Some birds live in the trees, and some love lakes, but the meadowlark is a bird of the grassland.
The first meadowlarks probably arrived in the Midwest at the same time as the prairies, on the heels of retreating Ice Age glaciers. And although the prairie is gone now, meadowlarks still sing over the land where the bison once roamed. When you're driving in the countryside and you see cattle or horses in a grassy field, you're in meadowlark habitat. Watch the tops of fence posts for a bird with a yellow front like a broad shield made of gold. In spring each male meadowlark adopts a bragging post, where he spends several hours each day in song.