Subject: Re: Preferred Lark Sparrow breeding habitat
Date: Jul 26 17:30:02 1996
From: Jerry Tangren - tangren at wsu.edu


My two cents (for reference other messages follow): Lark Sparrows are
interesting because they are widespread. Thinking about their preferred
habitat--it's probably best to qualify it as EDGE.

I believe they prefer habitats with open ground and high perches. I grew up
birding the oak savannah east of Sacramento. There Lark Sparrows are the
predominat species. The Columbia Basin lacks oak trees, but the habitats
here are broken with many "edge" opportunities. As Andy states, they
probably avoid the uniform dense shrubs. Behaviorally this preference is
demonstrated by choice of song perch. In the Columbia Basin, Lark Sparrows
are the ones singing from the tops of the utility poles.

--Jerry Tangren
<tangren at wsu,edu>

>Tweets, As Lark Sparrows are widely distributed as a breeding passerine in
>central and western North America, their breeding habitats are necessarily
>varied. In eastern Washington, however, they are essentially limited to open
>shrub-steppe habitats, ie. where shrub cover is reduced.
>
>Though some argue they are found in dense shrub habitats, I want to refute
>this by saying they may seem to occupy dense sagelands, but it must be
>recognized that many shrub-steppe stands in the Columbia Basin are a complex
>of plant communities due to varied topography, elevation and aspect. For
>example: it is not unusual on major east-west trending ridges on the Yakima
>Training Center in south-central Washington to stand on a relatively
>shrub-free south-facing slope amidst singing Lark Sparrows where only 50
>meters away on a northwest aspect with high bunchgrass cover and sparse sage
>(usually threetip sagebrush) find singing Vesper and Brewer's Sparrows and
>Sage Thrashers, but no Lark Sparrows. A hundred meters to the east on a
>southeast slope there may be only Sage Sparrows and no Lark Sparrows! There
>might even be a Grasshopper Sparrow pair or two within earshot. All these
>species may be heard from one spot! A casual observer might conclude they
>all occur evenly over the landscape, yet this is almost certainly not so. My
>two seasons on the Hanford Site in 1994 and 1995 revealed a simpler
>situation there than on the Yakima Training Center presumably because the
>topography is more uniform over large acreages.

>Andy Stepniewski
>Wapato WA
>
>>On Tue, 23 Jul 1996 steppie at wolfenet.com wrote:
>>> No Sage or Lartk Sparrows were noted at this wet area; these species were
>>> still in their usual breeding habitats which are the lower, drier
>>> communities of the shrub-steppe zone.
>>
>>Hi Tweets, let's talk about this for a second. Lark Sparrow records from
>>the BBA occur throughout the Columbia Basin, Palouse, and Okanogan Valley.
>>My (albeit limited) experience with them in Washington is only in stands
>>of Big Sage during the breeding season. Other reports and printed
>>material also bear this out, yet they are surely breeding in nonforested
>>habitats throughout eastern Washington. So what do people perceive as
>>Lark Sparrow's *preferred* breeding habitat? Three months of fieldwork at
>>Sagebrush Flats in 1992 yielded only one sighting and no nests found, yet
>>we found numerous nests of the other sagebrush species.
>>
>>-------------
>>Michael R. Smith
>>Univ. of Washington, Seattle
>>whimbrel at u.washington.edu
>>http://salmo.cqs.washington.edu/~wagap/mike/mike.html
>>
>>