He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound
No bird has inspired so much poetry, literature and music than the skylark, with the cuckoo close behind.
The trilling of the Eurasian skylark on open downlands is cemented in English folklore, but it can also be heard here.
A member of the Pandani Bushwalking Club phoned me in early May to report both the sight and sound on the bird and also to let me know that Ralph Vaughan Williams’ classic orchestral piece, The Lark Ascending, was being performed by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra at the Federation Concert Hall that weekend. He didn’t have to tip off this skylark devotee. My wife and I had already booked tickets.
In what is one of the most beloved pieces in English music, Vaughan Williams was inspired to compose the work by an 1881 poem of the same name by George Meredith.
Vaughan Williams’ composition conjures up both the image and sound of the skylark high above the countryside. The solo violin represents the soaring bird, with graceful, floating lines that rise and fall like birdsong.
The skylark is common across the more open countryside surrounding Hobart. I’ve heard them many times and The Lark Ascending certainly captures their flight and song.
The skylark is a surprisingly small bird, but with a big voice. And it flies so high, delivering its song as it hovers in mid-air, that it is often lost to sight, or presents merely a speck in the sky.
Such was the emotional pull of the skylark’s musical notes, it was one of a number of English songbirds shipped to Australia by what were termed acclimatisation societies in the Victorian era.
Although the skylark, blackbird, song thrush and goldfinch brought joy to the emerging cities of south-eastern Australia, not all introductions proved a success, especially those like the European starling imported for supposed insect control in agricultural districts. The starling was soon to become a pest species on farms and in orchards.
The skylarks first arrived in Tasmania in 1857 and soon found the countryside of the island state to their liking because it resembled the habitat of their homeland.
As the Pandani hiker described it, skylarks had often provided a musical backdrop to walks in the open, grassy countryside of places like the Droughty Point Peninsula in the south and Pontville to the north of Hobart, where I have seen them most often.
Although the focus of the concert, certainly my focus, was on the skylark there was another treat in store for the birder. The program finished with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No.6, a celebration of the natural world and Beethoven’s love of the countryside.
And from the woodwind section came the two-note call of another musical favourite – the unmistakable, onomatopoeic refrain of the cuckoo.