The Meadow Pipit (Anthus pratensis) is one of the most numerous birds of open ground across northern Europe, breeding from southeastern Greenland through Scandinavia to western Siberia. It is a small, slender songbird, 14–15 cm long with a 22–25 cm wingspan and a weight of 15–22 grams, discreetly patterned in olive-brown and beige with clear dark streaking on the upperparts and breast. The legs are pale pinkish-brown and the outer tail feathers white, flashing clearly whenever the bird flies up, and it is overall paler, greyer and less heavily built than the closely related Tree Pipit. On the ground it moves with quick, cautious steps and a characteristic wagging of the tail.
Its most striking behaviour is the song flight: the bird climbs steeply while singing an accelerating "tsit-tsit-tsit", then parachutes back down on stiff, outstretched wings as the song shifts into a ringing "tsuii-tsuii-tsuii" — an adaptation to a treeless landscape where fixed song posts are scarce. The call is a thin, piping "ist-ist-ist". The Meadow Pipit breeds throughout Sweden, from coastal meadows and farmland in the south to mires and mountain heath in the north, with a population estimated at one to one-and-a-half million pairs, making it one of the country's commoner birds. As a short-distance migrant it arrives mostly in April and departs in September–October, though some individuals linger into winter along mild southern coasts. The nest is built well hidden on the ground, often tucked into a grass tuft or under a bush; the female lays 4–5 eggs, incubated for about 13 days, and the young leave the nest after just over two weeks, often before they can fly. A pair can raise two broods in a good summer. The diet is mainly insects, spiders and other small invertebrates picked from the ground and low vegetation, supplemented with small seeds in autumn and winter.
Read about this species in Swedish →