Wyoming named the Western Meadowlark its state bird in 1927, and the fit is almost self-evident. This is a bird of open sky and wide prairie — yellow chest blazing, black V across the throat, song carrying across the sagebrush flats that define so much of the state. You don’t need a field guide to register it. The color and the sound do the work.
The Western Meadowlark is a year-round resident across much of Wyoming’s lower elevations, particularly on the eastern plains and throughout the basins and foothills of the west. It’s genuinely common — if you’ve driven a Wyoming highway in spring or summer and heard a rich, flute-like song from a fence line, you’ve already found it. Open yards on the edge of town, rural properties with adjacent grassland, and any yard with a clear sightline and minimal tree cover can pull this bird in.
A feeder alone won’t do it. The meadowlark is a ground forager that needs open space more than a seed offering — but a yard that includes short grass, a brush edge, or open ground gives it a reason to stay nearby. Leaving part of the yard unmowed, or positioning the yard near open fields, is more useful than any feeder upgrade. If you’re building your first setup, How to Attract Backyard Birds is a good place to start.
Jump to What You Need
- Quick Facts
- Identification
- Habitat & Range in Wyoming
- Behavior
- Diet
- How to Attract It
- Yard Habitat & Setup
- Seasonal Behavior
- Nesting
- Fun Facts
- Conservation
- FAQ
Quick Facts
| Scientific Name | Sturnella neglecta |
| Size | 8.5–11 inches |
| Wingspan | 16–17 inches |
| Lifespan | Up to 6 years |
| Wyoming Status | Year-round resident (lower elevations) |
| Range | Western and central North America |
| Named State Bird | 1927 |
| Backyard Potential | Possible with habitat support |
| Best Yard Feature | Open ground or short grass adjacent to cover |
Identification
A medium-sized bird — larger than a robin, stockier than most songbirds — with a flat-topped profile and a long, pointed bill. The upperparts are streaked brown and buff, which makes the bird nearly invisible when it drops into grass. But the front is the thing: yellow from chin to belly, with a bold black V across the chest that looks deliberate, like a marking someone painted on.
Males and females share the same pattern. Juveniles have a more muted version of the adult markings. In flight, the bird shows white outer tail feathers — a quick flash as it lifts away from a fence post.
Best ID trick: If you hear a rich, bubbling, flute-like song from an open field and can’t spot the singer, scan fence posts, utility wires, and any elevated perch above the grass. That’s where this bird goes to broadcast. The call is one of the most recognizable in the West, and once you’ve heard it, you’ll pick it out immediately.
Sound and movement: The song is multi-note and melodic — commonly described as sounding like it’s saying something, though what varies by who’s listening. The call note is a lower, buzzy chatter. On the ground, meadowlarks walk rather than hop, picking deliberately through grass. In flight, they alternate rapid wingbeats with short glides, and they rarely fly far before dropping back down into cover.
Habitat & Range in Wyoming
[IMAGE] filename: western-meadowlark-wyoming-habitat.jpg alt: western meadowlark in Wyoming shortgrass prairie with sagebrush in background caption: Sagebrush flats, irrigated meadows, and open grassland are where meadowlarks concentrate across Wyoming.
The Western Meadowlark is found throughout Wyoming wherever the terrain opens up — prairie, shortgrass flats, irrigated meadows, agricultural edges, and the open basins between mountain ranges. It’s most common below 7,000 feet. High alpine elevations don’t suit it, but most of Wyoming’s populated areas sit well within its range.
This is a bird that needs horizontal space. Dense forest, thick shrubs, and urban neighborhoods without significant open ground don’t work. It likes the kind of country Wyoming has in abundance: long sight lines, patchy grass and sagebrush, fence lines to perch on.
Backyard relevance depends almost entirely on what’s adjacent to your yard. A house on the edge of town with a weedy lot next door or an open field behind it stands a real chance. A yard in a dense subdivision with continuous tree cover is unlikely to host one, but you’ll still hear them nearby in spring.
Behavior
The Western Meadowlark spends most of its time on or near the ground, walking through grass and probing the soil with its long bill. It feeds with a technique called “gaping” — inserting the bill into soil or matted grass, then forcing it open to expose insects underneath. It’s a purposeful, methodical forager. At a feeder it’s an irregular visitor at best; on the ground below one, it may pick up dropped seed.
What makes this bird stand out behaviorally is the song. Males sing persistently from exposed perches — fence posts, wire, rocky outcrops, the top of a shrub — and the song carries far in Wyoming’s open landscape. In spring, a territorial male can dominate the sound of an entire pasture. By mid-summer, after nesting is underway, singing drops off noticeably, and the bird becomes harder to track by ear.
Diet
The Western Meadowlark eats primarily insects through spring and summer — beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, caterpillars, and whatever it can uncover by probing in soil and grass. Insects make up the bulk of the diet during breeding season, when the protein demand is highest.
