Warble UK
Skylark
Photo: Diliff / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Birds / Larks

Skylark

Alauda arvensis

Also known as Eurasian skylark

Uncommon All year FarmlandUplandsCoastHeath
Test yourself

Recording: Patrik Åberg / xeno-canto

Sounds like

An endless, rapid stream of warbling and trilling from high in the sky, sometimes for minutes without a break.

Remember it

Look up: a speck hanging over an open field, pouring out song.

When and where

Listening for the skylark

Heard
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Jan to Jul
Time of day
Dawn and Day
Where
Farmland, Uplands, Coast, Heath
In Britain
All year
Family
Larks

Side by side

Often confused with

Play them one after the other and listen for the difference.

Skylark

Skylark

Alauda arvensis
JFMAMJJASOND

Look up: a speck hanging over an open field, pouring out song.

Meadow Pipit

Meadow Pipit

Anthus pratensis
JFMAMJJASOND

Rises nervously, sings faster and faster, then floats down like a shuttlecock.

Could you pick out a skylark?

Hear a song, choose from four birds, and build your streak.

Play the quiz

Same habitat

Also in farmland

See all
Blackbird

Blackbird

Turdus merula
JFMAMJJASOND

Slow, rich, fluting phrases that wander about and often trail off into a quiet chuckle.

Chaffinch

Chaffinch

Fringilla coelebs
JFMAMJJASOND

A cheerful, accelerating run of notes that tumbles down and ends in a flourish, repeated over and over.

Dunnock

Dunnock

Prunella modularis
JFMAMJJASOND

A hurried, flat, squeaky warble that stays on one level and stops abruptly, like a squeaky wheel turning.

Goldfinch

Goldfinch

Carduelis carduelis
JFMAMJJASOND

Bright, liquid, tinkling twitters with a 'tickelit' call, often from small flocks feeding on seed heads.