Editing Water pipit (section)

===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>