Horned larks are messing with my eyes and challenging my photography efforts. And now, these masked birds with horns are giving me a devil of a time wondering where they spend their winters.
A birding friend of mine used to let me know when horned larks started showing up along the roads. He was a birdwatcher and a bartender—I don’t know if the two have a correlation—and he was excited about this first sign of spring in the bird seasons of northern Wisconsin. I assumed he meant the horned larks were migrating here. He has passed, so my opportunity to ask has also passed.
It always seems too early to see the horned larks. And they are tough to see, fading into the brown grasses and dirty snowbanks along roads as early as the last days of February, and certainly by the first week in March. A horned lark is creamy-hued with streaks of tan and a yellow face. It has a black patch on its throat and a line of black above its bill, extending under its eyes and down its cheeks, giving the appearance of a mask or handlebar mustache.
And it has those tiny horns atop its head. The horns are, of course, feathers, but with the “mask” give the bird a menacing look. That is, if you can get close enough for a look. When I’m walking next to fields this time of year I normally don’t see the bird until it takes flight from a snowbank or patch of grass, sometimes only 25 feet away.
I hold my camera ready, but inevitably the camouflaged lark is taking off before I see it. Normally there’s a loose, spread-out flock of several birds. Every day I vow to see the horned larks before they fly. I don’t. The photo above? Well, I got sort of lucky but at long range, from one field to another across a town road.
Now, with more study of horned larks, I learn that some of the birds may overwinter here if there’s scant snow and they can find natural seeds. However, they prefer bare ground, so I’m sure most of the larks are following bare ground northward. When bird books show horned larks are year-round residents in Wisconsin, the part of the state being referred to is probably well to the south.
So, “our” horned larks in March are either migrating here or through here from areas to the south, or if some spent the winter here they are now more visible as they peck at seeds along baring road shoulders. Either way, horned larks lifting off from ditches in late winter is one of our earliest signs of spring. They will be nesting by April in northern Wisconsin and well into Canada.
March produces the most sightings of horned larks in Wisconsin. I’ll keep my camera at ready and my eyes focused for a yellow face on the roadsides of March.