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Richard's Pipit

Richard's Pipit

Anthus richardi

Identify the Richard's Pipit by sound or photo and log your sightings with Birdpass.

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Richard's Pipit is a large, tall and long-legged pipit of open grasslands that breeds from southern Siberia and Mongolia to northern and eastern China and winters in the Indian subcontinent and South-East Asia. It is noted for its upright stance, strong undulating flight and explosive, sparrow-like “shreep” call. It is a rare but regular autumn vagrant to western and northern Europe, often after easterly winds.

Did you know?

  • Its names commemorate Charles Richard, an 18th–19th-century French naturalist.
  • Despite breeding in Asia, it appears every autumn at European coastal watchpoints, where its sharp call often gives it away.

Voice

Flight call

About the species

Identification

A large pipit with clearly long legs and a relatively long, strong bill and a very long hind claw. The flight is deeply undulating and the call a loud, harsh “shreep”. Told from other large pipits, such as Tawny and Blyth's Pipits, especially by leg and bill length and by call; the sexes are alike.

Family

Motacillidae

Size

Small (sparrow)

Colours

brown, white

About the habitat

Open lowland country – grassland, steppe, marshy meadows and cultivated fields; vagrants in Europe often appear on exposed headlands, islands and coastal grasslands.

Diet

Mainly insects and other invertebrates such as beetles, flies, grasshoppers and spiders, picked from the ground or snatched in short flights; also some seeds.

Behaviour

Usually seen alone or in small groups, standing very upright and running or walking to feed. When flushed it flies strongly in deep undulations and gives a loud, harsh “shreep”. It performs a simple, buzzy song in rising-and-falling song flight and nests on the ground under grass tussocks.

Sources

Photo: JJ Harrison (https://www.jjharrison.com.au/), CC BY 3.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anthus richardi - Laem Pak Bia.jpg

Sound: Sonothèque ADVL, XC943898, CC0 1.0 https://xeno-canto.org/943898

Text: Wikipedia (English) + FinBIF species descriptions, CC BY-SA 4.0; FinBIF: CC BY 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard%27s_pipit

See also