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Eastern and Western Meadowlark

A Familiar Blackbird of North American Grasslands

May 21, 2007

Western and Eastern Meadowlarks are very similar and their ranges overlap. They're visible, beautiful, and interesting birds.

If you live anywhere in the United States, you’re probably familiar with the meadowlark. In the east, in open grassy areas, it’s the Eastern Meadowlark, Sturnella magna , and in the dry grasslands of the west, the Western Meadowlark, Sturnella neglecta. Both species also extend into southern Canada and Mexico on their respective sides of the continent, and in many places the two species overlap, making identification difficult unless you hear them singing—visually, they are almost identical.

Meadowlarks are often depicted or photographed sitting on a fence post. This is no coincidence—the male meadowlark characteristically sits on roadside fence posts in the spring and sings to claim his territory. This, and the fact that these birds have a bright yellow breast, makes them highly visible and familiar to passersby.

If you see a bird, therefore, with a striking yellow breast marked with a prominent black V, sitting on a US fence post and singing for hours, it is a male meadowlark. He’s singing to announce that he has claimed the territory (an average of about seven acres) for breeding—he may eventually have up to three females with nests in the area if he successfully defends it from other males. While females are nesting the singing stops, but it will resume again if the birds nest a second time.

The meadowlark’s song is a key feature for determining whether the bird you see is a Western Meadowlark or an Eastern Meadowlark in places where their ranges overlap. The song of the eastern bird is a simple melody of just a few notes, while the song of the western species is complex and often described as gurgling or bubbling.

Other interesting facts about meadowlarks:

The Western Meadowlark is the state bird of Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, and Wyoming.
Meadowlarks are able to force things open with their beaks, an action called gaping. This helps them probe for food under the soil surface.
They eat mostly spiders, insects, and other invertebrates in the summer, switching to a diet of mostly seeds in winter.
The female meadowlark builds a nest in a natural depression in the ground. She modifies the depression with her beak, lines it with grass, and then weaves a waterproof dome over the top with adjacent grasses and plant material collected from nearby. The result is a nest that looks exactly like a hump of grass.
Cowbirds often trouble meadowlarks, leaving their eggs in the meadowlark nest and forcing meadowlark adults to raise cowbird young.
Meadowlarks often choose unfortunate nesting sites: a nest in a field of alfalfa, for example, is likely to be mowed before the young have fledged.
If a meadowlark feels threatened by a predator, it crouches down to hide its bright yellow breast. Its back is colored in streaked brown helping the bird blend in with its surroundings.

Read about other birds of the United States:

Sandhill Cranes – Grus canadensis

The Fate of the Bobwhite Quail

Sources:

Great Plains Nature Center. “Western Meadowlark.”

Kaufman, Kenn. Birds of North America. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

Perrins, Christopher ed. Firefly Encyclopedia of Birds. Buffalo: Firefly Books, 2003

Porter, Diane. “Meadowlark: The Prairie Musician.”

The copyright of the article Eastern and Western Meadowlark in Wild Birds is owned by Rosemary Drisdelle. Permission to republish Eastern and Western Meadowlark in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.