Author: Gemma Wells, RSPB Community Engagement Officer
The song of the skylark has inspired artists for generations. In 1881, English writer George Meredith penned The Lark Ascending, a soaring, lilting poem that imitates the rising flight and continuous trilling of a male skylark’s song.
He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake,
All intervolv’d and spreading wide,
Like water-dimples down a tide...
As up he wings the spiral stair,
A song of light, and pierces air
With fountain ardour, fountain play,
To reach the shining tops of day...
Composer and Cambridge graduate Ralph Vaughan Williams then took inspiration from this poem and its source material and premiered his orchestral version of The Lark Ascending in 1920. The fifteen minute-long piece follows in the form of both Meredith and the male skylark as it warbles, trills, crescendos to towering peaks and drops steeply back down, all in a heart-wrenching, pentatonic glory. No surprise then that Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending has repeatedly been voted the nation’s number one Desert Island Disc.
Vaughan Williams also gained inspiration from the East Anglian countryside. His composition In the Fen Country perfectly captures the stark, isolated and understated beauty of the Fens.
A skylark perched on a fence post with a caterpillar in its bill. Credit: Chris Gomersall (RSPB)
Sadly the wildlife that inspired artists like Meredith and Vaughan Williams, such as the skylark, are slowly disappearing from our countryside. Dramatic population declines in recent years make our tuneful skylark a species of great concern to conservationists. This is why the RSPB is developing and testing new wildlife-friendly farming methods to benefit bird species such as the skylark at our 180 acre Cambridgeshire farm, called ‘Hope Farm’.
Our hope is that the Cambridgeshire countryside will continue to inspire artists for generations to come!
To encounter the landscapes and wildlife that so fascinated artists like Meredith and Vaughan Williams, it’s only a short journey to the Ouse Valley. Farming practices employed by a network of fantastic farmers in the area mean that farmland birds and wildlife can be spotted easily, including the impressive flight of the famous skylark.