Crested Lark
Crested Lark ( Galerida cristata )
The Crested Lark ( Galerida cristata ) is a species of bird in the family of larks ( Alaudidae ). Their population in Western Europe is highly endangered.
- 3.1 Portfolio development in Germany
- 3.2 Causes of the stock decline
- 5.1 Literature
- 5.2 Single Documents
- 5.3 External links
Description
The Crested Lark is about 18 inches tall and about 45 g in weight. It is colored inconspicuously, stout figure, has a strong, curved beak, medium-high feet, large, broad wings and a bonnet on his head. The color of the plumage is streaked dark - gray, the underside is white and reddish in the wings. Your dick has a rust-brown outer skirt.
The mating call sounds like " trüdritri - eh" and also forms the main subject of the song, which is often sometimes carried forward from the ground and in flight. He's very melodic; even the bird mimics other birds.
Ecology
Distribution area
The Crested Lark is a breeding bird of the southern boreal zone of western and south-western Europe to Korea and the Yellow Sea. The southern boundary extends from Senegal and the Gambia, Nigeria, Sudan, northern Kenya and the Arabian coast on the north-east India to the lowlands of Nepal. In the northeast of the breeding grounds, the crested lark is a bird of passage, otherwise a state bird. However, very long walks are demonstrated for single individuals.
Nutrition
The diet of the Crested Lark consists of seeds of weeds and grasses in winter with a varying proportion of small animals. Young birds need animal diet to the animal foods that eat crested larks include earthworms, small and medium -sized beetles, flies, small butterflies, caterpillars, and rarely small snails and spiders.
Habitat
In general, the Crested Lark preferred open dry grasslands, but is also involved in field and road edges to be found in industrial areas, ports and cities. Ideal dry warm surfaces are low and patchy vegetation blanket preferably on loamy sand soils. A progressive eutrophication limited thereby increasingly suitable habitats.
Occurrence
The range of the Crested Lark extends across Eurasia from Portugal to northeast China and the East Indies and South Africa to Niger.
Breeding biology
The female builds a well camouflaged nest on the ground, sometimes on embankments and stone walls. Two to five eggs are laid between April and June, twice each, which are incubated eleven to fourteen days. The young leave the nest nine to eleven days after hatching.
Stock development
The Crested Lark has lived through several climate-related complex extensions and losses in the last few centuries. Thus, the distribution area expanded in the heat stages in the 16th and 18th centuries, and went into the cold phases of the 17th century back. At the beginning of the 20th century benefited the Crested Lark of the emergence of new breeding habitats in cities and industrial plants. Beginning in the 1930s, the stock, apart from the South East Europe, almost all of Europe fell dramatically.
The total European population has shrunk by 98 % since 1980 and is located in an unfavorable conservation status.
Population trends in Germany
In Lower Saxony, were until 1980 according to projections between 10,000 and 15,000 breeding territories available. By 1990, this number had been reduced to a maximum of 1200 until 1995, more than 210 since 1998, it must be no more than 80 breeding territories. In Saxony- Anhalt in 2005 an inventory from 1000 to 1500 animals recorded with also strong downward trend.
Due to the dramatic decline in the stock Crested Lark is listed in the Red List for the Federal Republic of Germany in the category 1 ( threatened with extinction ). Even for the states of Bavaria, Lower Saxony and Bremen, North Rhine -Westphalia (last breeding record 2003), Saarland and Schleswig -Holstein is the case.
In Brandenburg, the Crested Lark in Category 2 ( high risk ) is classified, in Saxony- Anhalt, has been added to the warning list.
In Hamburg, if the last record from the summer of 2007, the type has since been regarded as lost.
Causes of stock decline
Despite the favorable climatic conditions in the 20th century there has been no further spread of the species. Main sources of risk are obvious lack of food and habitat changes. Ruderal, Öd and brownfields are often only to a minor extent and over relatively short periods of time available. Open spaces, for example, in urban areas, which are inhabited in the early 20th century by crested larks, are now increasingly planted, fertilized and planted densely. Other Rohbodenflächen be amply immediately. In addition, a more intensive agriculture and extensive grazing of a task with simultaneous sealing of the landscape and loss wider, untreated field margins and balks. This lack of wild herbs that are important for seed food. At the same time, there is no sufficient supply for insects breeding season more.
Protection status
The Crested Lark is a leading European bird species protected under the Birds Directive of the European Union. In the Federal Republic of Germany, it is one gem. § 7 para 2 no 14 c ) Federal Nature Conservation Act, the strictly protected species.