The Tawny Pipit (Anthus campestris) is one of Sweden's rarest breeding birds, a large, sandy-beige pipit with a strikingly long tail and a composed, upright bearing that sets it apart from its smaller relatives. It measures 16–18 cm, clearly larger than both the Tree Pipit and the Meadow Pipit. The plumage is uniformly light sandy-beige above with only faint, diffuse streaking on the breast and a clear pale supercilium, while the belly is almost whitish and largely unstreaked; the legs are pale flesh-coloured, the sexes look alike, and juveniles resemble adults but with somewhat clearer streaking.
The male's song, delivered in a swaying display flight high overhead, is a metallic, repeated "tsirrlu-tsirrlu" or "tschip," quite unlike the more trilling songs of other Swedish pipits, with shorter, sharper calls used in alarm. In Sweden the species now breeds almost exclusively on Öland, concentrated on the alvar grassland south of Borgholm, where exposed limestone and low, sparse vegetation come closest to replicating its natural steppe and sandy heath habitats elsewhere in its range, which stretches from Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula east through the Middle East to Mongolia and China; European birds winter in the Sahel and savanna zones south of the Sahara. The Swedish population has collapsed since the mid-20th century as a result of scrub encroachment, reduced grazing and changing farming practices, and now stands at fewer than 50 breeding pairs, earning the species Endangered status on the national red list. It arrives in April or May and departs again in autumn, feeding mainly on insects and spiders picked up while striding across open ground, with small seeds added to the diet during migration. The nest, holding four or five eggs incubated for 13–14 days, is tucked into a natural hollow or beneath a small stone and hidden by tussock grass, with both parents feeding the chicks.
Read about this species in Swedish →