con­sists of the fe­male el­e­vat­ing its bill and tail, hold­ing its wings slightly drooped, and quiv­er­ing, some­times the fe­male also chat­ters. Later on in the breed­ing sea­son "jump-flights" and tee-tee-tee calls may ac­com­pany the re­cep­tive pos­ture. How­ever, if a male ap­proaches when the fe­male is not re­cep­tive, the fe­male will use "ex­pan­sion pos­tur­ing" to warn off the male. Also, males and fe­males make jump-flights be­fore and dur­ing re­peated cop­u­la­tion pe­ri­ods. A jump-flight con­sists of the bird jump­ing ap­prox­i­mately one meter into the air and then fly­ing sev­eral me­ters. Once the breed­ing sea­son is over, male S. magna cease de­fend­ing their ter­ri­to­ries. (Camp­bell, 1973; "Be­hav­ior", 2005; Francq, 1972; Lanyon, 1995)

• Mating System
• polygynous

Fe­male east­ern mead­owlarks gather nest ma­te­ri­als and build the nest. The nest con­sists of coarse grasses, lined with finer grasses and is con­structed on the ground, typ­i­cally in a shal­low de­pres­sion. The out­side di­am­e­ter of the nest ranges from 14-21 cm, the in­side di­am­e­ter ranges from 8-15 cm, and the in­side depth ranges from 5-8 cm. Fe­male S. magna land a dis­tance away from the nest and then stealth­ily ap­proach the nest. (Camp­bell, 1973; "Be­hav­ior", 2005; Lanyon, 1995)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• oviparous

• Breeding interval

  Breeding first occurs in late May, with a second brood produced in late June to early July.

• Breeding season

  Breeding occurs from late May to August.

• Range eggs per season

  6 to 14

• Average eggs per season

  5

  AnAge

• Range time to hatching

  13 to 15 days

• Range fledging age

  11 to 12 days

• Range time to independence

  2 (low) weeks

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  1 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  1 years

Fe­males in­cu­bate the eggs for 13 to 15 days, when the al­tri­cial young hatch. After the eggs hatch both the fe­male and her mate feed the hatch­lings. How­ever, fe­males do most of the feed­ing. Nestlings typ­i­cally fledge 11 to 12 days after hatch­ing, but ju­ve­niles do not be­come in­de­pen­dent for at least an­other two weeks. The par­ents con­tinue to feed the fledg­lings until they be­come in­de­pen­dent. (Camp­bell, 1973; "Breed­ing", 2005; Lanyon, 1995)

• Parental Investment
• altricial
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-independence
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
    • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

East­ern mead­owlarks have an ex­pected lifes­pan of five years in the wild, which is the same as the high end of its ex­pected lifes­pan in cap­tiv­ity. The longest know lifes­pan in the wild is nine years. (Lanyon, 1995)

• Range lifespan
  Status: wild

  9 (high) years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  5 years

• Typical lifespan
  Status: captivity

  3 to 5 years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  151 months

  Bird Banding Laboratory

Be­hav­ior

East­ern mead­owlarks are so­cial, form­ing loose flocks dur­ing the fall and win­ter. These flocks lack a so­cial hi­er­ar­chy and are sim­ply a loose ag­gre­ga­tion of S. magna and oc­ca­sion­ally, S. ne­glecta (west­ern mead­owlarks). They use a va­ri­ety of songs, calls and pos­tures to com­mu­ni­cate with other mead­owlarks. Also, where east­ern and west­ern mead­owlark ranges over­lap, male east­ern mead­owlarks will de­fend against male east­ern and west­ern mead­owlarks. Males typ­i­cally de­fend their ter­ri­to­ries with pos­tur­ing and aer­ial dis­plays.

