The return of the larks

Prologue

Between mountains and beaches, sandals and ice cream, moons in July and perseids in August, summer flew away, as so many others have gone, as so many others will leave. Fall comes slowly but relentlessly, with the subtlety and wisdom of an old entomologist and his pins, obsessed with putting everything in its proper place: children in schools, university students in college corridors, cars in traffic jams, workers in their wake and collectibles cluttering newsstands. And, little by little, the birds that invaded us in spring will head to their winter quarters, beyond the deserts of Africa. It's a time for mushrooms and pumpkins, for warm light in the home, for stories about witches, pomegranates, quinces and roasted chestnuts. But without a doubt, for lovers of ornithology, autumn brings with it a special moment: the return of larks (Alauda arvensis) in the southern half of the peninsula. Aláudido typical, common and well distributed throughout the temperate latitudes of Europe and Asia, in Spain it continuously occupies the northern half of the peninsular and is seasonal in the southern half, distributed in deforested areas, such as wastelands, pastures, cereal crops, salt fields and low-lying scrub formations (thyme, heathland...), both at low elevations and in mountain areas (SEO Birdlife).

The return of the larks

Alauda It is the Latin name with which Pliny the Elder, the greatest zoologist of the ancient world, named larks in his masterpiece, Naturalis History. The highest scientific authority in Rome wrote about them:”the beauty of its trill does not match its plumage, which, in muted tones, serves to camouflage itself in the ochre fields of autumn). Many centuries later, in the middle of the 18th century, Carl von Linnaeus, the Swedish naturalist who wanted “order the Divine Work”, He added to the name of Alauda The epithet 'Arvensis', clearly referring to larks' preference for 'Agro', working fields and open land.

His adaptations to the environment and the nuances of his ethology continued to attract the attention of 19th century ornithologists, especially the most important of them all, John Gould. The brilliant English naturalist has already noticed the straight anatomy of his spur, unlike the curved shapes of tree species. Undoubtedly, this design favored the possibility of 'walking' on the ground, allowing him to move quickly and quickly through small steps. But this is not the only adaptive advantage of larks — and alaudis in general — for terrestrial life, in an apparently hostile environment, with little cover, hardly any trees and, therefore, very accessible to predatory carnivores. Alaudis have, on the feathers of the flight or primary rémiges, secondary feathers that protect them from the sun, rain or moisture from the dew, so that if they need to take an emergency flight they will not be affected. On the other hand, in addition to the Homochromia with the environment in which they live, which facilitates their camouflage and concealment, their nests and eggs maintain this same pattern of discreet and muted tones, easily confused with the surrounding herbaceous vegetation. But without a doubt, what attracted the most attention of larks ornithologists is a behavior that Gould defined with this amazement:”during the incubation period, male larks become living decoys, located at heights of several hundred meters, they sing with delight, as if attracting the attack of falcons, alcotans and mereks to themselves, an almost suicidal ethology that, however, allows chickens and juveniles to be safer”. This principle was defined by Stephen Jay Gould, the most important evolutionary biologist of the 20th century, with this lapidary sentence:”nature prefers the species to the individual”.

Epilogue

But let's go back to autumn again. If we looked at the blue sky, hanging like brown daylight stars, we would see the silhouette of larks emitting their beautiful song. His return is a tribute to the Emptied Spain, to the glens so often brushed by shepherds and their flocks, to pastures and fields, to the mornings of dew, greenery and harvest, to the walks through the alleys and the orange sunsets, to the white villages of cattle and wheat, fallow and harvest, of Castilian plains and leafy borders of grasses full of thistles and snails.

'And even if you didn't want me, I would love you because of your gloomy look, as the lark wants to see the new day, just because of the dew',

... Lorca would write in Summer madrigal. The statue dedicated to the greatest poet who knew the language of Cervantes, gently holding a lark in front of Madrid's Plaza de Santa Ana, is, without a doubt, the perfect symbolism for exalting the beauty and freedom of one of the most iconic birds in rural Spain, from the plains of La Alcarria, to the Leonese paramo, passing through the Valencian garrigas and the endless plain of the Rio Grande, over the fertile orchards of the Guadalquivir Valley. It's autumn, and it's time for larks.