The tree pipit (''Anthus trivialis'') is a small

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 across most of Europe and the

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-Si ...

as far East as the

East Siberian Mountains The East Siberian Mountains or East Siberian Highlands ( rus, Восточно-Сибирское нагорье) are one of the largest mountain systems of the Russian Federation. They are located between the Central Yakutian Lowland and the Ber ...

. It is a long-distance migrant moving in winter to Africa and southern Asia. 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 ...

: ''anthus'' is the name for a small bird of grasslands, and the specific '' trivialis'' means "common".

Taxonomy

The tree pipit was formally described by the Swedish naturalist

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, ...

in 1758 in the tenth edition of his ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial nom ...

'' under the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''Alauda trivialis''. Linnaeus noted that the species occurred in Sweden. The specific epithet ''trivialis'' is

meaning "common" or "ordinary" from Latin ''trivium'' meaning "public street". The tree pipit is now placed in the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

'' Anthus'' that was introduced in 1805 by the German naturalist

Johann Matthäus Bechstein Johann Matthäus Bechstein (11 July 1757 – 23 February 1822) was a German naturalist, forester, ornithologist, entomologist, and herpetologist. In Great Britain, he was known for his treatise on singing birds (''Naturgeschichte der Stubenvögel ...

. Two subspecies are recognised: * ''A. t. trivialis'' (Linnaeus, 1758) – breeds across Europe to southwest Siberia, north Iran and Turkey, east Kazakhstan, southcentral Siberia, Mongolia and northwest China; winters in India and Africa * ''A. t. haringtoni'' Witherby, 1917 – breeds in northwest Himalayas; winters in central India

Description

This is a small pipit, which resembles

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 ...

. It is an undistinguished-looking species, streaked brown above and with black markings on a white belly and buff breast below. It can be distinguished from the slightly smaller meadow pipit by its heavier bill and greater contrast between its buff breast and white belly. Tree pipits more readily perch in trees. The call is a strong ''spek'', unlike the weak call of its relative. The song flight is unmistakable. The bird rises a short distance up from a tree, and then parachutes down on stiff wings, the song becoming more drawn out towards the end. The breeding habitat is open woodland and scrub. The nest is on the ground, with 4–8 eggs being laid. This species is insectivorous, like its relatives, but will also take seeds.

Life cycle

*mid-September to mid-April: lives in sub Saharan Africa *mid April to beginning of May: migrates and arrives in countries such as the United Kingdom *beginning of May to August: breeding season, two broods *August to mid September: flies back to Saharan Africas

Management and conservation

They breed in habitats with a wooded component, including Lowland heath and

coppice Coppicing is a traditional method of woodland management which exploits the capacity of many species of trees to put out new shoots from their stump or roots if cut down. In a coppiced wood, which is called a copse, young tree stems are repea ...

. They are found mostly in open

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 3 ...

woodland on the boundary with moorland, or open structured oak woodland – therefore heavy thinning is required to produce a gappy character. They prefer low canopy medium-sized trees, where there is low-growing scrub and bramble less than 2 metres high, so that horizontal visibility is relatively high. They like a mosaic of grass and bracken, but not very grazed short turf, so light to moderate grazing is preferred. Glades are also valuable, and streams are preferred. Once they have arrived they nest on the ground amongst

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in law ...

or heather tussocks. They forage on

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s found in the ground vegetation. They need scattered trees as song perches.RSPB Woodland Management For Birds – Pied Flycatcher

Grant funding for conservation

The

Forestry Commission The Forestry Commission is a non-ministerial government department responsible for the management of publicly owned forests and the regulation of both public and private forestry in England. The Forestry Commission was previously also respo ...

offers grants under a scheme called England's Woodland Improvement Grant (EWIG); as does

Natural England Natural England is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It is responsible for ensuring that England's natural environment, including its land, flora and fauna ...

s Environmental Stewardship Scheme.

Gallery

File:Oriental Tree Pipit.jpg, In India File:Anthus trivialis MWNH 1577.JPG, Eggs, Collection Museum Wiesbaden, Germany File:Tree Pipit (Anthus trivialis)-1.jpg, In flight File:Tree Pipit (Anthus trivialis)at Sindhrot near Vadodara, Gujrat Pix 243.jpg, In

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the nin ...

, India File:Baumpieper (Anthus trivialis), Kappertzvenn bei Mürringen, Ostbelgien (3939066668).jpg, In Belgium File:Tree Pipit Grönvold.jpg, Historical illustration from 1907-1908 by

Henrik Grönvold Henrik is a male given name of Germanic origin, primarily used in Scandinavia, Estonia, Hungary and Slovenia. In Poland, the name is spelt Henryk but pronounced similarly. Equivalents in other languages are Henry (English), Heiki (Estonian), Hei ...

File:TreePipit DSCN2295.jpg, Tree Pipit wintering in Anamalai Hills, India Cuculus canorus canorus MHNT.ZOO.2010.11.150.18.jpg, ''Cuculus canorus canorus'' in a clutch of ''Anthus trivialis'' - MHNT

References

External links

Ageing and sexing (PDF; 1.7 MB) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta & Gerd-Michael Heinze
* * * Tree pipit
Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds
{{Authority control tree pipit Birds of Eurasia Birds of Russia Birds of Africa Birds of South Asia tree pipit tree pipit Articles containing video clips