Blyth's Pipit vs Hellmayr's Pipit: How to Tell Them Apart

Blyth's Pipit

Anthus godlewskii

Small25 gRocky

Heard, Chris (1995) Unravelling the mystery Birdwatch 41:20-24 Page, Doug (1997) From the Rarities Committee's files: problems presented by a pale Blyth's Pipit British Birds 90(10):404-409

ID text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Recorded by Sonothèque ADVL · Call, flight call · Cabane Vauban (near Carolles), Manche, Normandie, France · CC0

Photo: Flickr user Stefan Johansson, cropped by Slaunger · CC BY 2.0

Hellmayr's pipit is about 14 to 16 cm (5.5 to 6.3 in) long. Subspecies A. h. brasilianus weighs 16.5 to 20 g (0.58 to 0.71 oz) The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies A. h. hellmayri have a pale buff head with a paler area around the eye. Their upperparts are pale buff with bold blackish brown streaks. Their wings are dusky with whitish edges on the primaries and tertials and buff edges on the secondaries. Their wing coverts have buff edges that show as two wing bars. Their tail is mostly dusky with mostly buffy white outermost feathers. Voice: Hellmayr's pipit sings from a perch, such as a shrub or fence post, and during the display flight. In Brazil its song is a "very/extr. high, short, hurried twitter ending in a nasal drawn-out note, together as tritfitwitweét-trutfutwuit-srèèh, given in 2-3 sec intervals".

ID text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: (c) RAP, some rights reserved (CC BY), uploaded by RAP · cc-by

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Photos and recordings are credited to their authors under the licence shown. Full profiles: Blyth's Pipit and Hellmayr's Pipit.