pipit

ON more than a few occasions lately meadow pipits have appeared on a nearby fence post to attract me away from their nesting area.

It is home to red and black grouse, skylarks, meadow pipits and mountain hares, along with plant species like heather and hare's tail cotton grass and deer grass.

| Among the summer migrants to arrive in North Wales this week are Tree Pipits, Common Sandpipers, White Wagtails, Redstarts and Pied Flycatchers, with more Sandwich Terns and Whimbrels around the coast.

These young cuckoos have concave backs which enable them to gather and tip out both the pipit eggs and the young pipits.

During each count, the same researcher walked slowly along the middle of the transect line combining regular stops and marking on a map the skylarks and meadow pipits observed within a 50 m range around the transect (Lokemoen & Beiser 1997, Ribic & Sample 2001).

And there is another documented case of a pair of eagles who specialised in raiding the nests of little meadow pipits. The eagles would seek out the nest sites by watching the parent pipits bringing in food before swooping down to pluck the wee fledglings out.

It also provides excellent habitat for other bird species, the meadow pipits and dunnocks, both of which become unsuspecting foster parents to cuckoo eggs.

@localhero01: A spectacular morning on Conwy Mountain, lots of pipits about & a majestic red kite above.

Published records of Hellmayr's Pipits for the Espinhaco Range are restricted to its southern portion, specifically to the Serra do Cipo (centered at 19[grados]17'S, 43[grados]36'W, l100-1450masl; Willis and Oniki, 1991; Melo-Junior et al., 2001; Ribon et al., 2007) and Serra do Caraca (20[grados]05'S, 43[grados]28'W, 1650masl; Vasconcelos, 2001).

My own experience is that on the moors there are plenty of meadow pipits (and of course young grouse), but almost no hen harriers.

Thrushes and pipits move through the site and breeding birds such as lapwing and skylark patrol their territories in the dunes.