You don’t need a calendar to tell you when Dakota’s summertime has arrived, you can hear it when a meadowlark’s flute-like song reaches your ears.
No one has written more beautifully of the delightful-nature of meadowlarks than Theodore Roosevelt. Here is what Roosevelt wrote in 1885:
“In the spring, when the thickets are green ... One of our sweetest, loudest songsters is the [Western] meadowlark; this I could hardly get used to at first, for it looks exactly like the Eastern meadowlark which utters nothing but a harsh disagreeable chatter. But the plains air seems to give it a voice, and it will perch on top of a bush or tree and sing for hours in rich, bubbling tones.”
Similarly, Theodore Roosevelt’s said in 1893:
“I spoke ... of the sweet singing of the western meadowlark ... among the most attractive singers to which I have ever listened; but with all bird-music much must be allowed for the surroundings, and much for the mood, and the keenness of sense of the listener.
“The meadowlark is a singer of a higher order, deserving to rank with the best. Its song has length, variety, power and rich melody; and there is sometimes a cadence of wild sadness, inexpressibly touching.
“Yet I cannot say that song would appeal to others as it appeals to me, for to me it comes forever laden with a hundred memories and associations; with the sight of dim hills reddening in the dawn, with the breath of cool morning winds blowing across lonely plains, with the scent of flowers on the sunlit prairie, with the motion of fiery horses, with all the strong thrill of eager and buoyant life. I doubt if any man can judge dispassionately the bird songs of his own country; he cannot dissociate them from the sights and sounds of the land that is so dear to him.”
Was Theodore Roosevelt associating the plaintive cries of the meadowlark with his own feelings of loss after the death of his dearly-loved wife, Alice, in 1883? Or were his words reflective of his adventurous ranching life in western Dakota?
Whatever his feelings, the melodious songbird became so beloved that North Dakota’s legislature, in 1947, adopted the Western Meadowlark as the state bird.
Not surprisingly, each Dakota Datebook episode begins with the tuneful-tones of the meadowlark.
Dakota Datebook by Dr. Steve Hoffbeck, MSUM History Department
Sources:
“Western Meadowlark Long Overlooked,” Bismarck Tribune, July 16, 2003, p. 22.
“The Much Looked and Longed for Spring,” Wahpeton Times, April 25, 1884, p. 3.
“Home Town Girl,” Bismarck Tribune, April 17, 1947, p. 4.
“HB 270,” Bismarck Tribune, February 3, 1947, p. 2.
Theodore Roosevelt, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman; Ranching in the Bad Lands (NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1885), p. 15-16.
Theodore Roosevelt, The Wilderness Hunter (New York: Review of Reviews Company, 1893), p. 81.
