Sprague's Pipit

A long, delicate, musical cascade delivered during display flight. It sounds silvery and far away, like little notes spilling from the sky over the prairie.

Sprague's Pipit breeds on the northern Great Plains, from the north-central United States into southern Canada. It winters farther south in the southern Great Plains and northern Mexico.

Native prairies are its sweet spot, especially wide-open mixed-grass and shortgrass fields with little woody growth. It also uses pastures and lightly grazed grasslands when the structure still feels natural and open.

Spring and summer are the best times to notice it, when males drift high above the prairie in long song flights. In fall and winter it gets quieter, keeps low, and can be much harder to find.

A slim, sandy grassland songbird that seems to rise right out of the prairie itself. It often looks plain at first glance, but in spring the male gives a beautiful, tinkling song from so high overhead he can be nearly impossible to see.