E: ? Win Exaltation of Skylarks

Strepsy

Win Exaltation of Skylarks

Good luck



5 copies to give away...

The lucky ones among us hear the ‘soaring voice’ of the Skylark all the year round – but do we? There is one month when the Skylark is not heard. Do you know which one?

I can't find the answer ??


The first five to come up with the answer will each receive a copy of Stewart Beer’s An Exaltation of Skylarks – 2,300 years of Skylark prose and poetry, starting with a poem by Theocritus in the 3rd Century B.C.! It is the only anthology of its kind in the world devoted to the ‘singing firework’. As such, the book is both timeless, as well as timely. We have 5 copies, worth £13.95 each, to give away.

isitenough

Ooh that's a toughie! Googling doesn't help either! Apparently you know when winter is coming as skylarks start appearing, but that's doesn't help!

Strepsy

Do you know the answer T42?

T42

:rotfl: I guessed May after a bit of googling and getting absolutely nowhere lol...only to find the next google said that they're mating in may and they sing like mad to pull the girlies

Oh well lol

Strepsy

Come on peeps, we never let a question beat us. :dance:

elsien

From the wildlife trust site -
https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/index.php?section=environment:species:bird&id=521 - 11k -
Lengthy warbling song, delivered in flight as the bird rises vertically then drops through the air. In winter skylarks tend to group together in small flocks and spend most of their time foraging for insects and seeds. Come February the flocks disperse and at this time, if there is a warm day, they will start to rehearse their summer song, and from early spring onwards for about the next four months (if the weather is fine) the song can be widely heard.

To me, this would imply they don't sing in January?

Strepsy

Checked in my mum's Birds of Britain book earlier and it says that skylarks tend to go quiet during August-September while they are moulting. So still no definitive answer but we're getting closer. lol. Take your pick August or September.

elsien

Sounds good to me - took some getting there though! Thanks.

James_N

hamster wrote: »

The Living Countryside (an weekly partwork from 1990) says:

The only period when skylark song is not heard is during the moult in August and early September.......

For much of the winter, territorial males can be heard singing in all but the bleakest areas. On the shortest days of the year, however, birdsong almost ceases.


Which to me says they are quieter in winter but still singing and they are singing in late September which just leaves August as the answer.

My bird-watching wisdom deems August as a blank month for nearly all bird-watching.