The Status and Occurrence of Siberian Pipit (Anthus japonicus) in British Columbia. Published: December 9, 2024. By Rick Toochin.

The Siberian Pipit (Anthus japonicus) is a small passerine that was recently split from the American Pipit (Anthus rubescens) in 2024 (Clements et al. 2024, Retter 2024). The breeding range of this species is not clearly understood with large gaps in our current knowledge (Alström and Mild 2003, Tyler 2004, Doniol-Valcroze et al. 2023, BirdLife International 2024). The Siberian Pipit breeds in rocky alpine and subalpine tundra across much of the eastern third of Russia, with most birds nesting from the east coast of Russia, and nearby islands, west to the Verkhoyansk Range and northernmost Mongolia not far southwest of Lake Baikal (Dement’ev and Gladkov 1954). Additionally, there are isolated, or possibly isolated, populations on the Taimyr Peninsula and the southern Central Siberian Plains (Dement’ev and Gladkov 1954, Mlodinow et al. 2024). The western border of the breeding range extends from the northwestern Verkhoyansk Range, just east of the Lena River estuary, south to Yakutsk and then southwest to the eastern Sayan and northern Khanghai Mountains of northernmost Mongolia, south and southwest of Lake Baikal (Dement’ev and Gladkov 1954, Mlodinow et al. 2024). The southern border extends from the eastern Sayan and northernmost Khanghai Mountains east through the Yablonoviy Range; including northernmost Mongolia, and northwestern China (northeastern Inner Mongolia and the Heilongjiang Province) to Khabarovsk and then south through Primorski Krai, including Vladivostok (Dement’ev and Gladkov 1954, Tyler 2004, Mlodinow et al. 2024). The northern boundary is formed by the northern edge of the continent, except where the coastal plains are extensive west of the Chukotka Mountains and north of the Chersky Range (Dement’ev and Gladkov 1954, Brazil 2009, Mlodinow et al. 2024). The Siberian Pipit also breeds on Sakhalin Island, the Kurile Islands south to Urupu Island, and the Commander Islands (Dement’ev and Gladkov 1954, Brazil 2009, Mlodinow et al. 2024). An isolated population breeds on the southeastern Taimyr Peninsula and northwestern Central Siberian Plateau, and a potentially isolated population breeds in the southern Central Siberian Plains east and northeast of the Tobolsk, which is near the confluence of the Irtysh and Tobol Rivers (Alström and Mild 2003, Mlodinow et al. 2024). This latter population may connect to the primary breeding range via the Sayan Mountains (Mlodinow et al. 2024).

 

It has been suggested that the Siberian Pipit may also breed in the Bering Sea (Alström and Mild 2003), but there appears to be no evidence (Gibson and Kessel 1997, Gibson and Byrd 2007, Lehman 2019).

The Siberian Pipit is a migratory species that uses grasslands, fields, wetland and woodland edges during migration and in the winter (Brazil 2009). This species winters in Japan from central Honshu Island south, rarely north to Hokkaido Island, on most of the Korean Peninsula, across China south on a line extending from Beijing to northern Yunnan Province, on Taiwan, and from Hong Kong east through northern Myanmar, Bhutan, Nepal, and northern India, south to northern Uttar Pradesh and northern Rajasthan, to northern Pakistan (Alström and Mild 2003, Grimmett et al. 1999, Carey et al. 2001, Brazil 2009, Poonia et al. 2014,  BirdLife International 2024, e-bird database 2024). Small numbers also occur regularly in the Middle East, primarily in southeastern Türkiye and Israel, as well as along the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula from Kuwait to northern Oman, with smaller numbers elsewhere in Türkiye and in Cyprus, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Iran (Shirihai 1996, Kirwan et al. 2014, Porter et al. 2024, e-bird database  2024).

The Siberian Pipit occurs as a vagrant in Europe with records scattered throughout the region with many having been over wintering birds (e-bird database 2024). Other scattered records come from southeastern Kazakhstan with 14 records, 3 from April 2-24, 10 from October 5–21, and one from December 22; far eastern Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan west to Azerbaijan with about 32 records, 25 from October 12–November 24; 5 from February 22–April 10;  and 2 in mid-winter; and from Georgia (Wassink 2010, e-bird database 2024) which likely delineate the westernmost edge of the species' migration routes.

 

There are a few records of the Siberian Pipit south of its usual nonbreeding range. These include four from northern Vietnam, including two records near Hanoi (March 2007 and January 2024) and two records from Lai Chau (November 2020 and December 2023) (Pilgrim et al. 2009, e-bird database 2024), two from Thailand, both from Chiang Mai Province, one on December 30, 2007 (e-bird database 2024, Mlodinow et al. 2024) and one on December 10, 2019 (e-bird database 2024, Mlodinow et al. 2024), and two from the northernmost islands of the Philippines, with one on Itbayat Island, February 1, 2024  (e-bird database 2024) and one on Batan Island, November 11, 2019 (e-bird database 2024). The southernmost records from India all come from Gujarat in January 2017, when several individuals were scattered across three or more locations (Ganpule 2017, e-bird database 2024). Egypt has at least three records involving seven birds, all from the Sinai Peninsula, including two from November–December 2005, three together in January 2009, and one from December 2010–January 2011 (Harrison 2013, Jiguet et al. 2014, Jiguet et al. 2018). There are also two records from islands well out in the Pacific Ocean: one from Iwo Jima (American Ornithologists' Union 1989).) and one from Kure Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands on October 25, 1963 (Pyle and Pyle 2017).

