Water Pipit

• It makes a very marked altitudinal migration: it breeds high in the mountains and comes down in winter to rice fields and marshes, sometimes to sea level.
• A 2013 study reconstructed its movements from a hundred years of ringing and recovery data.
• Its plumage changes markedly between summer and winter, which complicates identification in the field outside the breeding season.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat and environment

A fragmented breeding distribution across the mountain areas of central and southern Europe. It breeds on alpine pastures and high meadows with short grass and scattered rocks, shrubs or trees, almost always with damp patches and often on slopes. In winter it descends to coastal saltpans, lagoons, marshes, grassy lake and river margins, sewage works, watercress beds, rice fields and other irrigated crops

Sexual maturity

11.9 months

Gestation / incubation

14 days

Litter / clutch size

4

Sources consulted: IUCN Red List · Informe Art. 12 de la Directiva Aves (Agencia Europea de Medio Ambiente) · European Red List of Birds 2015 · Animalia.bio · Barišić 2013 (análisis de cien años de anillamiento) · Linnaeus 1758

Best time: Summer on alpine pastures; in winter it moves down to coastal wetlands and rice fields