Both male and fe­male S. magna often preen and stretch, es­pe­cially in the early morn­ing hours. Stretch­ing, specif­i­cally of the legs and wings, usu­ally fol­lows preen­ing. They also tend to scratch their head with their foot, which they bring up over their wing. Stur­nella magna bathes in pud­dles and wet grass. Stur­nella magna roosts on the ground in thick grass, with its head under its scapu­lars and its body rest­ing on the ground. ("Be­hav­ior", 2005; Lanyon, 1995)

Stur­nella magna do not mi­grate, ex­cept for those in the north­ern­most parts of their range. How­ever, S. magna tend to form flocks dur­ing the win­ter. Also, those S. magna that do mi­grate, do so dur­ing day­light hours, and begin their mi­gra­tion when it be­gins to freeze and snow. Some of these birds may mi­grate over 1,000 km to their win­ter range. East­ern mead­owlarks that mi­grate, leave by the end of No­vem­ber and re­turn to the breed­ing range in March. (Francq, 1972; Lanyon, 1995)

• Key Behaviors
• terricolous
• flies
• diurnal
• motile
• migratory
• sedentary
• territorial
• social

• Range territory size

  28 to 32 m^2

Home Range

Male S. magna es­tab­lish their ter­ri­to­ries in March, and de­fend their ter­ri­to­ries through­out the breed­ing sea­son. Dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son the ter­ri­to­ries change in size and shape de­pend­ing on pop­u­la­tion den­si­ties, re­lo­ca­tions of fe­male ac­tiv­ity cen­ters, and changes in habi­tat suit­abil­ity. Once the breed­ing sea­son is over S. magna do not de­fend or main­tain ter­ri­to­ries. (Francq, 1972; Lanyon, 1995)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

The songs of S. magna are one of the first bird­songs of spring. Stur­nella magna have a va­ri­ety of vocal com­mu­ni­ca­tions. There are beg­ging notes, lo­ca­tion notes, dzert, whis­tle, chat­ter, weet, pri­mary song, flight song, fe­male song, zeree, and tee-tee-tee. Nestlings and re­cently fledged ju­ve­niles use beg­ging and lo­ca­tion notes, which are sim­ple high-pitched notes. These notes en­able the par­ents to find and feed their young. The dzert call in­di­cates mild dis­tur­bance. The whis­tle in­di­cates in­tense ex­cite­ment in males or fe­males, such as the pres­ence of a preda­tor, just be­fore a flight song, or im­me­di­ately after an aer­ial chase or cop­u­la­tion. Both sexes use the chat­ter call to in­di­cate ex­cite­ment such as the pres­ence of a preda­tor or in­truder. Fe­males also chat­ter after cop­u­la­tion and in re­sponse to their mates’ pri­mary song. Only males use the pri­mary song, which sounds like seee-yeee, seee-yer. In the courtship pe­riod, fe­male S. magna use the fe­male song, dur­ing early morn­ing preen­ing. The alarm call of the east­ern mead­owlark is a short buzzy, dzert. ("East­ern Mead­owlark", 1992; "Be­hav­ior", 2005; El­liott and Read, 1998; Lanyon, 1995)

Pos­tur­ing and aer­ial chases are used to at­tract and pur­sue pos­si­ble mates. Jump-flights are used to ward off males that are in­trud­ing on an­other male’s ter­ri­tory. Bill-tilt­ing and tail- and wing-flash­ing are used in ter­ri­to­r­ial dis­putes, as is ex­pan­sion pos­tur­ing. Ex­pan­sion pos­tur­ing is when in­di­vid­u­als ex­tend their con­tour feath­ers, spread the tail, and draws the head close to the body. Fe­male S. magna use ex­pan­sion pos­tur­ing to warn off its mate when the fe­male is un­re­cep­tive. If ex­pan­sion pos­tur­ing does not suc­ceed in warn­ing off the male, the fe­male will hold its feath­ers tight against its body and point its gap­ing bill at the male. Male east­ern mead­owlarks also use ex­pan­sion pos­tur­ing after the for­ma­tion of the pair bond. ("East­ern Mead­owlark", 1992; "Be­hav­ior", 2005; El­liott and Read, 1998; Lanyon, 1995)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• acoustic

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

East­ern mead­owlarks walk and run on the ground while for­ag­ing for food, they also for­age by prob­ing be­neath the soil. Their diet varies with the sea­son. In the spring they feed mainly on cut­worms, grubs, and cater­pil­lars. When sum­mer comes they eat in­sects, pri­mar­ily bee­tles and grasshop­pers. In the win­ter they eat nox­ious weed seeds and waste grains as well as some wild­fruits and oc­ca­sional car­rion from road-kill or preda­tor-kills. (Camp­bell, 1973; Lanyon, 1995)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • insectivore
• herbivore
  • granivore