 

In North America, it is a regular vagrant to islands in the Bering Sea, which is not entirely surprising, as many of these islands are due south, or nearly so, of the Siberian Pipit's breeding range. The closest such location is Gambell on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, which is only 73 km from the Russian mainland. Gambell has approximately 11 spring records, May 26–June 8 (with the important caution that confident identification at this season may not be possible), but during fall it is regular there (typically 5–15 annually), mostly in September, but with dates spanning August 10 and October 9 (Lehman 2019). To the south, on the Pribilof Islands, it is almost annual during fall, predominantly from mid-September through mid-October, but has been recorded once during spring, June 1-2, 2018 (e-bird database 2024). The Siberian Pipit is also a rare but regular visitor to the western Aleutian Islands in spring during the month of May and predominantly in the month of September during the fall (Gibson and Byrd 2007). 

 

South of Alaska, the Siberian Pipit is currently a casual to accidental migrant vagrant with a scattering of records.  There are photographed records for British Columbia (Toochin and Cecile 2024), one from Washington, one from Oregon, one from northern California, 15 from Central California, and approximately 18 from southern California (e-bird database 2024). Almost all records down the west coast come from coastal or near-coastal sites with single records coming Abbotsford in British Columbia, Multnomah County in Oregon and another from San Joaquin County in California (Toochin and Cecile 2024, e-bird database 2024). 

 

The Siberian Pipit has been found as a vagrant in Mexico with scattered coastal records south to the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula, plus exceptional records from the Mexican states of Colima and Sonora.

 

Records in Mexico are mostly from the Pacific coastal region where there are four records from the state of Baja California, all from October, and four records from Baja California Sur, three of which were from January and one from October (Erickson et al. 2013, e-bird database 2024). There are two other exceptional records from Mexico: one far to the south in coastal Colima, February 24, 2018 (e-bird database 2024) and one inland specimen record collected on June 6 (no date given) in northernmost Sonora (Phillips 1991). 

 

Notably, records south of Alaska fit a vagrancy pattern that is similar to that of the Red-throated Pipit (Anthus cervinus) (Mlodinow and O’Brien 1996), and these records tend to coincide (both in date and location) with influxes of the Red-throated Pipit (Mlodinow and O’Brien 1996, Lee and Birch 2002, Mlodinow et al. 2024). This is also true for records from the Baja California Peninsula (e-bird database 2024). It is likely that both species occur on the west coast of North America when individuals programmed for mirror-image misorientation (De Sante 1973, Berthold 1993, Lees and Gilroy 2021) depart from the Russian Far East headed (more or less) southeast and encounter favorable tailwinds that allow them to reach land in North America. Such mirror-image misorientation would lead most birds to land from central California, south, consistent with the pattern noted above (Mlodinow et al. 2024).

 

The Siberian Pipit was formerly lumped with American Pipit and shown as a subspecies in most standard field guides. This species is small measuring 15-17 cm in length, weight 21 grams.

There are many species of pipits in Eurasia that look like the Siberian Pipit but that is out of the scope of this article. The focus of this section will be on the separation of Siberian Pipit from American Pipit.  For more in depth reading on separating the various Asiatic pipits please read Alström and Mild (2003), Mullarney and Zetterstrom (2009), and Mlodinow et al. (2024).  

 

The following descriptions are taken from Alström and Mild (2003) and Brazil (2009). 

 

The Siberian Pipit is a rather drab, grey-brown pipit, lacking any distinguishing features. The face is weakly marked, with a pale supercilium, plain pale lores, cream chin/throat with a prominent black malar forming a black neck mark and merging with the breast and flanks streaks. The upperparts are dull, indistinctly streaked, the underparts are buffy with variable streaking from the breast to flanks. Adults in breeding plumage are orange-buff or pale rufous-cinnamon below, with lighter black streaking; the upper parts are grey-brown. 

