Editing Water pipit (section)

==Behaviour==

The water pipit is a much less approachable bird as compared to the European rock pipit. It is warier than its relative and if approached it flies some distance before landing again, whereas the rock pipit typically travels only a short distance, close to the ground, before it alights.<ref name="macmillan"/>

===Breeding===
[[File:Anthus spinoletta spinoletta MHNT.ZOO.2010.11.205.5.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|Eggs in the [[Muséum de Toulouse]]]]

The water pipit is mainly [[monogamy in animals|monogamous]], although both sexes may deviate from this occasionally. The male has a display flight in which he climbs to {{convert|10|–|30|m}}, flies in an arc and glides back down, singing throughout. The female constructs a cup nest from grass and leaves which is lined with finer plant material and animal hairs. The nest is hidden in [[vegetation]] on the ground, sometimes in a hollow. The normal clutch is four to six eggs laid from the end of April to early July.<ref name="hbw"/> Eggs are greyish white with darker grey or brownish speckles mainly at the wider end,<ref name="simms" /> and they measure {{convert|21|x|16|mm|in}} and weigh {{convert|2.7|g|oz}} of which 5% is shell.<ref name="bto">{{cite web |url=http://app.bto.org/birdfacts/results/bob10141.htm |title=Water Pipit ''Anthus spinoletta'' [Linnaeus, 1758] |publisher=[[British Trust for Ornithology]] |access-date=6 December 2016}}</ref>

The eggs are incubated by the female for 14–15 days to hatching. Chicks are fed initially by the male, both parents sharing the duty after a few days when the female does not need to brood so often, and they [[fledge]] in a further 14–15 days.<ref name="hbw"/> There may be two broods in a year.<ref name="bto"/>

In a Swiss study of the nominate subspecies, 76% of eggs hatched, and 58% of chicks fledged. Birds of the race ''A. s. blakistoni'' in the [[Tian Shan]] hatched 90% of their eggs, and hatchlings survived to fledging in 47% of the nests. In the latter study, early nests were more likely to fail because less plant cover made them more likely to be found by predators.<ref name=cramp/> Neither the average lifespan nor the maximum age of survival are known.<ref name="bto"/><ref name="euring">{{cite web |url=http://www.euring.org/data-and-codes/longevity-list?page=4 |title=EURING list of longevity records for European birds. |last1=Fransson |first1=T |last2=Kolehmainen |first2=T |last3=Kroon |first3=C |last4=Jansson |first4=L |last5=Wenninger |first5=T |publisher=EURING |access-date=8 October 2016}}</ref>

===Feeding===

[[File:IsotomaTiefenbach.jpg|thumb|[[Glacier flea]]s are a prey item found on [[snow field]]s]]

The water pipit's feeding habitat is damp [[grassland]], rather than the rocky [[coast]]s favoured by the Eurasian rock pipit.<ref name="macmillan"/> The water pipit feeds mainly on a wide range of [[invertebrate]]s, including [[orthoptera|crickets and grasshoppers]], [[beetle]]s, [[snail]]s, [[millipede]]s and [[spider]]s. [[Psocoptera|Barkflies]], [[fly|true flies]], [[caterpillar]]s and [[homoptera]]ns can form a large part of the diet of fledglings. Birds close to [[snow field]]s take insects specialised for that habitat such as the [[springtail]]s ''Isotoma saltans'' (the [[glacier flea]]) and ''I. nivalis'', and the [[Mecoptera|scorpion fly]] ''Boreus izyemalis''.<ref name=cramp/>

Birds normally forage alone or in pairs; in bad weather, foraging is more frequent and involves longer flights, and may be concentrated around [[marmot]] burrow entrances. Prey items average {{convert|8.3|mm|in}} in length and are mainly hunted on foot, although flying insects are occasionally caught in the air.<ref name="hbw" /> Some plant material is taken, and one study on the border of Czechoslovakia and Poland found that 75% of the diet by volume consisted of [[algae]], specifically ''[[Ulothrix|Ulothrix zonata]]'', despite large numbers of insects being available.<ref name=cramp>{{cite book | editor1-last = Cramp | editor1-first = Stanley | chapter=''Anthus spinoletta'' Rock Pipit and Water Pipit | title = Handbook of the birds of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa: the birds of the Western Palearctic | publisher = Oxford University Press | volume= 5. Tyrant flycatchers to thrushes| location = Oxford | year = 1988 | isbn = 978-0-19-857508-5 |pages=393–413 }}</ref>

In areas with acidic soils, there is less [[calcium]] available, potentially leading to thinner egg shells. In such locations, pipits are more likely to select snails and similar prey with calcium-rich shells than is the case in [[limestone]] terrain.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Bureš | first1 =S| last2 = Weidinger | first2 = K |year =2001| title = Do pipits use experimentally supplemented rich sources of calcium more often in an acidified area? | journal = Journal of Avian Biology | volume = 32| issue = 2 | pages = 194–198| jstor = 3677668| doi =10.1034/j.1600-048x.2001.320215.x}}</ref>