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 th ...
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 lightweig ...
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 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 genus, ''Anthus'', of small passerine birds with medium to long tails. Along with the wagtails and longclaws, the pipits make up the family Motacillidae. The genus is widespread, occurring across most of the world, ...
, 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 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
Birds of Europe
Birds of Central Asia
Birds of Western Asia
Birds of Africa
tawny pipit
tawny pipit