Sprague's Missouri Lark

One hundred and seventy one years ago today, somewhere near the junction of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, Edward Harris and John Bell fired their shotguns simultaneously at a small straw-colored grassland bird that rose from the grass in front of them. They searched for more of these birds, but wound up returning to Fort Union with just the one specimen. Harris and Bell were important members of John James Audubon's Great Western Journey up the Missouri River and the following day Audubon named this new species of lark, not after either the collectors Harris or Bell, but the other artist (primarily botanical) on the trip - Alexander Sprague - Sprague's Missouri Lark (Alauda spragueii), now known as the Sprague's Pipit (Anthus spragueii). However, this was not their first contact with this species. Harris, in his journal entry for June 21, 1843 describes how he ".. discovered that a remarkable note of a bird which we have heard for some days and which has given us a great deal of useless walking, by appearing to proceed from a certain spot, and as soon as we reached it it sounded in another direction, was the note of our little new titlark, and that it sings while flying in the air in the manner of the European Skylark and of our Shore Lark.."

The ethereal notes of the displaying male Sprague's Pipit (click here to access recordings of their songs on the Xeno Canto site), as well as comments on their great abundance in the prairie grasslands they inhabit were a consistent comment in the early ornithological records of the explorations of the Northern Great Plains. Captain Thomas Blakiston (of later Fishing Owl and Japanese Ornithology fame) noted that.. "The Missouri Skylark, hitherto looked on as a rare bird, is common on the prairies of the Saskatchewan [River] during the breeding-season. The first occasion on which I found it was in the neighborhood of Fort Carlton, on May 6th. When disturbed from the prairie grass, which is it's general haunt, it utters a single chirp, and immediately mounts the air by a circuitous course, with a very undulating flight, to a great height, where it rests on its outstretched wings, and utters a very striking song, which it is difficult to describe, and I can liken it to nothing I know. The sound is repeated in a quick succession of notes in the descending scale, each note being lower than the preceding. The bird then usually descends to the ground with great rapidity, almost like a stone, and something similar to a hawk swooping on its prey. These striking manners, if once seen, are not to be forgotten; and I should recognize the note instantly, even if I heard it in the depths of a mangrove-swamp in the tropics...How this bird should have been so long overlooked seems marvelous, for I do not know of a more common bird in the buffalo plains of the Saskatchewan [River] during the summer..."



Elliott Coues was even more loquacious with his description of the song.."Rising from the nest, or from it's grassy bed, this plain-looking bird, clad in the simplest colors, and making but a speck in the boundless expanse, mounts straight up, on trmulous wings, till lost to view in the blue ether, and then sends back to earth a song of gladness that seems to come from the sky itself, to cheer the weary , give hope to the disheartened, and turn the most indifferent, for the moment at least, from sordid thoughts.  No other bird-music heard in our land compares with the wonderful strains of this songster; there is something not of this earth in the melody, coming from above, yet from no visible source. The notes are simply indescribable; but once heard they can never be forgotten. Their volume and penetration are truly wonderful; they are neither loud nor strong, yet the whole air seems filled with the tender strings, and the delightful melody continues long unbroken. The song is only heard for a brief period in the summer, ceasing when the inspiration of the love season is over, and it is only uttered when the birds are soaring."

Although unmistakable, the song of the pipit is also surprisingly easy to overlook against the backdrop of the wind and other singing grassland birds as well as the fact that the song is coming from high above you on a treeless plain. Arthur Cleveland Bent explored the prairies of southern Saskatchewan in both 1905 and 1906 and overlooked Sprague's Pipits entirely during his first year on the prairie. He described how the pipit was overlooked the first year "probably because we did not know where or how to look for it or realize the difficulty of seeing or hearing it. It was really fairly common on the prairie in 1906, frequently heard and less frequently seen. The males spend much of their time way up in the sky, almost out of sight, and it is only occasionally one can be seen as a mere speck against a white cloud; in the blue sky it is almost invisible." Modern pipit seekers can still attest to the difficulty of finding displaying pipits in the vast prairie skies.

Sprague's Pipit or Horned Lark?

For most of the year this is a rather straightforward question.



Horned Larks show their distinctive black horns as well as a black mask, malar patch and throat.


Sprague's Pipits are rather a plain rich, light brown with pale legs and big eyes.

But in the summer things get a bit more tricky.

Young Sprague's Pipits look a lot like the adults with just a hint of a fleshy gape at the corner of their mouth, rather extensive buffy edges to the body feathers, pinkish bill, and big eyes.

The problem is that young Horned Larks often look very much like Sprague's Pipits (and other plain brown birds). Pyle (1996) states that "Juvs are very nondescript and might be confused with other species". He further states the the juveniles can be distinguished from "sparrows, longspurs, and other nondescript brown passerines" (probably as close as Pyle comes to saying LBJ's) by wing length, the length of the wing compared to the tail and "tasus laterally rounded (vs acute in most other species). None of these features can be readily determined in the field but one additional piece of information that Pyle provides regarding young Horned Larks is that the juveniles have "upperparts with white or silvery spots" and the bill is somewhat conical. Horned Larks molt out of the juvenile plumage by August (or earlier depending on when they hatched) and look like a very pale, washed out version of an adult for the rest of the year.

