Callum Macgregor

Two species reported under this section. Water Pipit (A. spinoletta) breeds in alpine grasslands from Cantabria to Balkans and western Turkey (ssp. spinoletta), and winter at lower altitudes at mid latitudes across Europe. Rock Pipit (A. petrosus) is resident on breeding sites along coasts of West and North-West Europe (ssp. petrosus) and Scandinavia (ssp. littoralis), with some migratory movements to southern coasts. Rock pipits from Faroes and northern Scottish islands attributed to a different subspecies named kleinschmidti.

Season of assessment

B

Population trendDecreasing
Population size
(min-max, best estimate)		2100000-5280000,3110000
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 Rock/Water Pipit

By structure, the recovery data separated by region allow to illustrate separately the migratory connectivity of all three taxa, namely spinoletta (West, Central and South-Central data), petrosus (North-West data) and littoralis (North and some West data).

Water Pipit (spinoletta) ringed in the Alps and Central Europe move to a range of directions, from W to SE, to winter in France, Iberia or Italy.

Rock Pipit. North-western petrosus do not move far from their breeding grounds. Northern littoralis move to the S-SW to winter mainly along the eastern coasts of the British Isles, the North Sea continental coasts and the Atlantic coasts of France and Spain. Birds ringed on Fair Isle (kleinschmidti) from April to August amove to the S-SW and are recovered on mainland Scotland in winter.

Recoveries by Condition for Rock/Water Pipit

The development of colour ringing at the end of the 1990s increased dramatically the number of recoveries and simultaneously the proportion of live recoveries, while old re-encounters were mainly of dead birds (two third before 1960, shifting to 1% after 1990).

Annual Movements for Rock/Water Pipit

Water Pipit. In Ukraine, the autumn migration peak occurs in the second half of September (Dubovyk et al. 2020). Actively migrating spinoletta ringed in the Czech Republic in September move to the S or SW to winter between Greece and Spain.

Rock Pipit. North birds (littoralis) arrive in France at the end of September, and in Spain by mid-October, illustrating the progress of the fall migratory movements. In spring, the last recoveries on the Atlantic coast of France are from the first decade of March, and last sightings in Scotland are from the first week of April.

Connectivity by Month by Region for Rock/Water Pipit

Water pipits (spinoletta) from South-West and South-Central Europe do not leave their regions in winter. Those from Central Europe are recovered along Mediterranean wintering sites from mid-September to the end of February.

Rock Pipit. North-Western petrosus from the British Isles hardly move to the continent. In the North, littoralis have all returned to the breeding grounds by early May, and the first southward movement are noted in the first decade of September, while the northernmost breeding sites are empty by the end of September. There are however winter recoveries in southern Scandinavia. Wintering sites in the South-West are occupied from October to February.

Frédéric Jiguet

References

Statistics Map
N records N individuals N recoveries
Mapped data*
Total available data
*Mapped data include only distant (>= 50 km) recoveries
References Map
Dubovyk, O., Bokotey, A., Pokrytiuk, L., Bodnar, V., Strus, Y., & Ruchko, O.2020 . Autumn migration of birds over Polonyna Borzhava (Ukrainian Carpathians). Zoodiversity 54 Link to Article (DOI: https://doi.org/10.15407/zoo2020.01.043)

Back to Analysis