The bimaculated lark (''Melanocorypha bimaculata'') breeds in warm

temperate countries In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (approximately 23.5° to 66.5° N/S of the Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ra ...

eastwards from Turkey into

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

. It is the eastern counterpart of its relative, the

calandra lark The calandra lark (''Melanocorypha calandra'') or European calandra-lark breeds in warm temperate countries around the Mediterranean and eastwards through Turkey into northern Iran and southern Russia. It is replaced further east by its relative ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The bimaculated lark was originally placed in the genus ''

Alauda ''Alauda'' is a genus of larks found across much of Europe, Asia and in the mountains of north Africa, and one of the species (the Raso lark) endemic to the islet of Raso in the Cape Verde Islands. Further, at least two additional species a ...

''. The current genus name, ''Melanocorypha'' is from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

''melas'', "black", and ''koruphos'' a term used by ancient writers for a now unknown bird, but here confused with ''korudos'', "lark". "Bimaculate" and the specific ''bimaculata'' are from

Neo-Latin Neo-LatinSidwell, Keith ''Classical Latin-Medieval Latin-Neo Latin'' in ; others, throughout. (also known as New Latin and Modern Latin) is the style of written Latin used in original literary, scholarly, and scientific works, first in Italy d ...

''bimaculatus'', "two-spotted". The alternate name calandra lark should not be confused with the species of the same name. The alternate name Eastern calandra lark is also used for a subspecies of the calandra lark.

Description

This is a large, robust

lark Larks are passerine birds of the family Alaudidae. Larks have a cosmopolitan distribution with the largest number of species occurring in Africa. Only a single species, the horned lark, occurs in North America, and only Horsfield's bush lark occ ...

, 16–18 cm in length. It is an undistinguished looking species on the ground, mainly streaked grey above and white below, and with two small black patches on the breast sides, which give this species its name. It has a white supercilium. In flight it shows short broad wings, which are grey-brown below, and a short tail with a white tip, but not white edges. The wing and tail patterns are distinctions from its more westerly relative. The song is like a harder version of that of calandra lark.

Distribution and habitat

The bimaculated lark is found from west-central Turkey to southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, north-eastern Iran and northern Afghanistan. It is also found in northern Israel, Lebanon, western Syria and northern Iraq. It is mainly migratory, wintering in northeast Africa, and ranges widely throughout the greater Middle East to Pakistan, India and Tibet. It is a very rare vagrant to western Europe. This is a bird of stony semi-desert and higher altitude cultivation. Its nest is on the ground, with 3-4

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the ...

s being laid. Food is seeds and insects, the latter especially in the breeding season. It is gregarious in winter.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q819885 Melanocorypha Birds of Central Asia Birds of West Asia Birds described in 1832