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Wind whipped through bitterbrush, competing with the sound of sparrow and meadowlark birdsong.

People might assume that sounding birdlike would mean these dinosaurs were tweeting like meadowlarks, Dr. Arbour said.

Marilyn Meador, a retired nurse in Wichita Falls, Texas, noted that a teenager in Florida had suggested that a bird she had photographed was a Western meadowlark, because of the tail-feather pattern.

Here remained a rugged, delicate beauty to be savored under open skies, accompanied by the song of meadowlarks.

With habitat loss, many animals have all but disappeared from the landscape, including the monarch butterfly, Eastern meadowlark and Bobwhite quail.