DEAD CRICKET AND THE SINGING BIRD

I took the following photograph yesterday.

(Enlargeable)

The bird had a big Marbled bush - cricket in its beak, and was still able to sing.
If you enlarge this enlargeable picture, you may notice that the cricket's corpse has no legs on it. They were carefully removed to make the meal easier to swallow.
The bird in question is the Alaudala rufescens, commonly known as the Mediterranean short-toed lark. It nests on the ground, in dry open areas ...

... like the one on this photograph, the one where the bird was actually photographed - it should be represented by some pixels on this wide shot. This seaside place is covered with shrubs, tree heather mostly, and large open grasslands.

The Alaudala rufescens lark feeds mostly on seeds during the colder part of the year, and now in summer, that coincides with the breeding season, relies more on the juicy insects.

It's a common species here, I saw it many, many times ... but never before I took a good look at the bird holding its prey in the beak.

As always in these posts on HIVE, the photographs are my work - THE END.