Appearance:

Breeding plumage: Yellow face with broad black moustache stripes and black lores. Black forecrown and thin black horns. Black breast band with blunt vertical extension towards throat (sometimes connects to moustache stripes). Black tail with white sides. Juveniles covered in small pale spots with only faint facial markings. May be confused with juvenile Skylark, but note shorter bill and yellowish face of young Shore larks.

Sound:

Song a stream of thin and tinkling, squeaking notes with a recurring, drawn, ringing and slightly ascending chirp. Timbre resemblant to Lapland Bunting. Often given from high in the air, being difficult to locate. More hesitantly when given from the ground with a stumbling introduction. Flight call quite similar to Meadow Pipit's "tseep" call, but less anxious.

Song:

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC

CC-sound:Nathan Pieplow, Licence,Link.

Appearance:

Slate grey upperparts with barred white underparts. Female and juvenile sometimes rufous brown. Male with defined grey breast in contrast to barred white belly, female with diffusely barred chest and throat. Yellow iris and thin bill. Wings and tail long and slender, often giving the impression of a small falcon. Often perches with a more horizontal posture than hawks or falcons, i.e. tail pointing backwards and not towards the ground, and drooping wings. In flight wings are not raise above horizontal plane, and it seldom glides like raptors.

Sound:

Song: the well known disyllabic "cuck-coo" with emphasis on first note, and the second note a third lower than the first one. Also a harsh "tchaa tchaa", and a bubbly trill, reminiscent of Little Grebe, uttered by the female.

Male:

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC