Water Pipit - Anthus spinoletta

Summer plumage: Forehead, crown and nape usually medium grey or brown-grey.  Crown very faintly streaked often looking plain.  Supercilium prominent; sharply defined whitish.  Ear-coverts same colour as crown/nape; moustachial either absent or very faint.  Eye-ring whitish, usually broken at least in front of the eye.  Upper throat usually whitish grading into pale brownish-pink.  Mantle and scapulars grey-brown when fresh, turning greyer when worn.  Mantle shows faint diffuse dark streaks.  Back and rump usually slightly warmer brown than mantle. Back and rump unmarked.  Wings dark grey-brown when fresh, paler and browner when worn.  Median and greater coverts usually diffuse pale tips forming two distinct wing-bars.  Breast, upper belly and upper flanks pale brownish-pink.  Streaking on breast and flanks variable but usually faint and even almost un-streaked.

In winter plumage base colour of forehead, crown, nape and ear-coverts brown or grey-brown.  Throat whitish, malar stripes dark grey-brown, varying from rather distinct to very poorly marked.  Base colour of upperparts generally a warmer brown, les greyish than in summer.  The base colour of the underparts is whitish, when fresh tinged yellow.  Breast and flanks distinctly streaked with slightly diffuse dark grey-brown streaks, which are usually medium large to rather large, but sometimes, particularly on flanks thin.

Rock Pipit and Buff-bellied Pipit.

Breeding habitat here is on cool levels or moderate slopes, clear of treeline, birds foraging in fine weather on short grass, but when wet rather on dwarf heath. Prefers moist or wet meadows with pools, watercourses, or snowmelt, or fresh or permanent snow cover. In winter to lower ground, or banks of mountain streams, occurring in spring on boggy lowlands with shrubs, sandy lowlands, and arable land, flooded or damp meadows, watercress beds, estuaries and seashores, including mudflats.

It is a scare but regular passage migrant and winter visitor to the UK being seen in all moths from September through to April.

Breeds in west Palearctic in middle and lower-middle latitudes at considerable elevations. Descends in winter to lower ground.

Scarce but regular winter visitor, primarily to eastern coastal sites but also inland.

Scarce passage and winter visitor; recorded in all months between October and April, with most in October, November and April. Only recognised as a distinct species from Rock Pipit in 1986 and consequently many earlier records probably reported as Rock Pipit.