The water pipit (Anthus spinoletta) is a small passerine bird which breeds in the mountains of Southern Europe and the Palearctic eastwards to China.

The water pipit in breeding plumage has greyish-brown upperparts, weakly streaked with darker brown, and pale pink-buff underparts fading to whitish on the lower belly.

Water pipits construct a cup-like nest on the ground under vegetation or in cliff crevices and lay four to six speckled grey-ish white eggs, which hatch in about two weeks with a further 14–15 days to fledging.

Although pipits occasionally catch insects in flight, they feed mainly on small invertebrates picked off the ground or vegetation, and also some plant material.

The water pipit may be hunted by birds of prey, infested by parasites such as fleas, or act as an involuntary host to the common cuckoo, but overall its population is large and stable, and it is therefore evaluated as a species of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

[4][5] The water pipit was first described by Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae in 1758 as Alauda spinoletta (characterised as A. rectricibus fuscis : extimis duabus oblique dimidiato-albis).

[7] Anthus is the Latin name for a small bird of grasslands, and the specific spinoletta is a local dialect word for a pipit from the Florence area of Italy.

[8] There are three recognised subspecies of the water pipit: A possible fourth race from the northwestern Caucasus, Anthus spinoletta caucasicus, cannot be reliably separated from A.s. coutellii.

The adult of the nominate race in spring plumage has greyish-brown upperparts, weakly streaked with darker brown, and pale pink-buff underparts fading to whitish on the lower belly.

The rock pipit normally has a bluer tint to the head, streaking on the breast and flanks, and buff outer tail feathers,[11] and the songs are also different.

[5] In comparison, the European rock pipit's song is a sequence of about twenty tinkling cheepa notes followed by a rising series of thin gee calls, and finishing with a short trill.

[5] The breeding range of the water pipit is the mountains of southern Europe and Asia from Spain to central China, along with the Mediterranean islands of Sardinia and Corsica.

[5][9] The water pipit is predominantly a mountain species in the breeding season, found in alpine pasture and high meadows with short grass and some bushes or rocks.

It migrates relatively short distances in autumn to lower ground, typically wintering on coastal wetlands, marshes, rice fields and similar habitats.

[5] The water pipit has been recorded as a vagrant in Belarus, Gibraltar and Latvia, and on islands including the Canaries, Iceland, Malta and Svalbard.

[5] Eggs are greyish white with darker grey or brownish speckles mainly at the wider end,[9] and they measure 21 by 16 millimetres (0.83 in × 0.63 in) and weigh 2.7 grams (0.095 oz) of which 5% is shell.

Birds close to snow fields take insects specialised for that habitat such as the springtails Isotoma saltans (the glacier flea) and I. nivalis, and the scorpion fly Boreus izyemalis.

[5] Some plant material is taken, and one study on the border of Czechoslovakia and Poland found that 75% of the diet by volume consisted of algae, specifically Ulothrix zonata, despite large numbers of insects being available.

[18] A new species of feather mite, Proctophyllodes schwerinensis, was discovered on the water pipit,[19] which is also a host to the fleas Ceratophyllus borealis and Dasypsyllus gallinulae.