The lark is perhaps the best-known songbird. It can be heard from afar as it soars over 100 meters into the air, until it - a small bird - is long gone from sight as a mediator between heaven and earth. But as a soil-breeder, a lot of space has already been lost for it in the sealed landscape, and insect mortality is starving it to death. In some places it has already disappeared, and everywhere it is highly endangered. Hopefully it can be saved, this singing wonder, whose song characterizes spring and early summer: "…When üabove us, lost in blue space, the lark sings its song…" (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe). (Dorothea Hofmann)