Water pipit

Water pipit
Anthus spinoletta spinoletta in Bieszczady Mountains
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Motacillidae
Genus: Anthus
Species: A. spinoletta
Binomial name
Anthus spinoletta
(Linnaeus, 1758)

The water pipit (Anthus spinoletta) is a small passerine bird which breeds in the mountains of southern Europe and southern Asia eastwards 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.

Taxonomy and systematics

The family Motacillidae consists of the wagtails, pipits and longclaws. The largest of these groups is the pipits in the genus Anthus, which are typically brown-plumaged terrestrial insectivores. Their similar appearances have led to taxonomic problems; the water pipit and the buff-bellied pipit were considered subspecies of the Eurasian rock pipit until they were separated by the British Ornithologists' Union in 1998.[2] Of these, the rock pipit is the more closely related, based on external and molecular characteristics.[3][4] Also closely related are the meadow, red-throated and rosy pipits.[4][5]

The water pipit was first was described by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae in 1758 as Alauda spinoletta (characterised as A. rectricibus fuscis : extimis duabus oblique dimidiato-albis ).[6] The current genus Anthus was created for the pipits by German naturalist Johann Matthäus Bechstein in 1805.[7] Anthus is the Latin name for a small bird of grasslands, and the specific spinoletta is a local dialect word for a pipit from the Florence area.[8]

Anthus spinoletta blakistoni from Tal Chhapar Sanctuary

There are three recognised subspecies of the water pipit:

A possible fourth race from the northwestern Caucasus, A. s. caucasicus cannot be reliably separated from A.s. coutellii. That form is itself a potential new species, based on genetic data, appearance and a characteristic flight call.[5]

Description

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.[3][10]

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,[11] and occupy different habitat types even when they occur in the same general area.[12]

The sexes are similar although the female has, on average, a greyer head. Young birds resembles non-breeding adult, but are browner and more streaked above with more prominent streaking on the underparts. A. s. coutellii is smaller than the nominate subspecies and the white of the outer tail feathers has a grey tint. It is paler and more heavily streaked above, and in summer plumage the underparts colour covers a larger area and has a rusty tint. A. s. blakistoni is large, pale and less strongly streaked.[5]

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.[12]

Egg, Collection Museum Wiesbaden

Distribution and habitat

The breeding range of the water pipit is the mountains of southern Europe and Asia from Spain to central China, along with the Mediterranean islands of Sardinia and Corsica.[5][9]

The water pipit is predominantly a mountain species in the breeding season, found in alpine pasture and high meadows with short grass and some bushes or rocks. It is typically found close to wetter areas and often on slopes. It breeds between 615–3,200 metres (2,018–10,499 ft), mostly 1,400–2,500 metres (4,600–8,200 ft). It migrates in autumn further south or to lower altitudes, typically wintering on coastal wetlands, marshes, rice fields and similar habitats. Although mostly in lowlands, some birds may remain at up to 2,000 metres (6,600 ft).[5]

The water pipit is mainly a short-distance migrant, sometimes just moving to lower altitudes. Nominate A. s. spinoletta winters mainly in western and southern Europe and in northwestern Africa; in western Europe some birds show fidelity to the same wintering site in each year.[5] Birds in Spain appear only to move lower down the mountains in which they breed.[13] A.s. coutellii winters at lower altitudes near its breeding areas and in the Arabian Peninsula and northeast Africa. A.s. blakistoni winters in Pakistan, northwest India and southern China.[5]

Water pipits leave their breeding sites from mid-September, although the eastern subspecies may start moving south before then. The spring migration starts in February and March, with arrival on the breeding grounds in April and May.[5]

Behaviour

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.[14]

Breeding

The water pipit is mainly monogamous, although both sexes may deviate from this occasionally. The male has a display flight in which he climbs to 10–30 metres (33–98 ft), flies in an arc and glides back down. The female constructs a cup nest from grass and leaves which is lined with finer plant material and animal hairs. The nest is hidden in vegetation on the ground, sometimes in a hollow. The normal clutch is four to six eggs laid from the end of April to early July.[5] The eggs are greyish white with darker grey or brownish speckles mainly at the wider end.[9]

The eggs are incubated by the female for 14–15 days to hatching. The chicks are fed initially by the male, both parents sharing the duty after a few days when the female does not need to brood the chicks so much. The chicks fledge in a further 14–15 days.[5]

Feeding

The water pipit's feeding habitat is damp grassland, rather than the rocky coasts favoured by the Eurasian rock pipit.[15] The water pipit feeds mainly on a wide range of invertebrates, including crickets and grasshoppers, beetles, snails, millipedes and spiders. barkflies, true flies, caterpillars and Homoptera can form a large part of the diet of fledglings. Birds close to snow fields took insects specialised for that habitat such as the springtails Isotoma saltans (the glacier flea) and I. nivalis, and the scorpion fly Boreus izyemalis.[13]

Birds normally forage alone or in pairs; in bad weather, foraging is more frequent and involves longer flights, and may be concentrated around marmot burrow entrances. Prey items average 8.3 millimetres (0.33 in) in length and are mainly hunted on foot, although flying insects are occasionally caught in the air.[5] Some plant material is taken, and one study on the border of Czechoslovakia and Poland found that 75% of the diet by volume consisted of algae, specifically Ulothrix zonata despite large numbers of insects being available.[13]