• Animal Foods
• carrion
• insects

• Plant Foods
• seeds, grains, and nuts
• fruit

Pre­da­tion

East­ern mead­owlarks are preyed on by hawks and fal­cons and oc­ca­sion­ally by owls. They are most likely to be preyed upon by owls dur­ing the owl’s breed­ing sea­son. While the owls are rais­ing their young, they are more likely to hunt dur­ing day­light hours, in order to catch enough prey to feed the chicks. Hawks and fal­cons are di­ur­nal, and often hunt in sim­i­lar habi­tats. Dur­ing their nest­ing sea­son, do­mes­tic cats, dogs, foxes, coy­otes, and skunks prey upon the eggs and nestlings. East­ern mead­owlark col­oration helps them to blend in to their grass­land sur­round­ings, they can be dif­fi­cult to spot un­less they are on a high perch. (Gross­man and Ham­let, 1964; Lanyon, 1995)

• Anti-predator Adaptations
• cryptic

• Known Predators

  • domestic cats (Felis silvestris)
  • dogs (Canis lupus familiaris)
  • foxes (Vulpes)
  • skunks (Mephitidae)
  • hawks (Accipitridae)
  • falcons (Falconidae)
  • sometimes owls (Strigiformes)
  • coyotes (Canis latrans)

Ecosys­tem Roles

East­ern mead­owlarks are prey for larger preda­tors and they prey on a va­ri­ety of in­sects, in­clud­ing grubs and cater­pil­lars, which could dam­age the sur­round­ing veg­e­ta­tion. They also act to dis­perse the sees of plants they eat. Stur­nella magna serves as a host for a va­ri­ety of in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal par­a­sites, and for brown-headed cow­birds. Brown-headed cow­birds are ob­lig­ate par­a­sites, which lay eggs in the nests of other species of birds. ("West­ern Mead­owlark", 2003; "Birdnature.​com", 2002; Camp­bell, 1973; "De­mog­ra­phy and Pop­u­la­tions", 2005; Gross­man and Ham­let, 1964; Lanyon, 1995; Stark, 1940; Tay­lor, 1969)

• Ecosystem Impact
• disperses seeds
• biodegradation
• soil aeration

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Stur­nella magna eat in­sects that are crop pests, there­fore they act to con­trol pest pop­u­la­tions that im­pact crops. (Camp­bell, 1973; Lanyon, 1995)

• Positive Impacts
• controls pest population

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Stur­nella species eat ker­nels of sprout­ing grain, which can de­stroy por­tions of newly planted crops. ("West­ern Mead­owlark", 2003)

• Negative Impacts
• crop pest

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Ac­cord­ing to the IUCN Red List, the U.S. Fed­eral List, and the State of Michi­gan List, east­ern mead­owlarks have no spe­cial sta­tus. They are not threat­ened, likely to be­come threat­ened, or en­dan­gered. This agrees with the Audubon So­ci­ety's as­sess­ment of S. magna. East­ern mead­owlarks fall into the Audubon So­ci­ety's green con­ser­va­tion sta­tus, which means that it is of low or no con­ser­va­tion con­cern. How­ever, S. magna pop­u­la­tions have been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a sig­nif­i­cant pop­u­la­tion de­cline, de­clin­ing by as much as 50% since 1966. ("State of the Birds: Grass­lands", 2005)

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• US Migratory Bird Act

  No special status

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

Other Com­ments

East­ern mead­owlarks are not true larks; rather they be­long to the same fam­ily as black­birds and ori­oles (Icteri­dae). There are about 18 rec­og­nized sub­species of the east­ern mead­owlark.

