Woodlark

• GeneralIts wistful falling song can be heard even at night.
• Its song, which Lars Svensson described as sweet though wistful, is the origin of its scientific name (Lullula), of its French name (alouette lulu) and of almost all its Iberian folk names: tutuvía, cutuvía, titivío, tantararira.
• It is the lark that perches in trees most, hence the epithet arborea.
• It can benefit from forest thinning and from fires, but it is harmed by agricultural intensification and by the abandonment of the dehesas.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat and environment

Pine-wood clearings, heath and dehesa

Birth weight

Altricial: born blind, naked or with sparse down and entirely dependent

Size at birth

Altricial: born blind, naked or with sparse down and entirely dependent

Sexual maturity

1 year

Gestation / incubation

12-15 days, by the female. The chicks fledge at 10-13 days

Litter / clutch size

2-6 white to olive eggs speckled with reddish brown, with one or two clutches between March and July. It nests in a scrape on the ground sheltered by a tussock

Sources consulted: SEO/BirdLife (ficha y III Atlas de las aves en época de reproducción en España); IUCN Red List; Asturnatura; Serrano-Davies y Pérez-Granados 2022, III Atlas; Lista Roja Europea de Aves 2021; Carrascal y Palomino 2008; Tellería, Asensio y Díaz 1999

Best time: From March to July, when the male sings in flight, spiralling upwards and then dropping in a dive with its wings closed