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.