This note first appeared in ‘British Birds’ volume 47:12 (page 443), in December 1954.
Bird and place names were spelt as shown. For their current status, please see our county lists.
Tawny Pipit in Staffordshire. — On December 29th, 1953, near Tutbury, Staffordshire, I identified a Tawny Pipit (Anthus campestris). It was seen on an area of sandy waste land with very scanty herbage and littered with rock refuse from the gypsum mines. A description was taken down on the spot. The bird was wagtail-like in stance and shape, with sandy-brown, unmarked upper-parts. The breast was pale buff without markings, while the flanks, belly and under tail-coverts were creamy-white. The legs were light yellow. Wagtail-like the bird darted about quickly with upward flicks of the tail. When it became aware of me it seemed to have a tendency to seek higher perches — for example, the top of a large stone where it would stand very erect with a much more rapid movement of the tail. The voice, difficult to describe, I wrote down as "seep" or "zeep" and the flight, strong and undulating, was rather like a woodpecker's.
Edward Reeves.
[This is a very late date, the latest of which we have a note being November 20th, though there are other records for that month. — Eds.]
Reproduced by kind permission of British Birds 
. Thanks to Dr. Malcolm Ogilvie for scanning the original, from his collection.
Ornithology in Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire & the West Midlands county, since 1929.
Fetched from http://www.westmidlandbirdclub.com/bibliography/british-birds/47-443.htm on Friday 12 March 2010 13:16:23
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