Subject: Pipit leg colour
Date: Sep 22 12:44:09 1994
From: Alvaro Patricio Jaramillo - jaramill at sfu.ca


Dear Motacillidophiles,

I just looked up Ben King's 1981 Am Birds article on pipits to check on the
leg colour question. He mentions that breeding _japonicus_ are darker on the
upperparts, browner and have pale brown legs. The pale leg colour is retained
during the non-breeding season. For the North American types he states that
the first fall birds are like the adults but browner, often tinged chocolate,
the underparts darker pinkish-buff and often has *** pale *** legs. From this
description it would seem that it may be quite difficult to ID a young
N. American bird from a _japonicus_ bird. Another problem is the lack of
info on young _japonicus_ pipits. At the moment I feel that we are best off
looking and doing a lot of note taking on pipits before we start calling
them as _japonicus_.

Al Jaramillo
jaramill at sfu.ca
Vancouver, B.C.