Rock Pipit - 1894

Anthus obscurus

A common resident, only on the coast.

Watching some Rock Pipits one day as they were running about at the foot of some sandhills we were amused by their gestures, which not a little imitated those of the common Ring Plover. They would run rapidly a few paces, and then, like that bird, bring themselves up with a sudden jerk, stand still, and then run on again for a short distance, again to stop, and run on.

Mr. Mortimer Propert, of St. David's, one summer took a nest of the Rock Pipit on the Bishop's Rock. It was extremely compact, and constructed of bents thickly lined inside with horse-hairs. To procure the horse-hairs the Pipits must have flown to and fro over three miles of water to Ramsey Island, the nearest point where they would find a horse.

We have never seen any of the vinous-breasted, greyer-backed Rock Pipits, in Pembrokeshire, that are summer visitors to this kingdom from the north of Europe, and go by the name of the Scandinavian Rock Pipit, and are not very rare.

Mathew M.A. 1894, Birds of Pembrokeshire and it's Islands