In fall and winter, the diet shifts toward seeds and grain — weed seeds, waste grain from agricultural fields, and grass seed. This is when meadowlarks are most likely to appear near feeders, though they’ll typically forage on the ground rather than use a mounted feeder.
If you want to give them something useful in winter, scattered millet or cracked corn on the ground is more likely to draw attention than a standard hopper setup.
How to Attract It
The honest answer is that habitat is the variable here, not the feeder. A Western Meadowlark needs open ground, and no feeder compensates for a yard that doesn’t offer any. The most effective thing you can do is give the bird a reason to land — an unmowed patch, a low brush edge, or open ground adjacent to the yard.
That said, a ground-level food offering helps in winter when natural seed is scarce. Scattered millet, milo, or cracked corn on the ground or in a low platform feeder positioned in an open spot gives meadowlarks something to work with. Keeping a clear approach — no nearby dense shrubs that could conceal a predator — matters more than feeder style.
A birdbath placed at or near ground level is worth adding. Meadowlarks use water regularly and are more likely to visit a ground-level basin than a pedestal-mounted bath.
👉 Platform Bird Feeders 👉 Bird Baths 👉 How to Attract Backyard Birds
Yard Habitat & Setup
The yard feature that helps most is open ground with short or patchy grass — ideally with an elevated perch nearby (a fence post, a low branch, or even a simple wooden stake) where a male can survey the area. Dense planting, tall ornamental grasses, or a yard full of close-set trees works against it.
Water at ground level or on a low pedestal is worth adding. Wyoming summers are dry, and a reliable water source draws meadowlarks more consistently than food in the warm months. Keep the basin clean and refill it regularly — stale, stagnant water is much less likely to draw repeat visits.
The adjustment most people miss is simply stopping a mow. An unmowed strip along a fence line or at the back edge of a yard creates the ground-layer habitat this bird uses. It doesn’t need to be large — even a narrow open strip in the right place gives a meadowlark a foraging run.
This works because the Western Meadowlark is a bird that evolved to navigate open grassland on foot — it needs unobstructed ground to probe and move through, and a perch with a clear view of the surrounding area to call from.
👉 Bird Baths 👉 How to Attract Backyard Birds 👉 Simple Backyard Bird Setup
Seasonal Behavior
Winter: Wyoming winters push meadowlarks to lower elevations and into agricultural areas, where waste grain and weed seeds are most available. They form loose flocks — sometimes mixed with other open-country birds — and move around more than they do in breeding season. This is when you’re most likely to see them near feeders, foraging on the ground below a platform setup. They’re present but less visible than in spring.
Spring: The most obvious season. Males return to territories early — sometimes by late February in southern Wyoming — and begin singing immediately. A persistent, flute-like song from a fence line or elevated perch is the clearest sign of spring in much of the state. Territorial singing peaks in April and May. This is the easiest time to find and watch the bird, and the time when it’s most likely to spend time near a yard with open ground.
Summer: Nesting activity winds down by mid-summer, and singing drops off noticeably. The birds are still present but quieter and harder to track. Juveniles appear by late June, looking like duller adults, and family groups forage together through the summer. Feeder activity near zero — natural insect prey is abundant and meadowlarks have little reason to supplement.
Fall: Meadowlarks begin moving to lower elevations and open agricultural land as insects decline. Loose flocks form by September in most of Wyoming. The diet shift toward seeds begins, and ground-level food offerings become more relevant. Watch for meadowlarks working the edges of stubble fields and open roadsides — that’s where they concentrate heading into winter.
Nesting
The Western Meadowlark nests on the ground — always. The nest is built directly in grass or low vegetation, typically in a shallow depression, and is constructed with a domed or partially covered roof of woven grass that makes it nearly invisible from above. It does not use nest boxes.
Nesting activity in Wyoming typically begins in May and can extend through July for second broods. A yard that includes an unmowed margin or a rough grassy edge gives meadowlarks a place to nest close by, though they typically nest in more open fields rather than in active yard areas.
Nest location: Ground — shallow depression in grass or low vegetation, domed with woven grass Materials: Coarse grass, fine grass, plant fibers Eggs per clutch: 3–7 Broods per year: 1–2 Incubation: 13–15 days Nestling period: 10–12 days before young leave the nest
Fun Facts
— The Western Meadowlark can produce its complex, multi-phrase song by using two independent voice chambers simultaneously — the same biological trick that lets some thrushes harmonize with themselves.
— Wyoming adopted the Western Meadowlark as its state bird in 1927, during the same general era when several western and plains states were choosing familiar open-country birds as official symbols. When the votes came in from a state-wide schoolchildren’s poll, the meadowlark won handily — in part because nearly every kid in Wyoming had already heard one.
— Six states share the Western Meadowlark as their state bird — more than any other species except the Northern Cardinal (7 states). The meadowlark’s range across the open plains and mountain west made it the most familiar and beloved bird across a wide swath of the country at a time when many states were choosing their symbols.
