Western Meadowlarks, Sturnella neglecta, are a type of blackbird, this alone expresses their awesomeness; however I shall continue this post to make sure you receive the full package of why they are amazing. They are members of the Icteridae family, a group of medium/large songbirds that mostly have long pointed bills and long tails (Sibley 2003). Western Meadowlarks, WEME, are distinguishable by their notorious yellow belly and throat, studdly black breast-band, and teasing white outer tail feathers observable as they fly away.

As you may have guessed by now, there is both Eastern and Western Meadowlarks and the two species look nearly identical – here in British Columbia we only have the Western species. Hybrids of these two species usually only occur along the ranges edges, although captive breeding experiments have shown that the hybrids are fertile, their hatched clutch sizes are reduced (Cornell University 2015). WEME are observable at the Nanaimo River Estuary, and although their range map shows an extremely large range and that they are in our area year round, they can typically be found at the estuary from October to April (Cornell University 2015, eBird Canada 2015).

 

WEME are commonly found in grasslands, they are ground foragers known to feed on seeds, insects, and worms. Like other blackbirds WEME use a feeding behavior called “gaping”, this is the process of inserting their bill into a substrate, and then forcing it open with their unusually strong muscles (Cornell University 2015). This method creates a hole in which the meadowlark can then access a food source usually unavailable (Cornell University 2015) – their own niche!

Due to their habitat choice they can be hard for people to spot – you basically want to look for a small spot that pops up in the grass, if you’re lucky your eyes may catch some yellow or black – you are much more likely to hear them singing. Males will develop an arsenal of up to a dozen buoyant songs made up of whistles and warbles which he uses to defend his nesting territory (Cornell University 2015).

Male Western Meadowlarks usually have two mates simultaneously – polygyny (Cornell University 2015). The females are responsible for majority of the raising and feeding of their chicks (Cornell University 2015). They have ground nests that can be open in the grassland or completely covered with an entrance tunnel (Cornell University 2015). They will lay about 3-7 eggs, the nestlings will leave the nest at about 12 days, and are continued to be tended to for about 2 more weeks as they cannot fly yet – the process of fledging (Audubon 2015).

Conservation Status

Under the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List Western Meadowlarks, Sturnella neglecta, are listed as least concern – as of 2012 (BirdLife International).  For those of you who do not already know, the IUCN is a comprehensive collection of conservation status’ of biological organisms – more inclusive than COSEWIC, the Canadian version which does not even have a status recorded for WEME at this time (COSEWIC 2015).  The species is shown to be decreasing – classified as lower risk/least concern in 1988, 1994 and 2000, and then upgraded to least concern in 2004 and for assessments in 2008 and 2009 (BirdLife International 2012).

 

References:

Audubon. 2015. Guide to North America Birds: Western Meadowlark Sturnella neglecta.Retrieved October 31, 2015, from https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/western-meadowlark.

BirdLife International. 2012. Sturnella neglecta. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2012: e. T22724256A39917671. Retrieved November 1, 2015, from http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/ 22724256/0.

Cornell University. 2015. All About Birds: Western Meadowlark. Ithaca, NY. Retrieved October 31, 2015, from http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Western_Meadowlark/id.

Cosewic. 2015. Wildlife species search: Western Meadowlark. Retrieved November 1, 2015, from http://www.cosewic.gc.ca/eng/sct1/SearchResult_e.cfmcommonName=western+meadowlark&scienceName=&Submit=Submit.

eBird Canada. 2015. Western Meadowlark Hotspot: Nanaimo River Estuary. Retrieved November 1, 2015, from http://ebird.org/ebird/canada/map/wesmeaneg=true&env.minX=&env.minY=&env.maxX=&env.maxY=&zh=false&gp=false&ev=Z&mr=1-12&bmo=1&emo=12&yr=all&byr=1900&eyr=2015.

Sibley, D.A. 2003. The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America. Alfred A. Knopf Publisher, New York. p. 434, 438, 439.

Zip, J. 2012. Western Meadowlark singing on territory in Wyoming. Wild Bird Video Productions. Retrieved November 1, 2015, from https://youtu.be/Sk4S2spFdcs.