What is the Wyoming state bird?

How did a schoolboy's essay help choose Wyoming's state bird?

It began in 1926, at a rural school in Thermopolis. In response to an Audubon Society campaign, a teacher, Mrs. Olga Hett, asked her eighth graders to write essays promoting a state bird, according to a history Wyoming Game and Fish wrote with help from the Wyoming State Archives.

One boy, Lewis Freudenthal, liked hearing meadowlarks as he rode his horse to the Belleview School. “Is the lark not the first to be here in the spring?” he wrote.

His teacher sent the essay to the Thermopolis newspaper, and a couple of other Wyoming papers printed it too.

The story has a twist at the end: his son, Dave Freudenthal, later signed bills of his own, as governor of Wyoming from 2003 to 2011.

Who made the meadowlark Wyoming's state bird?

Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard, an influential University of Wyoming professor and trustee, took up the cause, and State Sen. Robert Hale of Thermopolis, a first-term Democrat, introduced the bill in Cheyenne. It passed the Senate and the House “without a dissenting vote,” Wyoming Game and Fish says, and Gov. Frank Emerson signed it.

The state dates the law to February 5, 1927 (Wyoming.gov). By Wyoming Game and Fish's count, that made Wyoming the first of the six meadowlark states; Oregon followed five months later.

Today the law is section 8-3-105 of the Wyoming Statutes, worded like a naturalist's note: “An American icteroid bird (genus Sturnella),” and then “the bird commonly known as the meadowlark, is the state bird of Wyoming” (Wyoming Statutes, Title 8).

Which meadowlark does Wyoming's law mean?

The law alone doesn't say. The genus Sturnella also includes the Eastern Meadowlark, and section 8-3-105 names only the genus and “the meadowlark.” The state's facts page settles it: “Meadowlark (Sturnella Neglecta),” the Western Meadowlark, capital N and all.

Audubon's big Havell edition has only the eastern bird, as the “Meadow Lark” of plate 136. He painted the western one later, for his smaller octavo edition, and it is that plate, number 489, on this page.

Where and when can you see a Western Meadowlark in Wyoming?

In spring, and they let you know: Wyoming Game and Fish calls the western meadowlark's flute-like call “an introductory declaration of spring in Wyoming.” Despite its name the meadowlark is not a lark but a member of the blackbird family, the department notes, and some spend the winter traveling with grackles, starlings and other blackbirds.

Listen from late April or early May, when the males start singing. Wyoming Game and Fish says their song “has an amazing ability to permeate even the most tightly-sealed vehicle,” so you may hear one from the car before you see it. On public land, Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge has the Western Meadowlark on its bird list.

The nest is a small piece of engineering. The female weaves the grass around a shallow hollow on the ground into a nest, often with a partial roof and a grass tunnel for a doorway, and lays about five spotted white eggs, the department says. When the first brood has fledged, the pair tries again.

Meadowlarks feed by “gaping”: they push their bills into soft soil and open them, the department explains, to uncover worms and insects.

How do you spot a Western Meadowlark?

Watch the fence posts and the grass. The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency describes a bright yellow breast with a bold black V and, in flight, a brown tail edged with white outer feathers. It is a stocky, robin-sized songbird, 9.5 inches long, with a 14.5-inch wingspan, and it weighs 3.4 ounces. Its flute-like songs ring out over meadows and fields, says the Working Lands for Wildlife program.

Which other states chose the western meadowlark?

Five: Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Oregon. With Wyoming they make six, one fewer than the cardinal's seven.

How Meriwether Lewis described the bird in 1805, near the Great Falls of the Missouri, is told on our page about the Montana state bird.

Questions about the Wyoming state bird