The Mountain Pipit Anthus hoeschi is an intra-African migrant that breeds in high-altitude shrublands in eastern Lesotho. In late summer, when temperatures begin to drop in these sub-alpine montane areas, Mountain Pipits leave the shrublands and move to adjacent, lower-lying grassland habitats, where they occur with African Pipits A. cinnamomeus.
African Pipits breed in early spring and most complete their reproductive cycle by about November/December. It’s during this post-breeding period, when the Mountain Pipits have vacated the Lesotho mountains and arrived to co-occur in grasslands at lower levels with African Pipits, that separation of the species becomes challenging.
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