Top 10-plus Pipits

It is very easy to see pipits. Pipits prefer open terrain, spend their time in clear view and are roughly the size of a thrush. You can’t miss them! There are more than 40 pipit species on this planet (and an unknown number on other planets) but here’s the problem: each and every one of them looks exactly like the rest. Pipits are the ultimate Little Brown Jobs.

Little Brown Jobs? It’s a curious fact that serious birders like subtle birds that provide an identification challenge. This explains the popularity of pipits, for there’s few more confusing groups. From an identification viewpoint, their saving grace is that many of the rarest pipits are highly localised, with no other similar species to be found in the same area. For example, if you see a pipit on South Georgia, you can be 100% certain that it’s going to be a South Georgia Pipit, Anthus antarcticus, as it’s the only pipit that has even been found on this remote, bird-rich South Atlantic island. 

In the South Western Ghats, the mountain range that spans the Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, you can find the endemic Nilgiri Pipit. With its relatively short tail, boldly streaked crown and spotted belly and streaked flanks, it’s a reasonably distinctive bird, but to be honest doesn’t look much different from a South Georgia Pipit. Fortunately, there’s never going to be a need to tell the two apart, as both their habitat and range ensure that there can be no confusion. In fact the only real confusion species is the widespread Paddyfield Pipit (A.rufulus). It occurs in the same region, but not the same habitat, while it lacks the Nilgiri’s striped and spotted breast. 

I saw my Nilgiri Pipit during a birding trip to southern India. Our local guide, Sam, was keen to find us one. My diary notes that “we wound our way high into the mountains, past numerous road works, until finally getting to a point where we weren’t allowed any farther. Not to be thwarted having come so far, Sam entered into negotiations with the roadmen, and after a great deal of haggling we were eventually allowed through. It was only a short drive and walk to the pipit site, a sparsely vegetated rocky hillside. Here, much to my surprise, we soon saw a pair of pipits and eventually gained satisfactory views. The birds were on an unattractive piece of hillside, a fragment of surviving habitat in a world of tea plantations. The view was tremendous, the wind strong enough to nearly blow my hat off.” (David Tomlinson)

The Paddyfield Pipit, once known as the Indian Pipit. This is the most widespread of the pipits of the Indian subcontinent, occurring in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as well as India, so renaming it the Paddyfield Pipit was a politically correct move. The big question is whether it likes paddy fields. The answer is a qualified yes, for it is a bird of open grasslands, across which it runs swiftly in search of grasshoppers and other insects, pausing frequently to stand erect and survey the landscape. Its plumage is similar to Richard’s Pipit (Anthus richardi) a winter visitor to India, but it’s notably smaller and with a shorter tail. It perches readily on rocks, clods of earth or even bushes – Richard’s Pipit prefers lower perches.

When birding in India it’s easy to get carried away watching the more exotic birds and to ignore the more humble species. I photographed my Paddyfield Pipit close to Saltnapur, a bird reserve an hour’s drive from Delhi. Saltnapur is a wetland reserve. We found the pipit on dry, fallow ground adjoining the reserve, where we also saw Long-tailed and Bay-backed Shrikes and Indian Bushlark. Not nearly as famous as Bharatpur, Saltnapur is a much quieter reserve with far fewer visitors; it boasts an impressive bird list, making it well worth a visit if you are staying in Delhi. (David Tomlinson)

I have to admit I find pipits rather boring (I know – a great motivation for the coauthors of this post …). In winter, every other bird in Shanghai seems to be either an Olive-backed Pipit (foresty areas) or a Buff-bellied Pipit (open fields). Given the colors and patterns of these two birds, I feel that evolution sometimes may be optimized more toward functionality than beauty. However, I do like Richard’s Pipit a bit better. At least it looks a bit more elegant. It is also a bit rarer and bigger – in fact, eBird calls it a “large, robust, almost thrushlike pipit”. And it is probably the only bird named after a director of a postal service – specifically, Charles Richard (1745-1835), the director of the postal service at Lunéville. Most postal directors can only dream of having a bird named after them – even if it is just a pipit. (Kai Pflug)

By far the most numerous pipit in Europe, the Meadow Pipit is a generalist, for it can be found on heaths and moors, bogs and meadows, even mountains. The one thing it insists on is open country, as it avoids forests. It seems that the the farther north you go, the commoner it becomes; it is one Iceland’s most numerous breeding birds, and it is one of the few passerines to breed on Svalbard, far north of the arctic circle. 

The Meadow Pipit is a classic example of its genus, for it is small, slim, predominately brown, with streaks on the breast. It’s easily confused with the very similar Tree Pipit (A.trivialis), and the two can sometimes be found in the same habitat, but remember that the latter is a summer visitor to Europe, while the former is a resident or partial migrant. 

