Yellowish Pipit

The yellowish pipit is one of the smallest members of genus Anthus, and is unusually long-legged and short-tailed. It is 10.5 to 14 cm (4.1 to 5.5 in) long and weighs 13 to 18 g (0.46 to 0.63 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. In fresh plumage adults have a dark brown head with a very pale supercilium and a thin white eye-ring. Their upperparts are dark brown with buff-brown feather edges that give a streaked appearance. The sides of their neck have lighter speckles. Their wing coverts have pale tips that show as two wing bars. Their flight feathers are blackish brown with pale edges. Their tail is mostly blackish brown with much white on the outer two pairs of feathers. Their throat and underparts are buffy to yellowish white with dark brown streaks on the flanks and in a band across the breast. Subspecies A. c. parvus is smaller than the nominate. It has cinnamon-buff streaks on its upperparts and is more yellowish and less streaked on its underparts. Both subspecies appear paler and with almost white underparts as their feathers wear. Both subspecies have a dark brown iris, a blackish brown to blackish maxilla, a pink mandible, and pale yellowish to pale brown legs and feet.

The yellowish pipit has a highly disjunct distribution. Subspecies A. c. parvus is found only on the Pacific slope of western Panama. The nominate is found from east of the Andes in northeastern Colombia across much of central Venezuela and extreme northern Brazil into Guyana. One or two populations are in Suriname and French Guiana. Its largest range includes most of Brazil outside the Amazon Basin, extreme southeastern Peru, eastern Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, and northern Argentina south to La Pampa and southeastern Buenos Aires provinces. In Brazil it is found from the mouth of the Amazon in northeastern Pará east to the country's easternmost point. From there its range extends west and south below a line roughly from northern Bahia west to northern Rondônia. The yellowish pipit is a bird of open landscapes including natural grasslands, pastures, agricultural areas, and cerrado. It favors short grass and areas near lakes, rivers, and other water features. In elevation it is found below 500 m (1,600 ft) in Colombia, below 200 m (700 ft) in Venezuela north of the Orinoco River and below 1,300 m (4,300 ft) south of it, and below 450 m (1,500 ft) in Peru.

The yellowish pipit's diet has not been studied but is known to include insects and thought to also include seeds. It forages while walking and running on the ground.