Woodlark

Lullula arborea

Former breeding resident, now a scarce visitor.

The breeding range of the Woodlark is largely confined to Europe, stretching from North Africa in the south to southern Scandinavia in the north and from Iberia in the west to the Urals in the east.

When assessing the Woodlark’s status in Pembrokeshire in 1894, Murray Mathew considered it to be resident but scarce and local, although formerly “very generally distributed and a constant resident”. He attributed this change to the activities of bird catchers, who could realise 36 shillings per dozen for them, apparently a premium price. Mathew feared the Woodlark’s “obliteration from our county list.”

Writing in his diary in 1927 Bertram Lloyd (1939) stated “This bird is quite common in the central part of Pembrokeshire and is spread right across the county wherever the ground is suitable.”  He went on to note their decrease following the severe winter of 1928/29, with a subsequent recovery in the years up to 1937, the year of his last available diary.

The next appraisal was in 1947 when Ronald Lockley concluded that Woodlarks were widely distributed throughout the county, being most numerous in the east and north–east and considered them to be as plentiful around the foothills of the Mynydd Preseli as anywhere else in Britain.

The Pembrokeshire Woodlark population crashed following the arctic winters of 1961/62 and 1962/63. The last known breeding in the county was at Amroth in 1965 although five seen about Brynberian Moor in May 1967 was suggestive.

Thereafter each individual sighting was recorded, the species having become so scarce. Two were noted in 1968 and one in 1971. Observer cover increased from the 1980’s resulting in the following detection rate:

Number of birds recorded per year.

Of these 20 were in the autumn, October – November, nine in winter, December – February, four in spring, March – early May. None were seen in other months and none in potential breeding habitat during the breeding season. All records were from coastal or near coastal localities.

Woodlark numbers have increased in southern England, in round figures from 250 pairs in 1986, through 600 pairs in 1993 to 1,500 pairs by 1997. More recently they have nested in Gwent, raising the hope that they may eventually return to Pembrokeshire as a breeding bird, perhaps as a result of climate change aiding their survival.  

Graham Rees.

(Covers records up to and including 2008).

References

LLOYD. B. 1929-1939 Diaries, National Museum of Wales.

LOCKLEY. R. M, INGRAM. C. S. and SALMON. H. M.1949. The birds of Pembrokeshire, West Wales Field Society.

MATHEW. M. 1894. The birds of Pembrokeshire and its islands, R. H. Porter