Buff-Bellied Pipit
Anthus rubescens
Also known as: American Pipit
Habitat
Ground
Diet
Invertebrate
Active Time
Diurnal
Size
21 g
About This Species
A slim, streaky ground bird with a habit of constantly bobbing its tail, it favours open coastal shorelines, plowed fields, tundra and short grassland depending on season, walking briskly rather than hopping as it picks at invertebrates. It breeds on Arctic and alpine tundra in summer and disperses to lowland fields, beaches and wetland margins in winter, when it is most accessible to observers. Scan open, low vegetation at ground level and listen for a thin, high call given in short flight.
Ethical Viewing Guidelines
- As a ground forager in open habitat, it is easily flushed from feeding areas, so approaching slowly, staying on paths, and watching from a stationary position rather than walking directly at a feeding bird reduces unnecessary energy loss, especially in winter.
- Wild bird protections apply across most of its range in North America and Eurasia, but the specific rules and enforcement differ by country, so no single distance or statute should be assumed to apply everywhere.
- Keeping dogs leashed on beaches and fields where it forages is a simple, broadly applicable way to limit disturbance.
Seasonal Activity
1,221,946 sightings · 2000–2026
Citizen science records via GBIF
Classification
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Motacillidae
Traits
- Diet
- Invertebrate
- Foraging
- Ground
- Activity
- Diurnal
- Body mass
- 21 g
Photo
(c) Greg Lasley, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Greg Lasley
CC-BY-NC-4.0
Occurrence data from GBIF.