Ashy-crowned Sparrow-Lark

The ashy-crowned sparrow-lark is a small, sparrow-sized lark with a finch-like bill and short legs. The male is sandy brown with a black belly, chin, lower lores and eye stripe and an ashy crown, giving a contrasting black-and-white face; the black-crowned sparrow-lark, which overlaps with it in the arid north-west, has a dark crown. The female is pale brown and looks much like a female house sparrow but with much shorter legs and a stockier, shorter-necked look (Wikipedia, general species account).

It lives on open plains below about 1,000m, in stubble, scrub, waste ground, riverside sand and coastal flats, avoiding the interior of the desert, and withdraws from areas of heavy monsoon rain. It sits on the ground and sometimes on wires, but not in trees or bushes. In the breeding season males are easy to find by the long descending whistle that accompanies their undulating, dive-bombing display flights (Wikipedia, general species account).