The de­cline of the S. magna pop­u­la­tions could be par­tially due to the in­dus­tri­al­iza­tion of agri­cul­ture, which in­creases the like­li­hood of a nest being de­stroyed by the agri­cul­tural ma­chin­ery and the in­creased use of row crops which are an un­suit­able habi­tat for these birds. An­other pos­si­ble cause of the de­cline is ap­par­ent pre­da­tion by cat­tle. Cat­tle have been doc­u­mented de­stroy­ing nests, some­times by ac­ci­dent but also by crush­ing eggs and nestlings with their muz­zles and by re­mov­ing nestlings from the nests. ("De­mog­ra­phy and Pop­u­la­tions", 2005; Nack and Ribic, 2005)

Con­trib­u­tors

Tanya Dewey (ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web.

Tamar Dex­heimer (au­thor), Kala­ma­zoo Col­lege, Ann Fraser (ed­i­tor, in­struc­tor), Kala­ma­zoo Col­lege.

Ref­er­ences

Cor­nell Lab of Or­nithol­ogy. 2005. "Be­hav­ior" (On-line). Birds of North Amer­ica On­line. Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 19, 2005 at http://​bna.​birds.​cornell.​edu/​BNA/​account/​Eastern_​Meadowlark/​BEHAVIOR.​html.

Birdnature.​com. 2002. "Birdnature.​com" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 01, 2005 at http://​www.​birdnature.​com/​meadowlark.​html.

Cor­nell Lab of Or­nithol­ogy. 2005. "Breed­ing" (On-line). Birds of North Amer­ica On­line. Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 19, 2005 at http://​bna.​birds.​cornell.​edu/​BNA/​account/​Eastern_​Meadowlark/​BREEDING.​html.

Cor­nell Lab of Or­nithol­ogy. 2005. "De­mog­ra­phy and Pop­u­la­tions" (On-line). Birds of North Amer­ica On­line. Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 19, 2005 at http://​bna.​birds.​cornell.​edu/​BNA/​account/​Eastern_​Meadowlark/​DEMOGRAPHY_​AND_​POPULATIONS.​html.

Cor­nell Lab of Or­nithol­ogy. 2003. "East­ern Mead­owlark" (On-line). Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 13, 2005 at http://​www.​birds.​cornell.​edu/​programs/​AllAboutBirds/​BirdGuide/​Eastern_​Meadowlark.​html.

1992. East­ern Mead­owlark. Pp. 345 in R Ze­leny, ed. The World Book En­cy­clo­pe­dia, Vol. 13. Chicago: World Book Inc..

Na­tional Audubon So­ci­ety. 2005. "State of the Birds: Grass­lands" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 11, 2005 at http://​www.​audubon.​org/​bird/​stateofthebirds/​grasslands.​html.

2003. West­ern Mead­owlark. Pp. 316 in M Hutchins, ed. Grz­imek's An­i­mal Life En­cy­clo­pe­dia, Vol. 11. De­troit: Gale Group Inc..

Camp­bell, B. 1973. Stur­nella magna. Pp. 337 in R Holmes, ed. The Dic­tio­nary of Birds in Color. New York: The Viking Press.

El­liott, L., M. Read. 1998. Com­mon Birds And Their Tongs. Boston: Houghton Mif­flin Com­pany.

Francq, G. 1972. Parental care of the east­ern mead­owlark (Stur­nella magna). Kansas: Kansas State Teach­ers Col­lege.

Gross­man, M., J. Ham­let. 1964. Birds of Prey of the World. New York: Bo­nanaza Books.

Lanyon, W. 1995. East­ern Mead­owlark: Stur­nella magna. Wash­ing­ton D. C.: Amer­i­can Or­nithol­o­gists' Union.

Nack, J., C. Ribic. 2005. Ap­par­ent pre­da­tion by cat­tle at grass­land bird nests. Wil­son Bul­letin, 117: 56-62.

Stark, F. 1940. A study of the an­i­mal par­a­sites of Stur­nella magna magna and Stur­nella ne­glecta of south­east­ern Kansas. Pitts­burg, Kansas: Kansas State Teach­ers Col­lege.

Tay­lor, R. 1969. His­to­log­i­cal study of host-par­a­site re­la­tions be­tween mead­owlarks (Stur­nella) and Mi­crote­trameres Stur­nel­lae (Ne­ma­toda: Tetrameri­dae). Ok­la­homa: Uni­ver­sity of Ok­la­homa Grad­u­ate Col­lege.