State birds
What is the Montana state bird?
The Montana state bird is the Western Meadowlark. Montana schoolchildren chose it in a 1930 vote, and the Legislature made it law in 1931; Montana Code 1-1-504 still says the bird was “preferred by a referendum vote of Montana school children.”
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Who first described the Western Meadowlark?
Meriwether Lewis, in what is now Montana. On June 22, 1805, near the Great Falls of the Missouri, Lewis wrote in his journal of a yellow-breasted lark that “much resembles the bird called the oldfield lark,” the meadowlark of the East. The editors of the Lewis and Clark journals at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln identify it as the Western Meadowlark, a bird then unknown to science.
Why is it called Sturnella neglecta?
Audubon gave it that name almost four decades later, in the octavo edition of The Birds of America (vol. 7, 1844). He wrote that Lewis and Clark had known the bird, but “no one has since taken the least notice of it.” Neglecta is Latin for “neglected.”
Its voice gave it away. The bird's “curious notes were first noticed by Mr. J. G. Bell,” Audubon wrote, and without them it might have been taken for the eastern species. He found it abundant on the upper Missouri and painted it as the “Missouri Meadow-Lark,” plate 489, the painting on this page (Audubon's text, vol. 7).
Montana's law keeps the credit: it names the “western meadowlark, Sturnella neglecta (Audubon).”
How did Montana choose its state bird?
It asked its schoolchildren. In 1930, the Montana Historical Society writes, school children were asked which bird best represented Montana, and they “overwhelmingly chose the Meadowlark.” The 1931 Legislature agreed. Montana Code 1-1-504, first passed as Chapter 149 of the 1931 laws, records the vote in its own words.
Where do meadowlarks live in Montana?
Across much of the state, in grassland, pasture and hayfields. The Montana Field Guide, from the Montana Natural Heritage Program and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, calls it relatively common within suitable habitat and widely distributed. It lists native grasslands and pastures, and hay and alfalfa fields, as its habitat.
The field guide ranks it secure as a breeding bird in Montana, and gives fall migration at Bozeman as September 5 to October 25.
Which other states chose the meadowlark?
Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon and Wyoming: six states in all. Montana's children weren't the only ones asked. Kansas's law also followed a vote of school children (K.S.A. 73-901), and in Oregon schoolchildren voted for it in 1927, though no Oregon law ever named it the state bird.
Questions about the Montana state bird
When did the Western Meadowlark become Montana's state bird?
In 1931, when the Legislature adopted the choice Montana schoolchildren made in a 1930 vote.
Did Lewis and Clark see the Western Meadowlark?
Yes. Meriwether Lewis described it near the Great Falls of the Missouri on June 22, 1805, before it had a scientific name.
What does neglecta mean?
Neglecta is Latin for “neglected.” Audubon gave the name in 1844, writing that no one had taken notice of the bird since Lewis and Clark.
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