Tree Pipit

Anthus trivialis

This is one of the trickier species. Tree Pipits and Meadow Pipits look much alike, and can be found in some of the same places - especially the more open woodland on hillsides and upland areas, and on the edge of heathland and moorland.

Like Meadow Pipit, Tree Pipit has an interesting display flight that’s often delivered at the same time as their song. The differences between these aerial routines and the sounds that accompany them can be the best way to confirm which pipit you’ve got.

To begin with, the song is stronger, more varied and more flutey than the Meadow Pipit.

As in the Redstart song, parts of the Tree Pipit’s song sound very like the Chaffinch. But after those notes, towards the end of the song, there’s a distinctive ‘ soo-eeep, sooeep, sooeep’ phrase.

This can be repeated two, three or many times, and become quite drawn out. It reminds me of a ray gun.

Their song flight tends to start from a higher perch than a meadow pipit (which will often start from the ground or a low bush). Again it climbs steeply into the air, and parachutes downwards in a big arc. But again unlike the Meadow Pipit, it will usually come to rest back on a high perch, not the ground.

Tree Pipits also sing while perched, and again this generally at the top of a tree or a very high branch.

Despite looking and sometimes behaving rather similarly, Tree Pipits have evolved a rather different lifestyle to Meadow Pipits, in that all of the birds that spend the summer with us migrate to Africa for the winter.

They arrive back from mid-April, and provide a good challenge for our ID skills on their breeding grounds through until July. Then they pass back south, mainly unseen, in August and September.

Tree Pipit image by Martien Brand via Flickr reproduced under Creative Commons licence CC BY 2.0