Hi Tweets,

Gail Spitler writes:

>Usually each spring and fall I get geared up to spot migrating American
>Pipits. This year I pulled out 5 different field guides (NG, Peterson,
>Stokes, ABC, and Golden) and compared the illustrations and the one photo.
>There all different enough from each other that I wonder if they are all
>looking at the same bird. Any comments?

There's age-related, sex-related and molt-related variation; the miracle is
that any two look alike. Richard E. Johnson of the Department of Zoology at
Washington State University wrote a fairly long and quite useful post which
covers the main points to this question in response to a similar query:

(snip)
>The short
>of it is that Peterson is correct and the Golden guide is wrong.

The Golden Guide wrong??!!!?? Film at eleven!!!!

>Birds seen
>on the summer,alpine breeding grounds usually are more buffy (or pink or
>orange) and have less dark streaking on the breast than the birds seen in
>winter (actually, after the postnuptial=prebasic molt, which is completed
>by mid-September). Summer birds also have grayer upperparts.
>
>After the postnuptial molt, upperparts are distinctly browner, underparts
>have heavier (wider) dark streaks, and the background color of the
>underparts averages whiter, less buffy, but there is much individual
>variation at all times of year. Newly fledged birds have even heavier
>streaks. Other good illustrations are the photos in the Audubon Society
>Master Guide to Birding, vol. 3 (1983): page 81 for breeding plumage and
>page 79 for fall (winter) plumage, the photos in the Stokes Western Field
>Guide (1996) page 390, and the two color plates in Ben King's 1981 article
>"The identification of North American pipits" in American Birds 35(5):
>778-788. Regarding the latter article, Ken Parkes' made some additional
>comments and refinements in 1982 in American Birds 36(1): 20-22.
>
>In summer, females on average have slightly heavier streaking than males
>(but not as heavy as the juveniles), but the range of variation is so great
>in each sex, with much overlap between the sexes, that the most that can be
>said is that those with no steaking are probably males and those with very
>heavy streaking are more likely to be females.
>
>There are also regional (subspecies) differences. Those in the Rocky Mtns
>(e.g. Glacier National Park, Montana; subspecies alticola) average more
>richly colored (ie. buffier, more orange) below with less heavy streaking
>on the breast than birds in the Cascades (subspecies pacificus) which are
>whiter beneath and quite heavily streaked.

An Asian race, japonicus, more vividly streaked and colored, is unlikely to
show up anywhere outside Alaska, but there may be one or two sneaking along
the coast in the southbound migration.

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
mprice at mindlink.net