Summary

This episode is about all the Meadowlarks of the world.

And it’s not just those three North American species: the Western, Eastern, and Chihuahuan.

There are actually 8 bird species we call meadowlarks. The other five are found primarily in South America. We’ll be talking about them today, too.

Meadowlarks belong to the New World Blackbird family, Icteridae. This family includes birds like Red-winged Blackbird, Baltimore Oriole, and the Great-tailed Grackle.

There’s a lot to admire about meadowlarks. The 3 yellow-breasted and 5 red-breasted meadowlark species bring color and music to the windswept grasslands of the Americas.

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Research Citations

• A comprehensive species-level molecular phylogeny of the New World blackbirds (Icteridae)
• Genomic and acoustic differences separate Lilian’s Meadowlark (Sturnella magna lilianae) from Eastern (S. magna) and Western (S. neglecta) meadowlarks
• Hybrid sterility in meadowlarks
• Predation and scavenging on other birds by Western Meadowlarks (Sturnella neglecta) during a spring snowstorm
• Range contraction in the pampas meadowlark Sturnella defilippii in the southern pampas grasslands of Argentina

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Photos

Attributions

• Western Meadowlark sounds (Xeno Canto recording XC254455)
• Eastern Meadowlark sounds (Xeno Canto recording XC320486)
• Eastern Meadowlark sounds (Xeno Canto recording XC320478)
• Peruvian Meadowlark sounds (Xeno Canto recording XC243133)
• Peruvian Meadowlark sounds (Xeno Canto recording XC251574)
• Long-tailed Meadowlark sounds (Xeno Canto recording XC48041)
• Chihuahuan Meadowlark sounds (Xeno Canto recording XC230111)

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