Bird of the week - Rock pipit

This little bird is a common sight on walks along the coast near here.  It is a rock pipit (Anthus petrosus) and several were hunting for small invertebrates along the shoreline at Newbiggin-by-the-Sea this week.

This is a bird of rocky shorelines so it is found mostly in the north and west of the British Isles.  Its breeding range does extend to the North East coast here and in winter visiting birds from Scandinavia expand the range to most of the UK.

In Thomas Bewick's day pipits were considered as belonging to the lark family and he knew the rock pipit as a field lark.  This is his woodcut for A History of British Birds (1797).

Thomas Thorburn painted a rock pipit with a blue-headed wagtail in 1925.

Henrik Grönvold, a Danish artist, painted a pair of rock pipits in 1907.

You can listen to the BBC Radio 4 Tweet of the Day on rock pipit here.