Strandpieper

Bestimmung

The European rock pipit is 16.5–17 centimetres (6.5–6.7 in) long and weighs 18–32.5 grams (0.63–1.15 oz). The nominate race has smoky-olive upperparts, weakly streaked with darker brown, and buff underparts, heavily marked with poorly defined brown streaks. The legs, bill and iris are dark brown or blackish, and there is a pale eye-ring. The sexes are alike; although males average slightly brighter than females, the overlap is complete and birds cannot be sexed on appearance or measurements. Immature birds resemble the adult, although they may sometimes be browner and more streaked above, looking superficially similar to meadow pipits.<p>Compared to the nominate form, A. p. kleinschmidti has slightly yellower, less olive, upperparts and brighter and yellower underparts between the breast streaking. A. p. littoralis may show pinkish underparts and a pale supercilium (eyebrow) in summer, thereby resembling the water pipit. Vagrant European rock pipits in winter are readily distinguishable from water pipits, but very difficult to assign to subspecies by appearance or measurements. The western populations are known to be nearly sedentary, so east of the Elbe basin vagrant Eurasian rock pipits are presumably mostly littoralis.<p>Adult European rock pipits have a complete moult in August–September, at which time juveniles replace their body and some wing covert feathers, giving them an appearance very like the adults. From late January to early March there is a partial moult and individually variable moult of some body and wing covert feathers, and sometimes the central tail feathers.<p>The European rock pipit is closely related to the water pipit and the meadow pipit, and is rather similar in appearance. Compared to the meadow pipit, the European rock pipit is darker, larger and longer-winged than its relative, and has dark, rather than pinkish-red, legs. The water pipit in winter plumage is also confusable with the European rock pipit, but has a strong supercilium and greyer upperparts; it is also typically much warier. The European rock pipit's dusky, rather than white, outer tail feathers are also a distinction from all its relatives. The habitats used by European rock and water pipits are completely separate in the breeding season, and there is little overlap even when birds are not nesting.<p>The European rock pipit's song is a sequence of about twenty tinkling cheepa notes followed by a rising series of thin gee calls, and finishing with a short trill. The shrill pseep flight call is intermediate between the soft sip sip sip of the meadow pipit and the water pipit's short, thin fist.

Taxonomie

The family Motacillidae consists of the wagtails, pipits and longclaws. The largest of these groups is the pipits in the genus Anthus, which are typically brown-plumaged terrestrial insectivores. Their similar appearances have led to taxonomic problems; the water pipit and the buff-bellied pipit were considered subspecies of the European rock pipit until they were separated by the British Ornithologists' Union in 1998. The European rock pipit is closely related to the meadow, red-throated and rosy pipits as well as its former subspecies.<p>The first formal description naming this species was by English naturalist George Montagu in 1798. It had previously been described in 1766 by Thomas Pennant, in the first edition of British Zoology, although he did not distinguish it from the common titlark (meadow pipit). It was first shown to be different from that species by John Walcott in the 1789 edition of his Synopsis of British Birds, in which he called it the sea lark. John Latham was the first to give the European rock pipit a scientific name, Alauda obscura in 1790, but the specimen he examined had been misidentified as to the species and was in fact a dusky lark. In the same year, Montagu, whom Latham had consulted about the bird, discovered the European rock pipit on the coast of South Wales, where it was known to some fishermen in the region as the "rock lark". He adopted that name for the species and gave it the scientific name Alauda petrosus.<p>The scientific name of the European rock pipit is from Latin. Anthus is the name given by Pliny the Elder to a small bird of grasslands, and the specific petrosus means "rocky", from petrus, "rock".<p>There are three recognised subspecies of the European rock pipit:<p>A. p. kleinschmidti is sometimes merged with the nominate form, A. p. petrosus. The suggested subspecies A. p. meinertzhageni on South Uist, A. p. hesperianus on the Isle of Arran, and A. p. ponens in northwestern France cannot be reliably separated from the nominate form. There is a geographical trend in appearance, with longer-billed, darker birds at the western end of the range, and shorter-billed, paler individuals in the east.

Wissenschaftlicher Name

Anthus petrosus

Autorität

(Montagu, 1798)

Ordnung

Passeriformes

Familie

Bachstelzen

Gattung

Anthus

Verbreitung und Lebensraum

The European rock pipit is almost entirely coastal, frequenting rocky areas typically below 100 metres (330 ft), although on St Kilda it breeds at up to 400 metres (1,300 ft). The European rock pipit is not troubled by wind or rain, although it avoids very exposed situations. It may occur further inland in winter or on migration.<p>The breeding range is temperate and Arctic Europe on western and Baltic Sea coasts, with a very small number sometimes nesting in Iceland. The nominate race is largely resident, with only limited movement. A. p. kleinschmidti, which nests on the Faroe Islands and the Scottish islands, may move to sandy beaches or inland to rivers and lakes in winter. A. p. littoralis is largely migratory, wintering on coasts from southern Scandinavia to southwest Europe, with a few reaching Morocco. Wanderers have reached Spitsbergen and the Canary Islands, but records in Europe away from the coast are rare. For example, a male shot at Dresden in 1894, now in the collection of the local State Museum of Zoology, is the sole specimen for Saxony.<p>Migratory populations leave their breeding grounds in September and October, returning from March onwards, although in the far north they may not arrive before May.

Zugverhalten

Vollzieher

Verhalten

Zugverhalten: Vollzieher.

Schutzstatus

Bestandstrend: stabil.

Bestandstrend

stabil