On Fri, 1 Oct 1999, Mary Teesdale wrote:

> As for Larks, while birding Ocean Shores a couple weeks ago I
> saw the subspecies E. a. sierrae Horned Lark lurking in the beach
> grass at Damon Point. It had the yellow throat and canary yellow
> belly, a stunning bird. Where do they breed, where do they winter,
> what do we know about them?

Mary asked about the lark she saw at Damond Point.

The lark that you saw was prabably not E.a. sierrae, but instead E.a.
strigata. As far as I know there are no records of E.a. sierrae for
Washington State. It sounds like you were looking in the National
Geographic Gudie which illustrates only a few of the 24 races of Horned
Lark found in North America.

The Streaked Horned Lark is perhaps the most colorful race of all Horned
Larks in North America. The were once common in the Puget Sound and outer
coast of WA but are now quite rare. They were added to the species of
concern list this 28 Oct 1998. They will proabably be added to the federal
list as a threatend species sometime in the near future.

I conducted a systematic search to try and find new breeding areas for
them this past breeding season and found only 10 locations in western WA
where they are breeding. I estimate that the total breeding population of
the Streaked Horned Lark in western WA to be under 100 pairs.

Russell Rogers
Olympia WA