Family ALAUDIDAE Vigors, 1825

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• Alaudidae Vigors, 1825.

Introduction

Skylarks and bushlarks are well distributed across Africa and Eurasia and the bushlarks extend through the Indonesian Archipelago and New Guinea into Australia. The centre of biodiversity of the Alaudidae appears to be within Africa and western Eurasia. Among 92 world species, assigned to 19 genera, Australia has only one native representative, the Horsfield Bushlark (Mirafra javanica), and this taxon is distributed throughout New Guinea and the Indonesian Archipelago to South-east Asia. Within its Australian distribution it is found as nine distinctive subspecies. The Eurasian Skylark (Alauda arvensis) was introduced to Australia through Acclimatisation Societies and is localised in south-eastern Australia, Tasmania and Norfolk Island.

With their non-descript, camouflaged appearance both species are well adapted to their environment. Many of the bushlark subspecies are distinguished by their colour patterns which vary from rufescent to multicoloured shades of chestnut, blacks and browns. Both species occupy terrestrial habitats in alpine meadows, parklands, grasslands (including rocky, sand-plain, hummock and tussocks), and steppes. The skylark is sedentary whereas the bushlark is migratory, arriving during the southern spring and summer and departing for northern Australia during autumn.

Both species are insectivorous, spending a great deal of time seeking prey on the ground through snatching and gleaning. Display flights with accompanied singing are quite regular, the bird rising from the ground with distinctive flight patterns and singing loudly while appearing to remain suspended in a constant position. The singing bird often uses mimicry. Both species tend to be gregarious forming occasional loose flocks, but more often small family groups are encountered and there are regular sightings of single skylarks.

The nests are deeply cupped, constructed of grasses and lined with finer grasses and feathers; the nests are placed under grassy tussocks. Egg numbers vary between two and four per clutch. They are dull white or cream based, each finely marked with olive-brown, greyish-brown or pale lavender spots and dots.

Diagnosis

'Several features set larks well apart from other Old World passeroids. One is the structure of the foot, with a variably elongate claw on the hind toe, and a tarsus that is latiplantar or rounded on its dorsal surface and covered there with small scutes. Another is the structure of its syrinx, which lacks an ossified pessulus … and is controlled by only five pairs of muscles. As well, the humeral fossa is prevailingly single, trabeculated and corvoid, the vomer has attenuated petroicine-like horns, maxillo-palatine processes are terete, the ectethmoid plate is thickened and honeyeater-like in its winging, a small sheet of bone descends from the nasal into the nasal cavity, and the zygomatic process is broadly ossified and dorsoventrally compressed, fusing with the postorbital process in a bridge over the temporal fossa in some groups (e.g. skylarks).'

Diagnosis References

Schodde, R. & Mason, I.J. 1999. The Directory of Australian Birds : Passerines. A Taxonomic and Zoogeographic Atlas of the Biodiversity of Birds in Australia and its Territories. Collingwood, Australia : CSIRO Publishing x 851 pp.

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