The best plumage for distinguishing the Siberian Pipit when birds are in winter plumage (Mlodinow et al. 2024). In winter plumage most Siberian Pipits are easily told from American Pipits. The breast and flanks show considerably larger, blacker and more clearcut streaks on Siberian. The breast streaking also tends to reach further down, and the streaks often merge on the uppermost breast to form a dark ‘necklace’. However, there is much individual variation in the prominence of the breast streaking on both Siberian and, American Pipits. Some Siberian Pipits have unusually few and small streaks on the breast, and some birds have thin streaks on the flanks. Conversely, some American Pipits have rather blackish streaks, especially when worn (although in a close scrutiny the streaks are almost invariably marginally more diffuse on American than on Siberian). The malar patch is distinctly larger, blacker and more triangular in shape on Siberian than on American Pipit. The base colour below is pale buffish when fresh but quickly fades too whitish. It is never so warm brownish-buff as on a typical American Pipit, but some American Pipits (mainly north-western populations, ‘pacificus') appear whitish in the field also when fresh, and most American Pipits turn whitish when worn. The dark streaks on the mantle are generally slightly darker and better defined on Siberian Pipit than on American Pipit, but this is only evident in worn plumage, as Siberian often looks nearly plain when fresh owing to broad grey-brown feather tips. In worn plumage Siberian often shows paler stripes on the sides of the mantle, which is only very rarely the case on American Pipit. The pale tips to the median coverts are pale brownish when fresh, but almost invariably appear whitish at least after mid-October, and the dark centres are rather clear-cut (also on retained juvenile feathers). The greater coverts also usually show rather clear-cut whitish tips, at least from mid-October (on average slightly less white than the median coverts). In contrast, the pale tips to the median and greater coverts on American Pipits are nearly always pale brownish, also when worn (only rarely whitish), and they are usually more diffuse, especially on the greater coverts (difference in pattern of median coverts was first pointed out by Lee (2000). Although the vast majority of Siberian Pipits are easily told from American Pipits, some individuals, especially

in worn plumage, are probably not safely separable.

 

In General winter plumaged Siberian Pipits are browner above with dark streaking, the underparts are whiter with much heavier black streaking and more distinct lateral throat-stripe; In winter Siberian Pipit has stronger, darker streaking on the underparts than American Pipit.  Siberian Pipitaverages slightly darker above, more heavily streaked below, with a bolder dark malar, and brighter, fleshier legs. The bill is blackish-brown, grey-tipped, horn-coloured base with dark brown eyes. The tarsi is dull, pale yellowish-pink on Siberian Pipit and dark blackish-brown on American Pipit. 

 

The calls are a sharp clear pit: pi-pit or a squeaky tseep or speep-eep, sometimes rapidly repeated, si-si-si-si-sif. The Song is given in flight or from a perch, is a prolonged series of high notes given in discrete phrases treeu-treeu-treeu, pleetrr pleetrr pleetrr, chwee-chwee, tsip-tsip-tsiru.

 

With the recent split of Siberian Pipit and American Pipit in 2024, the Siberian Pipit is added to the avifauna of British Columbia as an accidental migrant vagrant species. There are only 5 Provincial records, of which 4 are photographed (Toochin and Cecile 2024, see Table 1).  These records were predominantly from mid–October through mid–November, though two winter records and no spring records (Toochin and Cecile 2024, See Table 1). Ther first record for British Columbia was a bird found and photographed by Keith Taylor in Victoria on October 21, 2008 (Toochin and Cecile 2024, See Table 1). The second record for the province was of a bird found and photographed by Guy Monty at Qualicum Beach on December 16, 2008 (Toochin and Cecile 2024, See Table 1). Photographs of that bird can be viewed at https://ebird.org/checklist/S150010607.  The third provincial record was a bird found and photographed by Peter Hamel at Margo Herane at the Sandspit Airport on January 20, 2014 (Toochin and Cecile 2024, See Table 1). The fourth provincial record was a bird found (photographed with poor distant quality images) with a fall plumaged Red-throated Pipit amongst several American Pipits by Rick Toochin along Dixon Road at the turf farm in Sumas Prairie on October 27, 2014 (Toochin and Cecile 2024, See Table 1). The fifth provincial record was a bird found and photographed by Adrian Dorst at Long Beach in Pacific Rim National Park on October 23, 2029 (Toochin and Cecile 2024, See Table 1).  As more people become familiar with this species it is likely records will increase in the future. It is vital to scrutinize pipit flocks in the fall from October to early December. This species is likely to turn up anywhere that American Pipits are found so keen observers should be on the look out for them as they are very likely to be found in the future.

 

1.(1) adult fall plumage October 21, 2008: Keith Taylor (photo) Victoria (Toochin and Cecile 2024)

2.(1) adult winter plumage December 16, 2008: Guy Monty (photo) near viewing tower, Qualicum Beach (Toochin and Cecile 2024) 

3.(1) adult winter plumage January 20, 2014: Peter Hamel, Margo Hearne (photo) Sandspit Airport (Toochin and Cecile 2024)

4.(1) adult fall plumage October 27, 2014: Rick Toochin (distant poor quality photo) Dixon Road, Abbotsford [with Red-throated Pipit] (Toochin and Cecile 2024)

5.(1) adult fall plumage October 23, 2019: Adrian Dorst (photo) Long Beach, Pacific Rim National Park (Toochin and Cecile 2024)

 

I wish to thank Don Cecile for editing the original manuscript. Special thanks to Adrian Dorst for allowing us to use his photograph of a Siberian Pipit he photographed at Long Beach, Pacific Rim National Park.

 

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