Water Pipit Anthus spinoletta

The breeding Water Pipit is paler than the Meadow and Tree Pipits, a greyish brown with defined supercilium and usually some streaks on the pale underside. It has a slim, black bill, black legs and looks similar to the Rock Pipit. It breeds in mountains of Southern Europe to Central Asia and winters in North Africa and south Asia. It is also a winter visitor to the southern UK.

It is surprising to think that the scruffy and exhausted parent with black legs above left is the same species as the well-fed, fleshy-pink-legged juvenile above centre and right.

More juvenile Water Pipits. All photos above were taken in summer by Alexandra Makhnina in Kazakhstan.

Photos in the above row and below were taken in winter by Elizabeth Barrett in England and show the non-breeding adult bird with streaky winter plumage and pinker legs, foraging by water.

The Water Pipit used to be classed as a subspecies of the coastal Rock Pipit. It was given its own species in 1998.