Melanocorypha calandra MHNT 232 Moulares Tunisie

The calandra lark (''Melanocorypha calandra'') or European calandra-lark breeds in warm

temperate countries In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (23.5° to 66.5° N/S of Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ranges throughout ...

around the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...

and eastwards through Turkey into northern Iran and southern Russia. It is replaced further east by its relative, the

bimaculated lark The bimaculated lark (''Melanocorypha bimaculata'') breeds in warm temperate countries eastwards from Turkey into Central Asia. It is the eastern counterpart of its relative, the calandra lark. Taxonomy and systematics The bimaculated lark was ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The calandra lark was originally placed in the genus '' Alauda''. The current genus name, ''Melanocorypha'' is from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

''melas'', "black", and ''koruphos'' a term used by ancient writers for a now unknown bird, but here confused with ''korudos'', "lark". "Calandra"' derives ultimately from ''kalandros'' the

name for this bird. The

is also sometimes termed as the calandra lark.

Subspecies

Four subspecies are recognized: * Western calandra lark (''M. c. calandra'') - (

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

, 1766): Found in southern Europe and north-western Africa to Turkey (except south-central and south-eastern Turkey),

Transcaucasia The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Arme ...

and north-western Iran * Eastern calandra lark (''M. c. psammochroa'') - Hartert, 1904: Found from northern Iraq and northern Iran to Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan * ''M. c. gaza'' - Meinertzhagen, R, 1919: Originally described as a subspecies of the bimaculated lark. Found from eastern Syria and south-eastern Turkey to south-western Iran * Levant calandra lark (''M. c. hebraica'') - Meinertzhagen, R, 1920: Found from south-central Turkey and north-western Syria to Israel and western Jordan

Description

This is a large, robust

lark Larks are passerine birds of the family Alaudidae. Larks have a cosmopolitan distribution with the largest number of species occurring in Africa. Only a single species, the horned lark, occurs in North America, and only Horsfield's bush lark oc ...

, 17.5–20 cm long. It is an undistinguished-looking species on the ground, mainly streaked greyish brown above and white below, and with large black patches on the breast sides. It has a white supercilium. In flight it shows short broad wings, which are dark below, and a short white-edged tail. The wing and tail patterns are distinctions from its more easterly relatives. The song is like a slower version of that of the

skylark ''Alauda'' is a genus of larks found across much of Europe, Asia and in the mountains of north Africa, and one of the species (the Raso lark) endemic to the islet of Raso in the Cape Verde Islands. Further, at least two additional species are ...

Distribution and habitat

It is mainly resident in the west of its range, but Russian populations of this

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

are more migratory, moving further south in winter, as far as the Arabian peninsula and Egypt. It is a very rare vagrant to western Europe. This is a bird of open cultivation and steppe. Its nest is on the ground, with 4–5

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

s being laid. Food is seeds supplemented with insects in the breeding season. It is gregarious outside the breeding season.

Behaviour and ecology

This species occupies open plains, from steppes and pastures to extensive dry cereal cultivations and true steppe with dense grass cover. In the Mediterranean Basin it is mainly found in dry pastures and dry cultivations. In cultivated areas, it prefers fallows, long-fallows and field edges and to a lesser extent sown fields, selecting unirrigated legumes and barley fields. The species is monogamous and lays eggs from early April to July. The nest is made from grass stems and small leaves, lined with softer material and built in a shallow depression on the ground, often under a tussock. Clutches are usually three to six eggs (de Juana and Suárez 2004). Its diet is seasonal, feeding mostly on insects in the summers and seeds and grass shoots in the winter. Mediterranean populations are resident, forming large flocks in the autumn and winter (Snow and Perrins 1998, de Juana and Suárez 2004). Eastern populations are migratory or partially migratory (de Juana and Suárez 2004). Parasites of the calandra lark include the

chewing louse The Mallophaga are a possibly paraphyletic section of lice Louse ( : lice) is the common name for any member of the clade Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. Phthiraptera has variously been re ...

Ricinus vaderi ''Ricinus vaderi'' is a species of chewing lice which parasitises the calandra lark (''Melanocorypha calandra'') in Azerbaijan. It is a member of ''Ricinus'', the largest genus of chewing lice found parasitizing Passeriformes.Bernard C. Nelson ...

'', described from specimens collected in Azerbaijan.

In culture

The song is considered so musical to human ears that the calandra lark was formerly a popular

cagebird Aviculture is the practice of keeping and breeding birds, especially of wild birds in captivity. Types There are various reasons that people get involved in aviculture. Some people breed birds to preserve a species. Some people breed parrots a ...

in its range. It is mentioned in, for instance, the Tuscan

proverb A proverb (from la, proverbium) is a simple and insightful, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and use formulaic language. A proverbial phrase or a proverbia ...

''"Canta come una calandra"'', he or she sings like a lark, and the Spanish

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

''"Romance del prisionero"'', where its song is the only way the prisoner knows when day breaks.

References

External links

Ageing and sexing (PDF; 2.0 MB) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta & Gerd-Michael Heinze
{{Taxonbar, from=Q470853 calandra lark Birds of Southern Europe Birds of North Africa Birds of Western Asia Birds of Central Asia calandra lark calandra lark