The pipits are back and they are scrappin'!

this amazing image courtesy of John Carlson

John Carlson, a Montana Bureau of Land Management biologist who appears in Grass, Sky, Song, has one of the best bird blogs on the northern plains. Take a look at this post about Sprague's pipits fighting aerial battles. I would bet these are the first decent images of this species fighting in the air. Male pipits spend a lot of time high above the prairie at this time of year and John estimates that these two were fighting at a height of 100 feet. Here is another shot that appears in John's blog, Prairie Ice:


John Carlson