Anthus campestris MHNT 232 Youks-les-Bains Algérie

The tawny pipit (''Anthus campestris'') is a medium-large

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by t ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

which breeds in much of the central

Palearctic The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Sibe ...

from northwest Africa and Portugal to Central Siberia and on to Inner Mongolia. It is a migrant moving in winter to tropical Africa and the

Indian Subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

. The scientific name is from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

. ''Anthus'' is the name for a small bird of grasslands, and the specific ''campestris'' means "of the fields". This is a large

pipit The pipits are a Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan genus, ''Anthus'', of small passerine birds with medium to long tails. Along with the wagtails and longclaws, the pipits make up the family (biology), family Motacillidae. The genus is wide ...

, long with wing-span , but is an undistinguished looking species on the ground, mainly sandy brown above and pale below. It is very similar to

Richard's pipit Richard's pipit (''Anthus richardi'') is a medium-sized passerine bird which breeds in open grasslands in the East Palearctic. It is a long-distance migrant moving to open lowlands in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It is a rare but ...

, but is slightly smaller, has shorter wings, tail and legs and a narrower dark bill. It is also less streaked. Its flight is strong and direct, and it gives a characteristic "schip" call, higher pitched than Richard's. Its song is a short repetition of a loud disyllabic ''chir-ree chir-ree''. In south Asia, in winter some care must be taken to distinguish this from other large pipits which winter or are resident in the area, including Richard's pipit,

Blyth's pipit Blyth's pipit (''Anthus godlewskii'') is a medium-sized passerine bird which breeds in Mongolia and neighbouring areas of China, Tibet and India . It is a long distance bird migration, migrant moving to open lowlands in Southern Asia. It is a ver ...

and

paddyfield pipit The paddyfield pipit or Oriental pipit (''Anthus rufulus'') is a small passerine bird in the pipit and wagtail family. It is a resident (non- migratory) breeder in open scrub, grassland and cultivation in southern Asia east to the Philippines. Al ...

. Tawny pipit is insectivorous, like its relatives. The breeding habitat is dry open country including semi-deserts. The nest is on the ground, with 4-6 eggs being laid.

In culture

The plot of the 1944 film ''Tawny Pipit'' is about the rare event of a pair of tawny pipits breeding in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Eric Hosking Eric John Hosking Order of the British Empire, OBE (2 October 1909 – 22 February 1991) was an English photographer noted for his Nature photography, bird photography. Life and career Eric Hosking OBE, Hon FRPS, was a pioneering wildlife photo ...

's footage of the pipits was actually of

meadow pipit The meadow pipit (''Anthus pratensis'') is a small passerine bird, which breeds in much of the Palearctic, from southeastern Greenland and Iceland east to just east of the Ural Mountains in Russia, and south to central France and Romania; an isol ...

s because he could not get genuine tawny pipits from German-occupied Europe.

References

External links

Ageing and sexing (PDF; 3.2 MB) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta & Gerd-Michael Heinze
{{Taxonbar, from=Q27226

tawny pipit The tawny pipit (''Anthus campestris'') is a medium-large passerine bird which breeds in much of the central Palearctic from northwest Africa and Portugal to Central Siberia and on to Inner Mongolia. It is a migrant moving in winter to tropic ...

Birds of Europe Birds of Central Asia Birds of Western Asia Birds of Africa