pipit

The pipit is one of the first species to officially recover — moving in 2021 into the category titled Least Concern.

Dufour and his team used computer models that estimate climate suitability for the pipits in Europe based on variables like temperature and precipitation.

So, Dufour, now at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and his team started monitoring the pipits in France and Spain to see where the birds were coming from, and if the birds were visiting Europe on purpose or just getting lost.

Since more than half of the birds in southern Europe and nearby northwestern Africa documented in the winter were adults, Dufour and his colleagues think that many of these pipits are seasonal migrants.

Of these I will only mention the blackcap, linnet, and tree-pipit.

My new-found friend (the feathered one, I mean) was the American pipit, which some years ago was known as the tit-lark.

In our climb up Gray's Peak we found the pipit realm and that of the white-crowned sparrows slightly overlapping.

I cannot find a similar case among British species to illustrate this point, unless it be that of the meadow- and rock-pipit.

And yet the tree-pipit is not very highly regarded among British melodists, on account of the little variety there is in its song.