American pipit Anthus rubescens

Identification Tips:

• Length: 5.5 inches
• Slender bill
• White eye ring and supercilium
• White throat with dark malar streak
• Brownish-olive upperparts with fine black streaks on back
• Wings blackish with broad buffy edges
• Buffy underparts with dark streaking across breast and onto flanks
• Black tail with white outer tail feathers
• Dark legs
• In Spring and Summer, less heavily streaked below and upperparts grayer
• Sexes similar
• Wags its tail
• Often found in flocks on the ground in sparsely vegetated areas (plowed fields, shores, tundra)

Similar species:

The American Pipit is similar to the Sprague's Pipit but the Sprague's Pipit has much less streaking on the underparts, more streaking on the back, a paler face, and pink legs. The rare Red-throated Pipit (breeds in Alaska and rare migrant in California) has a different call and pink legs. Sparrows and longspurs can be found in similar habitats but have thick, conical bills.

Length and wingspan from: Robbins, C.S., Bruun, B., Zim, H.S., (1966). Birds of North America. New York: Western Publishing Company, Inc.