Meadow singers; Western meadowlarks can be seen this time of year on

Field guides can be so exasperating.

Birds are not listed alphabetically and, in most, are not grouped in any order that makes sense from an identification standpoint. Then, if you do find the lark section, there is no "meadow-lark." For it, you have to find the blackbird section.

By this time, of course, the bird you were looking at is long gone. Actually, the bird you were not looking at is long gone, and because you had your nose in the book, you have no idea to where. To look at the squat gray-brown bird with the bright yellow chest and the cool black V-neck, how would you ever guess that this was a member of the blackbird family?

You are pretty certain that it was a meadowlark - even nonbirders know that name. It's quite famous as the official bird in six states, including our neighbors, Montana and Oregon. So you had some idea that it might be a meadowlark. What else could look like that?

Back to your search. You finally check the index, and under "lark" there is no "meadow." You do find "meadowlark," but there are two, the eastern and the western. You turn to the blackbird section as directed, and you find that they have the same bird listed twice, once under "eastern" and once under "western." They look identical. And the text even says that they look identical.

Do you have the old bible of bird identification, the Peterson Field Guide to Western Birds, the one with the neat little arrows that point to the key characteristics for identifying the species? Well, there you'll find two almost identical pictures with arrows pointing to the same spots on each. I have really scratched my head on that one.

Finally you figure out that the eastern meadowlark is found in the East and that the western meadowlark is found in the West. So, here in North Idaho we are pretty safe. We must have the western - and we do. In parts of the Southwest and the Midwest it's not so easy. The species overlap. In those areas, birders have a job ahead of them, and Peterson's arrows don't help a bit.

Again, back to the search. If you couldn't find the meadowlark, it's because you didn't think of it as a blackbird. You couldn't tell if it was an eastern or a western from the pictures. When you went to the range maps, you decided it was a western meadowlark, because that's the only one we have here.

However, you suddenly realize another problem with the darn field guide. This is December and there is snow on the ground in North Idaho. The range map in the field guide clearly shows, and I just checked five of them on my shelf, that the meadowlark is not found here in the winter. They migrate.

Now what do you do? Well, there's really nothing else the bird could be. You couldn't mistake the bright yellow chest with the striking black "V." When it originally flew up to its perch, you would have caught a glimpse of the white outer tail feathers that are equally as distinctive.

And now that you think about it - its body shape and size, the way it flew with alternating rapid wing beats and a short glide, and its slender, pointed beak - it immediately put you in mind of a starling. After all, you have seen plenty of starlings on this winter day on the prairie.

In fact, this place where you have stopped on the snow-covered gravel road is near a feeding station for cows, and you are surrounded by 30 or more starlings. But that was not a starling. It was a meadowlark. You are certain. But the book says no.

As novice birders, all of us have had similar experiences of one sort or another. The books don't know everything. And we do have a few meadowlarks in North Idaho each winter. In fact, it seems to me that there have been more the last few winters than I recall in the past.

On the Rathdrum Prairie, my favorite part of the Coeur d'Alene Christmas Bird Count, I can expect one or two small flocks on the third Saturday of each December. And often they are in about the same location as in years previous.

I have not yet been out to scout my route for this year's CBC, but a recent Audubon Society field trip to the prairie did not find any meadowlarks. They are easy to miss this time of year. They forage on the ground and are often mixed in with feeding starlings around farms. And they are silent.

Had this been summer, the field trip participants would probably have heard meadowlarks long before they ever saw one. Growing up in Oregon's Willamette Valley, one of my favorite remembrances of summer is of walking out the back door at my grandparents' farm and hearing the western meadowlarks out in the fields. It turns out that the meadowlark's song is pretty important to the meadowlarks, too. What we hear as beautiful bird music, a series of warbles and whistles, and a combination of flutelike notes, is actually a "no trespass" notice being put up by the males around the edge of their territory. It did not strike me as funny at the time, but I use to see meadowlarks singing this warning from atop my grandfather's own no- trespassing signs. Grandpa would have enjoyed that allusion.

You don't always see the birds as they sing, however. Being ground dwellers, much of their singing is done deep within the grasses they use as their home. It's down there that they forage for bugs, build their nests, and raise their young - the females doing most of the latter two. It is the male's job to sing, and in so doing to defend his territory, and to father a number of broods each summer.

The male meadowlark's territory will often provide food and safety for two females, who will each usually produce two nests-full of young. Living on the ground, each female constructs a large nest of woven grass and stems which takes days to build. Her home includes a canopy woven into standing grass stalks, and a tunnel for coming and going.

In this domed home, protected from rain or sun, she alone incubates the eggs. Once hatched, the male will, to some extent, help care for the young. But still his main job is to sing for the defense of the family, or families, as the case may be. Males also sing late into the summer for the benefit of their young. Meadowlark songs are learned over a two-month period. If deprived of singing fathers, male meadowlarks will not sing in later life.

Male western meadowlarks will also sing while in flight over their open-country territories. It is this behavior that led to their being named for the larks of Europe, which do the same. Meadowlarks stop singing in late summer but will resume their songs for a short time in the fall. It is unclear why. Perhaps they just enjoy it.

But they do not sing in the winter. At this time of year the young are grown and know their songs, and meadowlarks are no longer territorial but are gregarious. "No trespass" signs are not needed now. Instead, small flocks forage and roost together. Most have migrated, east rather than south, for the winter, but as you found along the snowy road, and despite what the field guides indicate, a few flocks stay around.

If you can get close enough, and can tolerate the chill, this can be a rare opportunity to watch meadowlarks use a unique adaptation as they forage. As with the starlings that they may hunt alongside, meadowlarks have strong muscles that open their beaks. Birds of prey have strong muscles for closing their beaks on prey, but meadowlarks use their strength to probe into soil and matted grasses, actively prying them apart, making holes, looking for otherwise hidden bugs and seeds.

This process is called "gaping" and includes an ability to roll the eyes a bit forward to actually see between their upper and lower beaks as they search the newly created holes for food. The other blackbirds do this too, but not as well as the meadowlarks.

Since meadowlarks are a species of the open grassland, their populations have been hurt by the many factors that degrade these habitats. While populations remain strong in relatively undisturbed areas of eastern Oregon and central Washington, areas changed by overgrazing, row-crop cultivation, and early hay mowing are seeing a significant decline.

Meadowlarks are seldom heard now in the vicinity of my grandfather's old farm. The fences, the pastures and the grass-seed fields are gone, replaced by agriculture that's more efficient but less suited to the meadowlark's lifestyle.

In North Idaho we are still fortunate to have our meadowlarks, and to even find some of them remaining through the winter. Here, however, the main threat is that of development. Open grasslands, and even cultivated grasslands, are giving way to housing developments at an incredible rate. The Rathdrum Prairie is shrinking daily, and with it will go our meadowlarks.

Gone will be the domed ground nests, the retreating white-edged tails, the spectacular yellow chests, and the fancy black V-necks. There will be plenty of starlings left to carry on the gaping, the unique foraging behavior they share with the meadowlarks and blackbirds, but they'll do it in people's lawns and on the golf courses.

The biggest loss for us, however, will be the missing "no trespass" notices. The kids that grow up where once the western meadowlark raised its young will not know the incredible beauty of the meadowlark's song, along with its potential to unlock treasured memories from the past.

On the other hand, though, I guess those kids won't have to deal with the frustration of searching their field guides, only to find our North American "lark" stuffed in with the blackbirds.

Questions about this column or area birds can be sent to Stephen Lindsay at [email protected].

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