WHAT’S IN A NAME?

WATER PIPIT

The Water Pipit used to be regarded as conspecific with the Rock Pipit when many of us were learning our birdwatching skills. They are in many ways similar, but have quite different habitat preferences. While Rock Pipits are birds of rocky coasts, Water Pipits breed in mountainous, alpine slopes and high plains. So why are they ‘Water’ Pipits? This is because, outside the breeding season, they head downslope, to lowland areas, marshes, water-cress beds, flooded meadows and so on. These are the habitats we in the UK usually encounter Water Pipits in, when you would never guess that they were mountain breeders. They are scarce birds in the UK (mainly the south and east), with perhaps fewer than 200 wintering, but they are very shy and somewhat elusive, and can often be hard to see in their chosen habitat; so perhaps the population is an underestimate.