Appearance:

Large, fairly characteristic lark. Wings blackish underneath with conspicuous white trailing edge, obvious in flight. Outer tail-feathers white. Perched birds easiest identified by large black breast patch (though variable in size and shape), and very deep bill. Broad, buff supercilium and eye-ring. Leaves a robust and compact impression, with its broad wings, short tail and heavy bill. Stance usually upright when perched. Flight undulating, but less hesitant than Skylark.

Sound:

Contact call a diagnostic, ringing, resonant trill; "krrretlee". Song is similar to Skylark, but slower, louder and with more mimicry. Best recognized from the interspersed contact calls and other dry trills.

Song:

Distribution:

Xeno-canto: map

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

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