Water pipit
| Water pipit | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | |
| Phylum: | |
| Class: | |
| Order: | |
| Family: | |
| Genus: | |
| Species: |
A. spinoletta
|
| Binomial name | |
| Anthus spinoletta (Linnaeus, 1758)
|
|
Lua error in Module:Taxonbar/candidate at line 22: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
The water pipit (Anthus spinoletta) is a small passerine bird which breeds in the mountains of southern Europe and southern temperate Asia across to China. It is a short-distance migrant moving to wet open lowlands such as marshes and flooded fields in winter. Some birds migrate north to Britain for winter, taking advantage of the warm oceanic climate[citation needed].
Like most other pipits, this is an undistinguished looking species on the ground, mainly brown above and dark streaked buff below. It has dark legs, white outer tail feathers and a longish dark bill. In summer it has a distinctive breeding plumage, with a pinkish breast, grey head and pale supercilium.[2][3]
The Eurasian rock pipit's subspecies littoralis in summer plumage is very close in outward appearance to the water pipit. They can be told apart by their song,[4] and occupy different habitat types even when they occur in the same general area.[5] The water pipit is also much less approachable than the Eurasian rock pipit, rising high and quickly leaving the vicinity when approached. Water and buff-bellied pipit do not co-occur except in a small area in Central Asia.[6]
This species is insectivorous. Its call is an explosive "fit", like Eurasian rock pipit. Its song is similar, but it consisting of maybe 5 "blocks" of just about half a dozen notes each (the Eurasian rock pipit has fewer, but longer blocks); it ends either with no or with repeated trills.[5]
Formerly included in the water pipit were the subspecies now separated as rock pipit and buff-bellied pipit.[7] The former is more closely related to the water pipit than the latter, as indicated by external[2] and molecular characteristics.[8]
References
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />
Cite error: Invalid <references> tag; parameter "group" is allowed only.
<references />, or <references group="..." />External links
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.. |
 |
Wikispecies has information related to: Anthus spinoletta |
- Ageing and sexing (PDF; 3.3 MB) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta & Gerd-Michael Heinze
- Avibase Links in turn to Flckr Handguide
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
