AMERICAN PIPIT 25 



ANTHUS SPINOLETTA RUBESCENS (Tunstall) 



AMERICAN PIPIT 



HABITS 



The pipit, apparently a frail but really a hardy bird, seeks its sum- 

 mer home in regions that would seem to us most unattractive and 

 forbidding, among the moss-covered, rocky hills on the bleak coast 

 of Labrador, along the Arctic tundra to northern Alaska, up to 70° 

 on the west coast of Greenland, and then far southward in the Rocky 

 Mountains to Colorado and New Mexico, where it breeds only above 

 tree limits on the wind-swept mountaintops. In the far north and 

 in Labrador it breeds on low hills not far above sea level, but in the 

 mountains its summer haunts become gradually higher as the tree 

 limit rises; on Mount McKinley, Alaska, it breeds from 4,000 to 5,000 

 feet altitude, in Oregon it is recorded as breeding above 8,500 feet, 

 in Wyoming above 11,000, in Colorado above 12,000, and in New 

 Mexico, at the southern limit of its breeding range, we may find it 

 above 13,000 feet. 



On the Labrador coast we found pipits veiy common all along the 

 coastal strip from Battle Harbor to Cape Mugford, on most of the 

 rocky islands and on the inland hilltops above tree growth. In that 

 region the only tree gi'owth is found in the sheltered hollows back 

 from the coast and in the inland valleys. Elsewhere the coastal strip 

 is mostly bare rock, with a luxuriant growth of reindeer moss, other 

 mosses and lichens clothing the hollows; in the more sheltered places 

 a few small shrubs and dwarfed deciduous trees struggle for exist- 

 ence. Insect life is abimdant here during the long days of the short 

 summer, so that the pipits have an ample food supply ; they seem to 

 thrive in even the most exposed places. 



Spi^ng. — The pipit, although abundant in fall, seems to avoid New 

 England to a large extent on the spring migi-ation, for it is compara- 

 tively rare and quite irregular here at that season. Its northward 

 migration seems tx) be mainly west of the Alleghenies. This point 

 is well illustrated in Milton B. Trautman's (1940) account of the 

 migration at Buckeye Lake, Ohio. "The first migrating American 

 Pipits," he says, "arrived between March 1 and 25. Flocks of mod- 

 erate or large size, 15 to 500 birds, appeared to be dominant in spring, 

 and only during the very last part of migration were groups of less 

 than 10 birds often observed. The peak of migration occurred from 

 the last of March until mid-April. Then it was possible to record as 

 many as 800 individuals in a day. * * * Throughout spring the 

 species was found principally in recently plowed fields, in wheat fields 

 where the plants averaged less than 5 inches in height, in short-grass 

 pastures, and on the larger mud flats about 'sky ponds' or overflow 

 puddles." 



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