Short-billed Pipit

About the Short-billed Pipit

The short-billed pipit (Anthus furcatus) is a species of bird in the family Motacillidae, the wagtails and pipits. It is found in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The short-billed pipit was described in 1837 with the binomial Anthus furcatus, and has retained that name ever since.

Most taxonomic systems treat the short-billed pipit as monotypic. They formerly included what is now the puna pipit (A. brevirostrus) as a subspecies but separated them following a study published in 2018. However, the independent South American Classification Committee retains the puna pipit as a subspecies of the short-billed.

The short-billed pipit is 14 to 14.5 cm (5.5 to 5.7 in) long and weighs about 20 g (0.71 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have a blackish brown head with a whitish supercilium, a whitish eye-ring, and a black "moustache". Their upperparts are blackish brown with buffy brown feather edges that give a scaled appearance. Their wings are dusky with thin white edges on the primaries, buffy edges on the secondaries and tertials, and buffy edges on the coverts that show as two wing bars. Their tail is mostly dusky with much... Wikipedia →