American Pipit

How to find it

Scan open fields and sandy or bare ground for small, slim birds walking steadily and wagging their tails. Because wintering birds usually feed in flocks, one sighting may mean several birds. Listen overhead for the thin pip calls, as flocks are often heard before they are seen, or as they lift off from bare fields. Check the edges of very shallow water too. When a flock flushes, look for the white outer tail feathers.

How to recognise it

The American Pipit is a small songbird, about 16 cm long and 22 g, and it looks plain. Learn it by these marks:

Shape: slim, with a long tail.

Bill: thin.

Legs: long.

In flight: white outer tail feathers that show clearly.

On the ground: it runs or walks with jerky movements and often wags its tail.

That walking, wagging habit is often the quickest way to pick it out on bare ground.

What it sounds like

Recording: Thomas Koffel, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

Outside the breeding season it usually feeds in flocks. It finds prey by walking and scanning, then pecks or gleans, sometimes running toward the food first. It picks insects from the ground or low plants and sometimes wades in very shallow water. Flocks often stalk grasshoppers on the ground with bobbing tails and hop up to catch one as it jumps.

Where it lives

The species favours open fields and sandy ground. It breeds in northern Canada, Greenland and the northeastern US, and winters in Central America. Costa Rica is among the countries where it is a rare winter visitor, and one Costa Rican birding blogger describes the brushy fields where it may occur as hard to search.

When to see it

The only dated Costa Rican record we found is from January 2005, when one pipit was resting on a sandbar near a river mouth on Cocos Island.

Similar birds

Sparrows look similar but are unrelated. The pipit separates from them by its thin bill, slim shape and long legs. Any pipit in Central America needs good documentation, since first-winter birds are hard to identify, and only two pipit species have been recorded in the region: American Pipit and Red-throated Pipit.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

The Spanish name used in Costa Rica is Bisbita Americana. Other Spanish names for the species include bisbita de agua, bisbita norteamericano and bisbita pechianteado.

Status and conservation

The official AOCR list, updated June 2026, gives the American Pipit the status code A, as the only member of its family on the list.

Photography tips

Pipit flocks flush easily when approached. A photographer elsewhere found they kept moving away while calling, just out of camera reach. Stopping and letting them settle may help.