Below is a series of photos of young Horned Larks (one of these may not be my photo but I can't remember who it might belong to so if it is yours please let me know).





The two photos above depict Horned Larks in their juvenile plumage. Notice the all dark back with white specks. The top of the head and the neck have the same pattern as does the feathers at the bend of the wing. The legs are pale but not nearly as pinkish as the pipit. The bill also looks thicker at the base on the larks and one thing I have noticed in these photos is that the lark's bill looks very plain grayish brown, whereas the pipits bill has a strong pale or pink tone.



The photo above depicts a young Horned Lark later in the season, mostly molted out of the juvenile plumage into the hatch year plumage. The black with white speckled feathers on the back and wing are mostly gone, making the bird even more brown and similar to the pipit. However, the same molt has also introduced more distinctive facial markings on this bird, helping to distinguish this bird as a Horned Lark.

So what is depicted in the photo below (photos taken June 24, 2010) ?



From this angle it is certainly rather plain and brown. The legs are pale, but not bright pink. The back of the head is rather plain and dark with no streaking. Notice the color and pattern of the back. It is rather dark with white or silvery spots.



It gets a bit easier when we get a look in profile. Notice the face is beginning to develop a bit of the adult Horned Lark pattern - a dark mask, cap and malar patch. The bill is rather drab and gray with just a hint of pink. Also note the color and pattern on the pattern on the lesser and median wing coverts - dark with some spotting.



When viewed head on the horns even seem to begin to be suggested. Otherwise the bird looks very plain although the breast looks to have rather diffuse spots rather than the streaks you would find on a pipit (see the photo above).



Note the Spragues Pipit above. This is a hatch year bird with rather broad buffy borders on the back and wing feathers (as compared to the after hatch year bird singing in the photo above). The eye looks large, there is a richer brown color to the plumage (particularly on the face), the bill is strongly pink, and (although not readily apparent in this photo) the legs are bright pink, and the bill does not appear conical, but rather long and thinner than a Horned Lark.

Pyle, Peter. 1997. Identification Guide to North American Birds: Part 1 Columbidae to Ploceidea. Slate Creek Press. Bolinas CA.

Prairie Birding

This morning Dad and I took a visiting birder from Australia out to find a few birds that he came to Fort Peck to find. Phil and Dad had tried yesterday to find Sprague's Pipits, Baird's Sparrows and Chestnut-collared Longspurs but didn't have much luck in the BLIZZARD that struck yesterday morning (honest, it was a white-out with about four inches of slush on the road - mostly gone by the afternoon). They managed to find only the Chestnut-collared Longspur.



This morning we tried again and had much better luck. We found a number of Sprague's Pipits singing right away, including one that showed up on a rock right next to us and sang a bit. I was pretty sure we could find the pipits, but I was less sure about the Baird's Sparrow because I had yet to find one this year, but at least they were due. We lucked out just a bit further down the road and had a gorgeous bird singing a little bit away. That was all within the first 15 minutes of arriving at the site. We decided to head south (and I took a bit more time off from work because it is addictive showing people new birds that they would really like to see) to find three other species Phil was looking for - Mountain Plover, McCown's Longspur, and Lark Bunting.





We found the Lark Bunting right away, right next to the road and then headed out to the plover and longspur spot. I predicted we would find a McCown's right away but instead we found a Mountain Plover first. Right after that came our first of many McCowns, which we were able to spend quite a bit of time watching foraging in the road. We headed down the road a couple more miles and found another Mountain Plover. We turned around and headed back to town and spotted two more Mountain Plovers. All before 10:00 am. And most of our time was spent driving from on site to the other! I think that Phil and Dad had a good morning. I know I did.

Sprague's Pipit - Free Fall Fight

Yesterday I stopped at one of my favorite spots to see what grassland birds were on territory there. I found both the expected Longspurs- McCown's and Chestnut-collared. There were also many Sprague's Pipits singing high above me. Occasionally I could spot one but more often than not I was staring into what appeared to be blank sky with a song coming from nowhere.

Once I watched two singing birds circle close to each other and then engage in what appeared to be a territorial dispute and I managed to get a few distant photos of the altercation. After looking at the photos it was apparent that the fight was just a vicious as any bird fight I have observed but it took place about a 100 feet above the ground.



In the photo above you can see the bird on the left has a mouth full of feathers.






After falling for a while, but not yet really close to the ground, the broke apart and headed off in opposite directions, back into the sky, to start singing all over again - a show that will go on for the next couple of months on a daily basis.

Spragues Pipit

A few photos from a day in the field. A Sprague's Pipit gallery