These pipits would be easy to overlook if it wasn’t for their thin but distinctive call that they invariably utter when flushed. In spring they perform a delightful song flight as the males display over their territories. Life for a Meadow Pipit must be challenging, for this bird has the misfortune to be one of the favourite prey species of a host of raptors, from Merlins to Hen Harriers. (David Tomlinson)

A meadow is a grassland. However, the Grassland Pipit is not a Meadow Pipit, but an African Pipit. Like the Meadow Pipit it is rather catholic in its choice of living quarters, so I have seen them on football pitches, dumps, roadsides and on the terrain of every beverage facility I have visited in Africa. A very similar species, Kimberley Pipit, was described in the nineties. Its most distinguishing fieldmark was the location to look for it: a rugby field in Kimberley, South Africa. Could also have been a cricket pitch. It doesn’t matter because it never existed. Well, the birds do exist but the species doesn’t. A proper statistical analysis by Faansie Peacock of the so-called diagnostic features showed every single measurement to be within the normal range for African Pipit. Makes you wonder what those birders were actually seeing when they ticked the “species” on their checklist. Reminded me of the time I wrote the environmental report for a chemical company, every year describing the statistical variation of the emissions. Without fail, the explanation was accepted by the authorities – wanting to believe is a strong motivator. (Peter Penning)

The Tawny Pipit is my summer pipit on the fields of the Tagus estuary. Apart from a sometimes confusing period of overlap, the Tawny Pipit replaces the Meadow Pipit in summer. Tawny Pipits seem to be more focused in their choice of habitat. They can be found in the Lezirias and the Alentejo with a high degree of certainty. (Peter Penning)

Names can be misleading. The Rock Pipit is most definitely not the rock star of the pipit family (that honour goes to the glamorous Golden Pipit of East Africa), it just happens to like living on rocks. The BTO’s Bird Atlas 2007-11 sums it up well: “Breeding Rock Pipits are very much restricted to rocky coasts and are absent from long stretches of low-lying coats characterised by saltmarshes, mudflats or sandy beaches.” It’s not just the British Rock Pipit that live on the coast – so, too, does the rest of the European population. This is a common bird along the Norwegian coast, with breeding birds to be found well north of the arctic circle. 

W.H.Hudson (writing in his book British Birds, 1918) points out that the Rock Pipit “is the only songster that inhabits the seashore, and this is the one distinction of this small, dull-coloured bird”. Indeed, if you are walking along a rocky coast in spring and hear a bird singing that sounds much like a Meadow Pipit, than the chances are high that it will be Anthus petrosus. At least the Rock Pipit has got its identity back. For a long time it was lumped as a sub-species of the Water Pipit as A.spinoletta petrosus, but the taxonomists finally concluded that the alpine-loving Water Pipit and the coastal-dwelling Rock Pipit weren’t the same bird after all, despite many similarities. So instead of one pipit, we got two. (David Tomlinson)

Once upon a time, there was a Rock Pipit in Africa too! However, the species has been renamed as Yellow-tufted Pipit – a name desperately in need of goodwilling observers. Yes, there is some yellowish to the tufts… They are widely spread throughout Southern Africa on rocky slopes and boulders. Wakkerstroom is a good area to see them which will also give you a chance to see some truly rare larks. (Peter Penning)

Another Southern African highland special is the Mountain Pipit. We (my South African birding buddy and I) drove up a fog-enveloped Sani Pass from South Africa to Lesotho. The road hadn’t been sealed yet and the wet circumstances forced us into 4-wheel drive most of the way up. Quite busy to stay alive and hindered by the fog we saw little on the pass itself, but scored Drakensberg Siskin and Drakensberg Rockjumper almost immediately when we reached the top. A short drive into Lesotho proper yielded a flat tyre and a Bearded Vulture. After all this excitement we were so tired we just wanted a cold beer. On our way to the bed & breakfast we decided to make one stop at a drinking trough, because we saw some movement. The movement itself was just more Drakensberg Siskins, but at a respectful distance from the boisterous finches was a beautiful Mountain Pipit. We almost missed it. (Peter Penning)

Meadow Pipit or Tree Pipit? The two are so similar to look at that it takes a practised eye, and a good view, to tell them apart. It helps that the latter is a summer migrant, so in Northern Europe, any birds seen during the winter are bound to be Meadow rather than Tree. But the challenge begins when the Tree Pipits start to return from their wintering grounds in sub-Saharan Africa. The best clues to identity come from behaviour as much as plumage. Tree Pipits tend to be shy, and when you do flush one it’s much more likely to perch in a tree than a Meadow Pipit, thus living up to its name. 

The display flight is different, too, for the Tree Pipit starts its display from the top of a tree, from which it flies up, singing, then parachutes down on stiff wings, dangling its legs as it nears the ground. It’s a delightful performance, and one I never tire of watching. Sadly, numbers of these pipits have declined in England in recent years, and it’s now red-listed as a bird of conservation concern. That means that I have to make a special effort to find one every spring. Though widely distributed throughout much of northern and central Europe, this bird is at its most numerous in the forests of Sweden and Finland. Its range extends as far east as China. Chinese and Siberian birds winter in India, which is where I took my photograph – the bird is perched in an acacia tree, and was wintering in Rajasthan. (David Tomlinson)