Bleak and dreary moorlands, or wide wind-swept marshes and water meadows form the haunts of this bird at all seasons of the year. Hatched in a neat nest, placed on the ground and carefully concealed under a tussock of grass, the young Meadow Pipit is assiduously fed by both its parents on insects, and his cradle would be most difficult to discover were it not that the parents, in their anxiety, hover round the spot calling out “peet, peet” in a plaintive and pained manner. The nest is made of grass and bents lined with finer grass and hair, and the clutch usually consists of six eggs, which are of a uniform brownish grey colour, frequently mottled or clouded with a darker shade and having sometimes a narrow black hair streak at their larger end. Several broods are reared during the season. After quitting the nest, they remain about their home, feeding on insects or small seeds and joining in flocks with the Wagtails and others of their own kind. Towards September they become restless and slowly move southwards, the majority quitting our shores for warmer climates; their place is, however, soon taken by wanderers from farther north that stay with us, braving our winter gales. They are graceful little birds, running about the fields rather like a Wagtail, picking up an insect from a blade of grass, or jumping up in the air and catching a fly as it hurries along in the genial warmth of a summer’s day. But on a winter’s day, when the south-wester blows up the clouds and sweeps the rain across the desolate meadows, they seem equally happy and at home, and rising at one’s feet from the shelter of a tussock fly off to another shelter, their “peet, peet” adding a harmonious touch of life to the discordant elements. In spring our summer visitors return, and then we may watch him as, full of energy, he rises some distance into the air and gradually descends with fluttering wings and outspread tail, singing his somewhat feeble song.

The adult is olive brown above, each feather having a darker centre, except on the rump and upper tail coverts; wing coverts margined with white; there is a narrow white eye stripe. Under parts buffish white streaked with brown on the throat, breast, and flanks. In autumn both old and young are much more buff coloured. The sexes are alike Length 5·75 in.; wing 3·1 in.