All species › Passerines › Wagtails and pipits › Olive-Backed Pipit
Olive-Backed Pipit | Anthus hodgsoni
Siberische boompieper | Bisbita de Hodgson
The Olive-backed Pipit is an Asian relative of Tree Pipit that winters in small numbers in parks and well-wooded gardens of eastern Arabia. In the rest of the region it is a rare vagrant.
Voice
The call is a thin, hoarse tseez, very like that of Tree Pipit but slightly finer and less rough. It does not sing in the region.
Recording: Kjell Wallin — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
14–15 cm. Slightly smaller than Tree Pipit and similar in structure. Greenish olive above with only very faint streaks on the mantle. The head pattern is decisive: a broad supercilium that is buff in front of the eye and white behind it, bordered above by a dark lateral crown stripe, and at the rear of the ear coverts a small white spot with a black spot below it. The breast is warm buff with heavy black streaks that continue along the flanks; the belly is white. It pumps its tail constantly.
Confusion species
Tree Pipit (Anthus trivialis) is browner and more clearly streaked above, with a weaker supercilium lacking the sharp contrast before and behind the eye, no white and black spot on the ear coverts, and finer flank streaks. Meadow Pipit (Anthus pratensis) is browner and heavily streaked on the back, with a long hind claw and a thin ist call. Red-throated Pipit (Anthus cervinus) has heavily streaked upperparts with pale braces.
Habitat
Shaded lawns under trees in parks, gardens and orchards, golf courses and plantations; it feeds on the ground and flies up into a tree when disturbed.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the habitats of North Africa and the Middle East.
Range and movements
A scarce but annual winter visitor to the United Arab Emirates (among other places in parks in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Al Ain) and northern Oman; rare in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and eastern Saudi Arabia. A rare vagrant to Israel, Egypt and north-west Africa. Breeds from northern Russia and Siberia to Japan and in the Himalayas, and winters in India, southern China and South-East Asia.
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Look for it from November to March in quiet, shaded parks with lawns in Abu Dhabi, Dubai or Al Ain, early in the morning. A pipit walking on the ground and pumping its tail constantly, which flies into a tree with a thin tseez when disturbed, deserves a good look at the head.
Conservation status
Not globally threatened and common in its vast breeding range. In the region a scarce winter visitor at the western edge of its wintering range.
Scientific name
Anthus hodgsoni | Richmond, 1907
Richmond described the species in 1907 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Anthus was introduced in 1805 by Bechstein. Anthus is the Latin word for a small bird of grasslands mentioned by Pliny the Elder. hodgsoni honours the British diplomat and collector Brian Houghton Hodgson (1801–1894), who served as Resident in Nepal. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bengal.