Stumella Neglecta

The meadowlarks are back.

These sweet, melodious birds always mean spring and summer to me. I love to sit on the back porch of an evening, listening for their calls.

(Sorry for the seasickness-inducing opening moments of this video. Once you’re past that, though, enjoy the call of that magnificent bird.)

I didn’t realize, until I read this Wikipedia entry, that these birds are ground-nesters. That I hear them in town isn’t a surprise; we live in a small town – about 1,200 inhabitants – surrounded by pasture, farmland and not just a few tracts of semi-developed land that have gone back to nature due to the current economic crisis. Still would like to buy a chunk of desolate property, plop a house in the middle, hide it with trees and then just sit and listen to the birds.