giving the growling call and lunging at each other. A real fight may ensue, with the birds leaping at each other and pecking, and sometimes kicking. Females play no part in defending the territory. The female may be offered food by the male during courtship. He has a brief courtship display in which the neck is extended and the head held down, the tail is fanned, and the wings are spread with the tips touching the ground. He will then attempt to approach the female from behind, and then leap on her back to copulate. The nest is typically in grassland, sometimes in safer sites along a hedge, or near an isolated tree or bush, or in overgrown vegetation. Where grass is not tall enough at the start of the season, the first nest may be constructed in herby or marsh vegetation, with the second brood in hay. The second nest may also be at a higher altitude that the first, to take advantage of the later-developing grasses further up a hill. The nest, well hidden in the grass, is built in a scrape or hollow in the ground. It is made of woven coarse dry grass and other plants, and lined with finer grasses. Although nest construction is usually described as undertaken by the female, a recent aviary study found that in the captive population the male always built the nest. The nest is in diameter and deep. The clutch is 6–14, usually 8–12 eggs; these are oval, slightly glossy, creamy or tinted with green, blue or grey, and blotched red-brown. They average and weigh about , of which 7% is shell. The eggs are laid at daily intervals, but second clutches may sometimes have two eggs added per day. Incubation is by the female only; her tendency to sit tight when disturbed, or wait until the last moment to flee, leads to many deaths during hay-cutting and harvesting. The eggs hatch together after 19–20 days, and the precocial chicks leave the nest within a day or two. They are fed by the female for three or four days, but can find their own food thereafter. The juveniles fledge after 34–38 days. The second brood is started about 42 days after the first, and the incubation period is slightly shorter at 16–18 days. The grown young may stay with the female until departure for Africa. Nest success in undisturbed