Western Meadowlark

Cf. Eastern Meadowlark.  Western and Eastern Meadowlarks overlap broadly across much of North America and are so similar as to be visually indistinguishable without a close study—which sometimes requires details about the location, season, sex, and age of a given individual.  Much of the confusion stems from variability among Eastern’s populations, especially in the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico, where “Lilian’s Meadowlark” and the unusual hoopesi subspecies (sometimes grouped with “Lilian’s”) complicate the picture.  However, individual variation within typical Eastern and Western populations is strong enough that they overlap in all the plumage features traditionally used to identify them.

Despite the subtleties and similarities, most closely observed adult meadowlarks are distinguishable by plumage, and nearly all can be identified by voice.  Considering the importance of voice in identification, it seems significant that vocal distinctions appear to be consistent across all Eastern populations—despite its divergent appearance, “Lilian’s” sounds like typical Easterns.

Songs:  Western’s song is more complex, richer, and more musical than Eastern’s.  Western almost always ends with an accelerating rush of notes.  Although each song-type is more elaborate, each individual Western tends to vary its songs much less than individual Easterns.  Peculiarly, however, song alone can be unreliable because it is not innate.  Some meadowlarks have been observed singing songs typical of the other species—usually mixing elements of both.

Calls:  Western often gives a low but sharp chup! or plipt! call that Eastern does not.  Other calls typical of Western include a long, evenly paced rattle and a strong, clear whistle.  Eastern’s most typical calls are a buzzy dzzzt! dzzzt!, not similar to any Western calls.

Whisker Color:  One of the field marks traditionally cited to distinguish Eastern and Western Meadowlarks is the color of the whisker area below the eyeline.  On adult Westerns this area is typically yellow like the throat, whereas adult Easterns have a plain whitish whisker streak between the dark eyeline and the yellow throat.  This distinction is most useful on typical adult male Westerns, which tend to appear all-yellow below the eyeline.  However, many Westerns have plain whiskers and many Easterns show some yellow in this area, so it is often unreliable.

Head Stripes:  Another typical but unreliable distinction is the darkness and boldness of the eyestripe and crown stripes.  In general, Eastern has blackish head markings whereas Western has brown head markings.  This distinction can be useful but there is an overlap between them and many ambiguous cases.  Some Westerns show darker-than-average head markings and some Easterns have brownish markings.

Flank Streaks:  Typical Eastern has strong, blackish streaks on its flanks, whereas Western typically has blackish streaks on its sides (beside the chest) but paler, thinner, sparser streaks or spots on the flanks.  As in other plumage pattern features, both Eastern and Western vary internally and they overlap.

Tail Pattern:  The tails of Western and Eastern tend to differ slightly in both the central brown feathers and the white outer feathers—although individual variation makes these differences less reliable than some sources suggest.  In general, Western has paler central feathers and more limited white on the outer feathers.  Conversely, Eastern tends to have darker central feathers and more extensively white outer feathers.

Southwestern Easterns:  The most confusing forms of Eastern are “Lilian’s” (lilianae), which occurs from Arizona to western Texas and in the adjacent states of Mexico, and hoopesi, which inhabits southern Texas and northeastern Mexico.  By voice these forms are both Eastern, but their plumages differ from other populations.  Lilianae is paler overall than Western, and has the most extensively white outer tail feathers of all meadowlarks.  Hoopesi has approximately the same overall coloration as Western—except that its tail pattern and whisker color are more consistent with Eastern, as described above.

Immatures:  Immature Western and Eastern Meadowlarks are more similar overall than adults.  In some cases, the distinctions that apply to adults may also be useful with immatures.