Blanford's lark or Blanford's short-toed lark (''Calandrella blanfordi'') is a small

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 generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

of the

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 occ ...

family, Alaudidae, which is native to north-eastern Africa. Its common name commemorates the English zoologist

William Thomas Blanford William Thomas Blanford (7 October 183223 June 1905) was an England, English geologist and natural history, naturalist. He is best remembered as the editor of a major series on ''The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma''. Biogra ...

Taxonomy and systematics

Blanford's lark was formerly included in either the

greater short-toed lark The greater short-toed lark (''Calandrella brachydactyla'') is a small passerine bird. The current scientific name is from Ancient Greek. The genus name, ''Calandrella'', is a diminutive of ''kalandros'', the calandra lark, and ''brachydactila' ...

(''C. brachydactyla'') or the

red-capped lark The red-capped lark (''Calandrella cinerea'') is a small passerine bird that breeds in the highlands of eastern Africa southwards from Ethiopia and Somaliland. In the south, its range stretches across the continent to Angola and south to the Cap ...

(''C. cinerea'') but is now commonly treated as a separate species. Alternate names for Blanford's lark include Blandford's lark, Blandford's short-toed lark and Blanford's red-capped lark.

Subspecies

Two

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

are recognized: * ''C. b. blanfordi'' - ( Shelley, 1902): Found in northern Eritrea * ''C. b. erlangeri'' -

Erlanger's lark Erlanger's lark (''Calandrella blanfordi erlangeri'') is a small passerine bird of the lark family endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, count ...

- (

Neumann Neumann () is a German language, German surname, with its origins in the pre-7th-century (Old English) word ''wikt:neowe, neowe'' meaning "new", with ''wikt:mann, mann'', meaning man. The English form of the name is Newman. Von Neumann is a varian ...

, 1906): Found in Ethiopia

Description

Blanford's lark is 14–15 centimetres long. The upperparts are pale sandy-brown with some darker streaking and the crown is rufous. The underparts are pale and plain apart from a small dark patch on the side of the neck made up of vertical streaks. The greater short-toed lark is similar but has a greyer, more-streaked crown. Erlanger's and red-capped larks have darker upperparts with more streaking and a darker rufous crown. Erlanger's lark has larger dark neck-patches while in red-capped lark the patches are rufous. Blanford's lark has a sparrow-like flight-call. The

song A song is a musical composition performed by the human voice. The voice often carries the melody (a series of distinct and fixed pitches) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs have a structure, such as the common ABA form, and are usu ...

is given in a circular song-flight and includes a mixture of ''chew-chew-chew-chew'' notes and fluid phrases.

Habitat and movements

They occur on open stony plains, often with bushes. In Arabia, it breeds between 1800 and 2500 metres above sea-level with some birds dispersing to lower ground in winter. The species is often seen in flocks outside the breeding season.

References

* Arlott, Norman (2007) ''Birds of the Palearctic: Passerines'', HarperCollins, London. * Beolens, Bo & Watkins, Michael (2003) ''Whose Bird?: Men and women commemorated in the common names of birds'', Christopher Helm, London. * Hollom, P. A. D.; Porter, R. F.; Christensen, S. & Willis, Ian (1988) ''Birds of the Middle East and North Africa'', T & AD Poyser, Calton, England. * Sinclair, Ian & Ryan, Peter (2003) ''Birds of Africa south of the Sahara'', Struik, Cape Town. {{Taxonbar, from=Q3232961 Blanford's lark Birds of the Horn of Africa Birds of the Middle East Blanford's lark