Atlantic Audubon Society
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Our History
    • Leadership & Board of Directors
  • Events
    • Events Calendar
    • Bird Walks
    • Field Trips
    • Special Events
  • Membership
  • Volunteer
    • Christmas Bird Counts
    • Road Cleanups
    • Other Volunteer Opportunities
  • Newsletter
  • eBird Profile
  • Bluebirds
  • Blog by Jim Lehmann
  • Digiscoping
  • Links & Resources

4/4/2015

Meadow Larks

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
Picture
I noticed on the Forum where Diane spoke to the recent field trip up to Salem County and among other awesome birds seen...so were the larks...the Horned Larks and the  Meadowlarks. 

Horned Larks are so difficult to get close to. They flitter away from one at the drop of a dime. In the west as I would travel down country roads...the larks would just spring up from all over and settle down 'over there' someplace in the harrowed land. Although at times I could use the car as a screen and kind of sneak up on them, it seemed that the minute I pulled out my camera, they seem to have this inherent sense of not wanting their picture taken. I suppose too many paparazzi's...... 

Now Meadow Larks now.....well....they hold a special place in my heart and memory. Western Meadow Larks differ in both looks and sound from Eastern Meadow Larks and if you go into the Dakotas and down, you will usually have the opportunity to see both. I remember outside of Scottsbluff, Nebraska on my way north to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (Lakota Sioux) in South Dakota Badland areas, I would just stop on the quiet roads and listen. If the wind was against you, well...the sounds were drowned but if the wind was with ya, you could hear the intermingling of both the western and eastern varieties of Meadowlarks. 

On the tri-corned area of Washington, Idaho and Oregon....my parents had a house built in the early 60's overlooking horse pastures and beyond that, just wheat fields. The Western Meadowlarks loved the horse pasture and if one allowed their mind to drift and just listen,the uniqueness of this melancholy call would pierce any summer dusk or dawn. Around 2010, a developer started to build a few houses on those same pastures where I would play sandlot baseball as a kid among the horses and horse manure ( which I would collect during the summer for our garden). The Meadow Larks disappeared--- my dad would tell me. But no....they did not. The larks are still around but my dad was too aged to hear or to venture into the fields any longer. And yet still, now when I visit the homestead, I hear the call of the Meadow Larks and think of my dad.....a treasured gift of memory from a simple bird.  

Share

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

Details

    Author

    Jim Lehmann

    Archives

    August 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    August 2021
    March 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Atlantic Audubon Society
​PO Box 63, Absecon, NJ 08201

Phone: 609-800-4778

  • Home
  • About Us
    • Our History
    • Leadership & Board of Directors
  • Events
    • Events Calendar
    • Bird Walks
    • Field Trips
    • Special Events
  • Membership
  • Volunteer
    • Christmas Bird Counts
    • Road Cleanups
    • Other Volunteer Opportunities
  • Newsletter
  • eBird Profile
  • Bluebirds
  • Blog by Jim Lehmann
  • Digiscoping
  • Links & Resources