Moved Out
This American Pipit seems to have moved out of the Burrowing Owl Sanctuary, where I saw it several times in December. (See “Pipit’s Breakfast,” Dec. 27, 2021.) Maybe the Ground Squirrel circus got too intense for it? I saw it again in the second week of January about 50 yards to the west of the owl preserve, on top of a bush, taking in the first rays of the rising sun. Pipits are ground-dwelling birds and I’ve almost always looked at them from above. When I saw this one at a level slightly over my head, I didn’t know at first what it was. Some kind of sparrow? But not a sparrow’s beak! Finally it clicked that this was the Pipit. After a bit of dipping its tail and scanning the scene, the bird abandoned its elevated outlook and dropped to the grass, out of my view but back in its habitual setting.
More about American Pipits: Wikipedia Cornell Audubon In Chavez Park
