Crested lark
The crested lark is a species of lark widespread across Eurasia and northern Africa. It is a non-migratory bird, but can occasionally be found as a vagrant in Great Britain.
Taxonomy and systematics
The crested lark was one of the many species originally described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae. It was classified in the genus Alauda until German naturalist Friedrich Boie placed it in the new genus Galerida in 1821. Colin Harrison recommended lumping members of Galerida and Lullula back into Alauda in 1865 due to a lack of defining characteristics. The current scientific name is derived from Latin. Galerida was the name for a lark with a crest, from galerum, "cap", and cristata means "crested". Alban Guillaumet and colleagues noted the distinctiveness of populations from the Maghreb—birds in the dryer parts of Morocco and Tunisia had longer bills while those in more coastal northern parts had shorter bills typical of the European subspecies. The authors sampled the mitochondrial DNA and found they were distinct genetically.Subspecies
Thirty-five subspecies are recognized:- G. c. pallida Brehm, CL, 1858 – Iberian Peninsula
- G. c. cristata – central Europe to Slovenia, Belarus, northern Hungary, and northern Ukraine
- G. c. neumanni Hilgert, C, 1907 – Italy
- G. c. apuliae Jordans, A, 1935 – southern peninsular Italy and Sicily
- G. c. meridionalis Brehm, CL, 1841 – southwestern and southern Balkans, Ionian Islands, Crete, and western Anatolian Türkiye
- G. c. cypriaca Bianchi, VL, 1907 – Kárpathos, Rhodes, and Cyprus
- G. c. tenuirostris Brehm, CL, 1858 – eastern Hungary and Romania to southern Russia and western Kazakhstan
- G. c. caucasica Taczanowski, W, 1888 – eastern Aegean Islands, northern Turkey, southern Caucasus, and western Transcaucasia
- G. c. kleinschmidti Erlanger, C, 1899 – northwestern Morocco
- G. c. riggenbachi Hartert, EJO, 1902 – western Morocco
- G. c. randonii Loche, V, 1860 – Hauts Plateaux of eastern Morocco and northwestern Algeria
- G. c. macrorhyncha Tristram, HB, 1859 – southern Morocco and northwestern Algeria south of Atlas Saharien to west-central Mauritania. Maghreb lark
- G. c. carthaginis Kleinschmidt, O & Hilgert, C, 1905 – coastal northeastern Morocco to northern Tunisia
- G. c. arenicola Tristram, HB, 1859 – northeastern Algerian Sahara to southern Tunisia and northwestern Libya
- G. c. festae Hartert, EJO, 1922 – coastal northeastern Libya
- G. c. brachyura Tristram, HB, 1865 – northeastern Libya to coastal northern Egypt, northern Sinai, northern Saudi Arabia, and southern Iraq
- G. c. helenae Lavauden, AJL, 1926 – southeastern Algeria and immediately adjacent southwestern Libya
- G. c. jordansi Niethammer, GT, 1955 – northern Niger
- G. c. nigricans Brehm, CL, 1855 – northern Egypt
- G. c. maculata Brehm, CL, 1858 – Egypt
- G. c. halfae Nicoll, MJ, 1921 – Egypt to far northern Sudan
- G. c. altirostris Brehm, CL, 1855 – eastern Sudan and Eritrea
- G. c. somaliensis Reichenow, A, 1907 – northern Somalia, southern Ethiopia, and northern Kenya
- G. c. balsaci Dekeyser, PL & Villiers, A, 1950 – coastal Mauritania
- G. c. senegallensis – southern Mauritania, Senegambia, and Guinea-Bissau to Niger
- G. c. alexanderi Neumann, OR, 1908 – northern Nigeria to western Sudan and northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo
- G. c. isabellina Bonaparte, CLJL, 1850 – central Sudan
- G. c. cinnamomina Hartert, EJO, 1904 – western Lebanon and northwestern Israel
- G. c. zion Meinertzhagen, R, 1920 – southern Turkey, Syria, eastern Lebanon, and eastern Israel
- G. c. subtaurica – central Turkey to southern Transcaucasia, northwestern Iran, western Turkmenistan, and eastern Iraq
- G. c. magna Hume, AO, 1871 – central Iran and central Turkmenistan eastward to southern Mongolia, northwestern China, and southward to northwestern Pakistan
- G. c. leautungensis – Manchuria and northeastern China
- G. c. coreensis Taczanowski, W, 1888 – Korea
- G. c. lynesi Whistler, H, 1928 – northern Kashmir
- G. c. chendoola – foothills of southern Kashmir to eastern Pakistan, western and northern India, and southern Nepal
Description
A fairly small lark, the crested lark is roughly the same size as a Eurasian skylark, but shorter overall and bulkier around the head and body, and very similar in appearance, with a height of and a wingspan of, weighing between. It is a small, brown bird which has a short tail with light brown outer feathers. Male and females have no real differences, but young crested larks have more spots on their back than their older counterparts. Its plumage is downy but sparse and appears whitish. The distinct crest from which the crested lark gets its name is conspicuous at all times but is more pronounced during territorial or courtship displays and when singing. In flight it shows reddish underwings. It shares many characteristics with the Thekla lark, with the main distinctions between the two being the beak, the Thekla's heavier black-brown streaks and its grey underwing, present in European specimens.Distribution and habitat
The crested lark breeds across most of temperate Eurasia from Portugal to north-eastern China and eastern India, and in Africa south to Niger. It is non-migratory, and the sedentary nature of this species is illustrated by the fact that it is only a very rare vagrant to Great Britain, despite breeding as close as northern France. While the bird is not commonly found in Scandinavia today, it could be found in Sweden until the 1990s, with sources reporting six individual birds in 1992 before becoming extirpated in Sweden in 1993. The birds have also been extirpated in several other European countries, including Norway, Luxembourg and Switzerland.This is a common bird of dry, open country and is often seen by roadsides or in cereal fields, although it is also found occupying small, sandy patches by railways, docks and airfields.