Overview

American Pipit: Small pipit, gray-brown upperparts and pale buff underparts; breast is faintly to darkly streaked. Tail is dark with white edges. Black bill is thin and long. Legs and feet are black. It can be distinguished from sparrows by its longer bill and habit of wagging its tail up and down.

Range and Habitat

American Pipit: Breeds from northern Alaska, Mackenzie, Canadian Arctic islands, and Newfoundland, south in mountains to California, New Mexico, and northern New Hampshire. Spends winters across the southern states and north to British Columbia and southern New England. Preferred habitats include Arctic and alpine tundra, beaches, barren fields, agricultural lands, and golf courses.

Topo Map: Perching-like Body

Listen to Call

Voice Text

"chee-chee-chee", "cheedal-cheedal-cheedal", "pip"

Interesting Facts

 The American Pipit was long known as the Water Pipit, a wide ranging species occurring from Great Britain, Europe and Asia, to North America. Recent studies have shown that the three North American subspecies, along with the most eastern Asiatic one, are best regarded as a distinct species.

 The absence of a breeding species of pipits in the open country of the eastern United States is due to the fact that until recently forests covered this area.

 They feed on the many insects on the edges of tundra puddles, and in alpine meadows they visit unmelted snowbanks. Warm air rising from valleys below transports many insects to high altitudes; most of these die and are frozen in snowbanks, providing food for the pipits.

 Global warming may allow these birds to winter farther north than previously, but it also may reduce and fragment existing breeding areas. Forest clearing has probably increased American Pipit migration and wintering habitat, but the draining and destruction of wetlands and livestock grazing have had negative impacts on these habitats.

Author

Gary Owen Dick

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