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Articles

Vol. 27 No. 2 (1996)

NOTES: FIRST DOCUMENTED BREEDING OF THE EURASIAN SKYLARK IN ALASKA

Submitted
September 18, 2025
Published
April 1, 1996

Abstract

Introduced, resident populations of the Eurasian Skylark, nominate Alauda arvensis arvensis, breed locally on southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and the San Juan Islands, Washington. (AOU 1983: 488). In Alaska, the species occurs naturally as an annual rare migrant and casual summer visitant to the western Aleutian Islands (Near Islands group) and a casual migrant and summer visitant to St. Lawrence Island and the Pribilof Islands, in the Bering Sea (Kessel and Gibson 1978; Byrd et al. 1978; Gibson 1981). All Alaska specimens are of the northeast Asiatic form A. a. pekinensis, which breeds as far east as the Koryak Highlands, Kamchatka, and the Kurile Islands (fide D. D. Gibson, University of Alaska Museum; Vaurie 1959; Portenko 1963). Breeding has been suspected in Alaska (twelve birds, including a singing male, at St. Paul Island, 1–9 July 1970; Kessel and Gibson 1978), but there has been no solid evidence of breeding, and no skylarks have previously been identified as females in the field. Here we report the first evidence of breeding by the Eurasian Skylark in Alaska and the first evidence of breeding by non-introduced skylarks in North America.

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