Skylarks have wonderful songs but so do Woodlarks. Both have tuneful songs but they are very different so you won’t get them mixed up with each other, nor, really, with anything else.
Woodlarks often, but not always, sing on the wing but instead of the Skylark’s normal hovering flight Woodlarks are always on the move, flying in circles over open ground with scattered trees.
Woodlarks often sing at night, and when they do, it is worth opening the windows wide to hear them. But this is a bird of southern heaths and grasslands, on the whole, in England and so it is a fairly restricted treat for only the well-placed insomniac.
Here are three examples, the first from Germany:
… this one from Hungary:
… and lastly one from Sherwood Forest, UK:
Beautiful!
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The other distinguishing marker, when high above, is the Woodlark’s bat-like silhouette — due to its much shorter tail cf. the Skylark.
A lovely song, for a while they were frequent to the east of York but are apparently less so now. I even saw a nest( already failed) in the grounds of what is now FERA, adjacent to the A64, they have not been there now for some years, however.
I’ve watched them sing, on the ground, on a dead tree branch and in the air. Great song, lovely bird, some fantastic memories.