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 (approximately 23.5° to 66.5° N/S of the Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ra ...

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 east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

and eastwards through

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

into northern

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

and southern

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. It is replaced further east by its relative, the bimaculated lark.

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 classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

''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 bimaculated lark is also sometimes termed as the calandra lark.

Subspecies

Four

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: * Western calandra lark (''M. c. calandra'') - (

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

, 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 West Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Armenia, ...

and north-western Iran * Eastern calandra lark (''M. c. psammochroa'') -

Hartert Ernst Johann Otto Hartert (29 October 1859 – 11 November 1933) was a widely published German people, German ornithologist. Life and career Hartert was born in the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg on 29 October 1859. In July 1891, he married ...

, 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 occ ...

, 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.

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 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 ...

are more migratory, moving further south in winter, as far as the

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

and Egypt. It is a very rare vagrant to western Europe. This is a bird of open cultivation and

steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without closed forests except near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the tropical and subtropica ...

. 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 ...

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

proverb A proverb (from ) or an adage is a simple, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and are an example of formulaic speech, formulaic language. A proverbial phrase ...

''"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 were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Great Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Eur ...

''"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 West Asia Birds of Central Asia calandra lark calandra lark