Blanford's lark

Blanford's lark

Blanford's short-toed lark

Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Family
Genus
SPECIES
Calandrella blanfordi

Blanford's lark or Blanford's short-toed lark (Calandrella blanfordi ) is a small passerine bird of the lark family, Alaudidae, which is native to north-east Africa. Its common name commemorates the English zoologist William Thomas Blanford.

Appearance

Blanford's lark is 14–15 centimetres long. The upperparts are pale sandy-brown with some darker streaking and the crown is rufous. The underparts are pale and plain apart from a small dark patch on the side of the neck made up of vertical streaks. The greater short-toed lark is similar but has a greyer, more-streaked crown. Erlanger's and red-capped larks have darker upperparts with more streaking and a darker rufous crown. Erlanger's lark has larger dark neck-patches while in red-capped lark the patches are rufous.

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Blanford's lark has a sparrow-like flight-call. The song is given in a circular song-flight and includes a mixture of chew-chew-chew-chew notes and fluid phrases.

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Distribution

Geography

Continents
Biogeographical realms

They occur on open stony plains, often with bushes. In Arabia, it breeds between 1800 and 2500 metres above sea-level with some birds dispersing to lower ground in winter. The species is often seen in flocks outside the breeding season.

Blanford's lark habitat map
Blanford's lark habitat map
Blanford's lark
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References

1. Blanford's lark Wikipedia article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanford's_lark
2. Blanford's lark on The IUCN Red List site - https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/103766090/112872569
3. Xeno-canto bird call - https://xeno-canto.org/305986

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