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Olive-backed Pipit

Anthus hodgsoniOrder: PASSERIFORMESFamily: Wagtails and Pipits (Motacillidae)

Olive-backed Pipit Breeding Male Portrait
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General

Olive-backed Pipit: Medium-sized pipit with finely streaked, olive-green upperparts. Underparts are white on chin, belly and undertail coverts, and pale brown with bold dark streaks on sides and breast. Eyebrow is buff-orange in front and white behind eye. Sexes are similar.

Range and Habitat

Olive-backed Pipit: Native to Eurasia, but sometimes strays to islands off the west coast of Alaska. Prefers open grassy areas and hills, especially along rivers and bogs, and spruce-fir forests.

Voice Text

"seep-seep-sia-sia", "tsee"

Interesting Facts

 The Olive-backed Pipit is also called the Indian or Hodgson's, Tree Pipit, owing to the resemblance with the Tree Pipit.



Author

Gary Owen Dick

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Range Map for Olive-backed Pipit
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Bird Call Credits: The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Martyn Stewart, http://www.naturesound.org, Redmond, Washington USA. The reuse or copying of bird calls in this database is strictly forbidden.
Family Wagtails and Pipits (Motacillidae)_blue
Species Anthus hodgsoni
Length6 - 7.6 Inches
Wingspan10.2 Inches

Olive-backed Pipit

Olive-backed Pipit: Medium-sized pipit with finely streaked, olive-green upperparts. White underparts, chin, belly and undertail coverts. The sides and breast are pale brown with bold dark streaks. The eyebrow is buff-orange in front and white behind eye. The legs and feet are pink.

● Song: "seep-seep-sia-sia", "tsee"

● Foraging & Feeding: Olive-backed Pipit: Eats mainly insects, but takes some seeds, especially outside the nesting season; forages on the ground or in low trees, often working wet areas and shorelines of rivers, streams, lakes, and bogs.

● Breeding & nesting: Olive-backed Pipit: Four or five light violet or gray eggs with dark blotches are laid in a bulky nest made of dried grass, hair, and moss, and built on the ground, sheltered by a bush or beside a grassy tussock. Incubation ranges from 12 to 13 days and is carried out by the female.

● Similar species: Olive-backed Pipit: Pechora Pipit is smaller, stockier, whiter on underparts, has paired white streaks on back and black-streaked brown upperparts. Tree Pipit has more heavily streaked and browner back, and more distinct head pattern.

Flight Pattern

Fairly rapid wing beats in a series, alternating with wings pulled to sides.
Olive-backed Pipit Breeding Male Body Illustration
● Range & Habitat: Olive-backed Pipit: Native to Eurasia, but sometimes strays to islands off the west coast of Alaska. Prefers open grassy areas and hills, especially along rivers and bogs, and spruce-fir forests.
BreedingMonogamous, Solitary nester
PopulationCasual to accidental in AK, Accidental in CA & NV
MigrationMigratory
Weight0.7 Ounces