Horned Lark

[Moira]

[Luv2Bird]

Hey there .. great shot .. where did you find this one? Is it a female ? It's much lighter than the ones I saw.

[denis]

nice catch moira.

[Bird Brain]

Wow, what a great photo!  

Jo-Anne  

[thouc]

They are probably different subspieces. The Horned Lark that breeds in Southern Ontario is pale, so this is probably a breeding bird. Northern Horned Larks are darker and have a more yellow throat.

/Thomas

[Moira]

Thanks guys and thanks Thomas (because I didn't know!)   This was in a very large flock of Snow Buntings on Ravenshoe Rd. last Sunday.  They are interesting to watch - their pattern of all flying out a short distance and coming back to land about 10-15 ft. up the road.  They all have their noses in the dirt!

[Niloc]

Nice one Moira!!!

[Lev]

Hi Moira,

Great shot!


This looks like the Hudson Bay lowlands/central arctic coast subspecies of Horned Lark - "Hoyt's" Horned Lark Eremophila alpestris hoyti. The bird is very pale and has minimal yellow on the superciliary stripe and the throat.

The prairie subspecies - E. a. praticola, has no yellow on the superciliary, but the throat is yellow. It is also darker than Hoyt's.

The northern nominate subspecies - E. a. alpestris, which breeds in Southern Ontario is darker still, and has yellow on both the superciliary and throat.

Hope this helps!

Lev Frid

[Scott]

Fabulous shot Moira....I've never seen a bird with horns before

[Photoman]

Cool photo Moira, looks like a little devil.

Clemens

[thouc]

The subspecies of Horned Lark are pretty complicated.

Here's a good article about the subspecies occuring in Ontario: http://www.jeaniron.ca/2010/hornedlark.pdf

Short summary:

The breeding subspecies in southern Ontario is the Prairie Horned Lark praticola. Small numbers winter and they are very early spring migrants (February), so they should be here by now. It has white or very pale yellow eyebrow and throat.

The Northern Horned Lark alpestris breeds in Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador and usually outnumbers Prairie Horned Larks in mid-winter in southern Ontario. They migrate from March to mid-April, later than the Prairie Horned Larks. It is larger and darker and the eyebrow and throat is clearly yellow. The Horned Larks in the picture at http://outdoorontario.net/birds/phpBB/v ... php?t=4711 are Northern Horned Larks.

Hoyt's Horned Lark hoyti breeds in the northern part of the prairie provinces. It is a rare to uncommon migrant and winter visitor in southern Ontario and is similar in colour to the Prarie Horned Lark, but is considerably larger. I don't have personal experience with this subspecies, but I think it's hard/impossible to distinguish between Hoyt's and Prairie Horned Larks without a size comparison and the Prairie Horned Lark would be much more likely.

/Thomas

[ravynne40]

Great picture, I have never seen one of these before.
Thanks for sharing.

Irene