The Lark Bunting, which was designated Colorado’s official state bird in 1931, is a medium-sized sparrow of the Great Plains. You can recognize one by the small gray bill and a white wing patch on all birds, male and female. The breeding males are all black except the white wing patch, being the only sparrow that changes completely out of a bright breeding plumage into a drab winter one. They are small songbirds, and the males fly over their nesting territory and sing to show their ownership of a declared area. Their songs are whistles and trills and the call is like a soft hoo.

The female Lark Bunting has more brown tone speckled or streaked plumage, white underside and dark wings with brown edges. This provides a natural camouflage when foraging on the ground for insects or seeds, or when nesting. The Lark Bunting nest consists of an open cup on the ground in a grassy area. When they are not in nesting season, they may feed in flocks and in fact migrate in flocks to south Texas and as far as Mexico. Sadly, this bird’s numbers have decreased with the loss of natural prairie habitat.