Welcome to Spark Lark!
Spark Lark was started by Stephanie Rose, a longtime backyard birdwatcher, as a family project with her son: feeders, bird-friendly plants, and humane ways to keep birds out of the vegetable garden and squirrels off the feeders.
Her early guides are still here under her name. Today Spark Lark is published by Brian Beasley with a small editorial team, writing for backyard birders across the U.S.
Spark Lark today
Rose built Spark Lark around her own backyard: feeders, native plants, and a son learning to tell a chickadee from a titmouse. Her guides are still here, and still under her name.
Today the site is run by a small editorial team. We write for backyard birders across the U.S., not one region, and we follow the approach Rose started with: recommend what the birds actually use, keep it practical, and be honest about the trade-offs. You can read exactly how we pick products on our How we choose products page.
How we research
We’re publishers and researchers, not ornithologists, so every guide is built on sources that know birds better than we do:
- Bird facts. Identification, range, behavior, diet and nesting come from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (All About Birds and Project FeederWatch), the National Audubon Society and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. For pet birds we use veterinary and avian-welfare sources such as VCA Animal Hospitals and the World Parrot Trust.
- Laws and rules. When a guide touches what’s legal, like feeding, trapping or keeping a species, we read the actual regulation, such as the Code of Federal Regulations or a state’s wildlife code, and name it in the article.
- Products. Specs come from the manufacturer and the current product listing. How we pick products is laid out on our How We Choose Products page.
- Photos. Our photos are public domain or openly licensed, mostly from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Wikimedia Commons. Each one is credited in its caption.
When sources disagree, we say so rather than pick one quietly. When something is a theory rather than a settled fact, we say that too. Every guide is checked against the sources above before it’s published.
Spot a mistake? Birds, rules and products change. If something on Spark Lark is wrong or out of date, tell us on our contact page and we’ll fix it.