Predators and parasites

The water pipit is hunted by birds of prey including the Eleonora's falcon.[16] Eggs and young may be taken by terrestrial predators including stoats long-tailed weasels and snakes.[5] As with other members of its genus, the water pipt is a host of the common cuckoo, a brood parasite. Eggs of cuckoos that specialise in parasitising pipits are similar in appearance to those of their hosts.[17]

A new species of feather mite was discovered on the water pipit,[18] which is also a host to the fleas Ceratophyllus borealis and Dasypsyllus gallinulae.[19] Along with other Motacillidae species, the water pipit is a host of the protozoan parasite Haemoproteus anthi '.[20]

Status

Estimates of the European breeding population of the water pipit vary widely, but may be as high as two million pairs, which would suggest a global population of tens of millions of individuals spread over 3,670,000 square kilometres (1,420,000 sq mi).[1] The range is discontinuous due to the mountain habitat this species uses,[5] but the population is considered overall to be large and stable, and for this reason it is evaluated as a species of least concern by the IUCN.[1]

Breeding densities (in pairs per 10 ha) have been recorded as 2.4 in the Jura Mountains, 3.0 – 3.6 in the Alps and 4.5 in the Tatra Mountains of Poland.[5][lower-alpha 2]

Notes

  1. ↑ The parentheses show that the current genus name differs from that given originally
  2. ↑ The equivalents in pairs per 10 acres are 1.0, 1.2 – 1.5 and 1.8 respectively

References

  1. 1 2 3 BirdLife International (2012). "Anthus spinoletta". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
  2. ↑ del Hoyo, Josep; Elliott, Andrew; Sargatal, Jordi; Christie, David A.; de Juana, Eduardo, eds. (2013). "Family Motacillidae: Pipits and Wagtails". Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. Retrieved 29 September 2016. (subscription required (help)).
  3. 1 2 Per Alström & Krister Mild (1996). "The identification of Rock, Water and Buff-bellied Pipits". Alula. 2 (4): 161–175.
  4. 1 2 Voelker, Gary (1999). "Molecular evolutionary relationships in the Avian genus Anthus (Pipits: Motacillidae)" (PDF). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 11 (1): 84–94. doi:10.1006/mpev.1998.0555. PMID 10082613.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 del Hoyo, Josep; Elliott, Andrew; Sargatal, Jordi; Christie, David A.; de Juana, Eduardo, eds. (2013). "Water Pipit (Anthus spinoletta)". Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. Retrieved 25 November 2016. (subscription required (help)).
  6. ↑ Linnaeus, Carolus (1758). Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Tomus I. Editio decima, reformata (in Latin). Holmiae (Laurentii Salvii). p. 166.
  7. ↑ Bechstein, Johann Matthias (1805). Gemeinutzige Naturgeschichte Deutschland nach allen drey Reichen (in German). 1 (2 ed.). Leipzig (Siegfried Lebrecht Crusius). p. 247.
  8. ↑ Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London, United Kingdom: Christopher Helm. pp. 49, 362. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  9. 1 2 3 Simms, Eric (1992). British Larks, Pipits and Wagtails. New Naturalist. London: Harper Collins. pp. 166–175. ISBN 978-0-00-219870-7.
  10. ↑ Per Alström & Krister Mild (1987). Some notes on the taxonomy of the Water Pipit complex. Proceedings of the 4th International Identification Meeting. Eilat: International Birdwatching Center. pp. 47–48.
  11. ↑ V. V. Leonovich; G. V. Deminia & O. D. Veprintseva (1997). "On the taxonomy and phylogeny of pipits (Genus Anthus, Motacillidae, Aves) in Eurasia". Biulleten Moskovskogo obshchestva ispytatelei prirody. Otdel biologicheskii (in Russian). 102 (2): 14–22.
  12. 1 2 R. Bijlsma (1977). "Voorkomen en oecologie van Anthus spinoletta en A. s. littoralis in de uiterwaarden van de Rijn bij Wageningen". Limosa (in Dutch). 50: 127–136.
  13. 1 2 3 Cramp, Stanley, ed. (1988). Handbook of the birds of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa: the birds of the Western Palearctic. 5. Tyrant flycatchers to thrushes. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 393–493. ISBN 978-0-19-857508-5.
  14. ↑ A. A. Nazarenko (1978). "On species validity of Anthus rubescens Tunstall (Aves: Motacillidae)". Zoologicheskiy Zhurnal (in Russian). 57: 1743–1744.
  15. ↑ Harris, Alan; Vinicombe, Keith; Tucker, Laurel (1989). The Macmillan Field Guide to Bird Identification. Macmillan field guides. London: Macmillan. pp. 159–161. ISBN 978-0-333-42773-6.
  16. ↑ Walter, Harmut (1979). Eleonora's Falcon: Adaptations to Prey and Habitat in a Social Raptor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 372. ISBN 978-0-226-87229-2.
  17. ↑ Soler, Juan J; Vivaldi, Manuel Martín; Møller, Anders P (2009). "Geographic distribution of suitable hosts explains the evolution of specialized gentes in the European cuckoo Cuculus canorus". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 9 (88): 1–10. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-9-88.
  18. ↑ Černý, V (1982). "Proctophyllodes schwerinensis sp. n., eine neue Federmilbenart von Anthus spinoletta". Angealsowandte Parasitologie (in German). 23 (3): 158–159. PMID 7149334.
  19. ↑ "Distribution of British fleas: Rock pipit". Natural History Museum. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  20. ↑ Valkiunas, Gediminas (2004). Avian Malaria Parasites and other Haemosporidia. Boca Raton, Florida: CRC. p. 327. ISBN 978-0-415-30097-1.

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