Feeding Behavior

Forages by walking on ground in open areas, picking up items from ground, and pecking at plant stalks and seed heads.

Eggs

Usually 3-5. Pale gray, sometimes with greenish tinge, heavily spotted with olive or brown. Incubation is by female only, about 11 days. Young: Fed by both parents. Young often leave nest after 8-10 days, but not able to fly well until 10 days later.

Young

Fed by both parents. Young often leave nest after 8-10 days, but not able to fly well until 10 days later.

Diet

Seeds, insects. Diet in North America not known in detail. In Europe, feeds mostly on seeds of grasses and weeds, grain in agricultural fields, and leaves of various ground plants. Also eats many insects (including beetles, caterpillars, and others) and some spiders, millipedes, and snails, mostly in summer. Young birds are fed mostly insects at first.

Nesting

Male may sing at any season, but most intensively in early spring to defend nesting territory and attract a mate. In typical song-flight display, male takes off from ground and flies up in steep spiral to as high as 150-300' above the ground, singing most of the way up; then hovers and circles for several minutes, singing continuously, before gradually spiraling down to ground while continuing to sing. Nest site is on ground, in an open area among short grass. Nest (probably built by female only) is a slight depression in the ground lined with grass and rootlets, with an inner lining of finer grass and sometimes animal hair.