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Water Pipit

Water Pipit

Anthus spinoletta

Identify the Water Pipit by sound or photo and log your sightings with Birdpass.

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The Water Pipit is a small, brownish pipit of high mountains from southern and central Europe across Asia to China. A short-distance migrant, it breeds above the treeline and descends to wet, open lowlands in winter. In spring it shows a grey head with a white eyebrow and pinkish-buff underparts, which become whiter and more streaked in winter. Its population is large and stable.

Did you know?

  • The Water Pipit was once lumped with the Rock Pipit, but they are now treated as separate species.
  • It is sometimes a host of the Common Cuckoo.

Voice

Call
Flight call

About the species

Identification

A slim pipit with grey-brown upperparts, a pale eyebrow and white outer tail feathers. In breeding plumage the head is grey and the underparts pinkish buff and almost unstreaked; in winter it is whiter below with dark streaks. Told from Rock Pipit by its white outer tail feathers and paler, cleaner underparts.

Family

Motacillidae

Size

Small (sparrow)

Colours

brown, grey, white, black

About the habitat

Breeds on alpine meadows and rocky slopes in mountains; in winter on wet meadows, riverbanks, flooded fields and watercress beds in the lowlands.

Diet

Mainly small invertebrates picked from the ground, shallow water or vegetation, sometimes snatched in flight; some plant material.

Behaviour

Builds a cup nest on the ground under cover or in a crevice and lays 4–6 speckled eggs; the young hatch after about two weeks and fledge about two weeks later. The song, delivered from a perch or in song flight, consists of short, repeated note series. Generally wary; moves downslope or to lowlands in winter.

Sources

Photo: Zeynel Cebeci, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anthus spinoletta - Water Pipit, Kahramanmaraş 2016-11-18 01-10.jpg

Sound: Jonathon Jongsma, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anthus_rubescens_-_Buff-bellied_Pipit_XC111043.mp3

Sound: Sonothèque ADVL, XC707267, CC0 1.0 https://xeno-canto.org/707267

Text: Wikipedia (English), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_pipit

See also