Callum Macgregor

A common wet grassland passerine, occurring in a variety of habitats, such as tundra, moorland and heathland, bogs, saltmarshes, dunes, coastal meadows, hillsides, forest clearings, fallow land, occasionally arable land. Sedentary in West Europe and the British Isles, but migratory in most of its range, from Iceland to Siberia. Winters in West Europe and all around the Mediterranean basin. Suffered strong population declines in the southern part of the range, because of agriculture intensification and climate change. Putative subspecies in the British Isles all synonymised with nominate.

Season of assessment

B

Population trendDecreasing
Population size
(min-max, best estimate)		22000000-29800000,25100000
Red List categoryLC
Franks, S., Fiedler, W., Arizaga, J., Jiguet, F., Nikolov, B., van der Jeugd, Ambrosini, R, Aizpurua, O., Bairlein, F., Clark, J., Fattorini, N, Hammond, M., Higgins, D, Levering, H., Skellorn, W., Spina, F, Thorup, K. Walker, J., Woodward, I. and Baillie, S.R. (1) (2022) Online Atlas of the movements of European bird populations. https://migrationatlas.org EURING/CMS (1) Principal investigator
Map

Overall Connectivity for Meadow Pipit

The wintering recoveries concern only the western part of the Mediterranean basin, from Italy westwards. The overall direction of migration is from the NE to the SW, except for populations of North-West Europe which move to the S or SE. The furthest North the breeding site, the longest the distance to the wintering grounds, e.g. birds from North Norway migrate to southern Spain, birds from southern Sweden move to West Europe. Despite the recent decline of the species, there is an increase of recovery numbers along the decades, with a notable increase in the 2000s, most being of intentional recaptures. The concentrations of recovery data in the wintering grounds indicate that the observed pattern is largely driven by ringing activities as a sample of active stations.

Recoveries by Condition for Meadow Pipit

Annual Movements for Meadow Pipit

There are many recoveries of North birds obtained in West Europe, along the Wadden Sea; most are obtained from early September to the end of October, with very few later in the winter, so concern birds on the move to more southward wintering destinations. Winter recoveries of these northern birds are mainly from southern Spain and North Africa (Tellería et al. 2014). In spring, most movements occur during April, while some late migrants can be observed until earl May.

Connectivity by Month by Region for Meadow Pipit

Most birds of the North-West region have finished the spring migration at the start of April, and will start to move to the continent in early September, leaving their northernmost breeding range (Scotland) during October. Mid-September marks also the start of the southward movements for birds of West, Central and North Europe, which will be on the move in October, and have all reached their wintering grounds after the first decade of November. In spring, most birds are back on the breeding grounds during the last decade of April.

Frédéric Jiguet

References

Statistics Map
N records N individuals N recoveries
Mapped data*
Total available data
*Mapped data include only distant (>= 50 km) recoveries