— Despite being a member of the blackbird family (Icteridae), the Western Meadowlark looks nothing like a grackle or red-winged blackbird. Its bright yellow plumage and melodic song set it apart from its closest relatives so dramatically that early taxonomists placed it in a different family entirely.
— The species name neglecta — Latin for “neglected” — was given by John James Audubon, who noted that the Western Meadowlark had been overlooked and confused with its eastern counterpart for years. It wasn’t formally recognized as a distinct species until 1844.
Conservation
The Western Meadowlark has seen measurable population declines over the past several decades — Partners in Flight estimates North American breeding populations have dropped by roughly 30% since the 1970s. The primary driver is grassland loss: agricultural intensification, grazing pressure, and conversion of native prairie to row crops reduce the open-ground habitat meadowlarks depend on for nesting.
In Wyoming, the species remains common, particularly on the eastern plains and in the open basins of the interior. The state’s large areas of intact grassland and sagebrush provide habitat that has been eliminated in much of the bird’s former range further east. Backyard birders with rural or edge properties can help by maintaining unmowed grass margins and reducing insecticide use in areas the bird uses for foraging.
Status: Least Concern (IUCN); Population trend: Decreasing
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Wyoming’s state bird?
Wyoming’s state bird is the Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta). The designation was made in 1927 following a vote by Wyoming schoolchildren, and the meadowlark won decisively — it was already one of the most familiar birds in the state, common along roadsides, fence lines, and open grassland across the lower elevations. It remains one of Wyoming’s most recognizable songbirds.
Wyoming designated the Western Meadowlark as its state bird in 1927. The selection came from a statewide vote organized among schoolchildren, a common method for state bird selection in the early twentieth century. The meadowlark’s dominance in the results reflected how embedded it already was in everyday Wyoming life — it was simply the bird most people had grown up hearing and seeing across the open landscape.
Yes — six states have named the Western Meadowlark their official state bird: Wyoming, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Oregon. That’s more states than any bird except the Northern Cardinal. What those six states share is the open-country landscape — prairie, plains, and grassland — where the meadowlark is the dominant songbird. The bird became a regional symbol across much of the West at roughly the same time, in the 1920s and 1930s, when most states were formalizing their state symbols.
👉 Kansas State Bird 👉 Montana State Bird 👉 Nebraska State Bird 👉 North Dakota State Bird 👉 Oregon State Bird
Yes, across most of Wyoming’s lower elevations, the Western Meadowlark is a year-round resident. It doesn’t migrate out of the state, but it does move — high-elevation birds shift downslope in winter, and birds in the coldest northern areas may concentrate in more sheltered locations. On the eastern plains and in the lower interior basins, you can find meadowlarks in every month of the year.
The meadowlark fit Wyoming in the same way the state fits itself — open, unhurried, and unmistakable at a distance. In 1927, Wyoming was still a state shaped by ranching, open range, and the sounds of that landscape. The meadowlark’s song was part of daily life for anyone who worked the land. It wasn’t a rare sighting or an aspirational choice — it was the bird everyone already knew. The children who voted for it weren’t choosing something exotic. They were naming what was already there.
The field mark is the chest — bright yellow with a bold black V. When the bird is facing you on a fence post, that pattern is unmistakable. From behind, it looks like a streaky brown sparrow and can disappear into grass entirely. The bill is long and pointed, the body stocky, and in flight you’ll see white outer tail feathers flash as it lifts. The song is the fastest ID tool once you know it: a rich, flute-like series of phrases, longer and more complex than most songbirds, and loud enough to carry across a field.
The most effective approach is habitat, not food. A yard with open ground, a patch of unmowed grass, or a clear sightline to adjacent open space is the starting point. In winter, scattered millet or cracked corn on the ground can bring meadowlarks in when natural seed is scarce. A low platform feeder in an open area works better than a mounted hopper.
👉 Platform Bird Feeders
Meadowlarks aren’t reliable feeder birds — their natural foraging is done on the ground by probing grass and soil for insects and seeds. At feeders, they’re most likely to pick up dropped seed below a platform or low tray. Millet and cracked corn are the best offerings if you want to give them something. In spring and summer, they’re largely focused on insects and won’t be interested in seed at all.
👉 Best Bird Seed covers the full breakdown.
More Wyoming Birding
Wyoming has a lot going on beyond the meadowlark — here’s where to go next for species you’ll actually see in your yard and where to find birding spots across the state.
👉 Wyoming Backyard Birds 👉 Wyoming Birding Resources 👉 All 50 U.S. State Birds
Related Pages
👉 Best Bird Feeders 👉 Platform Bird Feeders 👉 Bird Baths 👉 Best Bird Seed 👉 How to Attract Backyard Birds 👉 Backyard Birds by Species 👉 Western Meadowlark 👉 All 50 U.S. State Birds 👉 Kansas State Bird 👉 Montana State Bird 👉 Nebraska State Bird 👉 North Dakota State Bird 👉 Oregon State Bird