See text The Eurasian skylark (Alauda arvensis) is a passerine bird in the lark family, Alaudidae.

It is a widespread species found across Europe and the Palearctic with introduced populations in Australia, New Zealand and on the Hawaiian Islands.

It is a bird of open farmland and heath, known for the song of the male, which is delivered in hovering flight from heights of 50 to 100 metres (160 to 330 ft).

The Eurasian skylark was described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae and retains its original binomial name of Alauda arvensis.

It is known for the song of the male, which is delivered in hovering flight from heights of 50 to 100 m, when the singing bird may appear as just a dot in the sky from the ground.

The long, unbroken song is a clear, bubbling warble delivered high in the air while the bird is rising, circling or hovering.

A study published in 1986 found European skylarks remained only on the islands of Hawaii and Maui and estimated a total population of 10,000 individuals.

[19] The numbers have subsequently declined due to loss of habitat, and in 2007 there were estimated to be only around 100 individuals spread over four small areas of the Saanich Peninsula.

[24] In the UK, Eurasian skylark numbers have declined since the 1970s, as determined by the Common Bird Census started in the early 1960s by the British Trust for Ornithology.

In the past cereals were planted in the spring, grown through the summer and harvested in the early autumn.

The winter grown fields are much too dense in summer for the Eurasian skylark to be able to walk and run between the wheat stems to find its food.

[26] English farmers are now encouraged and paid to maintain and create biodiversity for improving the habitat for Eurasian skylarks.

Natural England's Environmental Stewardship Scheme offers 5 and 10-year grants for various beneficial options.

Although the Oxford English Dictionary describes this usage as "fanciful", it traces it back to a quotation from John Lydgate dating from about 1430.

[29] The verb "skylark", originally used by sailors, means "play tricks or practical jokes; indulge in horseplay, frolic".

The verb and noun "lark", with similar meaning, may be related to "skylark" or to the dialect word "laik" (New Shorter OED).

The bird is the subject of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley (To a Skylark), George Meredith (The Lark Ascending), Ted Hughes (Skylarks), and numerous others; and of pieces of music including The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams (inspired by the eponymous poem).