Berthelot’s Pipit

Berthelot’s Pipit is a brownish bird with darker stripes that walks and runs a lot. Madeiran have dubbed it Corre-caminhos (the road runner). It's between 15 to 17cm in length. There is a subspecies of the species for Madeira, Porto Santo and Desertas Islands A. b. maderensis and another for the Selvagens and Canary Islands A. b. berthelotii, being distinguished by its longer beak. Distinguishing between the sexes is not easy because there is only a slight variation in the plumage.

It is distributed throughout almost all the islands of the archipelago of Madeira, except the Ilhas Selvagens, where the species from the Canaries is found. It is relatively common on Madeira, Porto Santo and on Desertas Islands.

Berthelot’s pipit is associated with areas that are dry and very sparsely covered with vegetation, some next to the sea, and other areas at high altitudes.

They nest on the ground in depressions, where there is little vegetation, with one or two breeding periods during which 3 to 5 eggs are laid.

In Madeira, the people in the country areas call it “Our Lady’s blackbird”, giving rise to the legend that the Berthelot’s pipit accompanied the Holy Family in their flight from the Holy Land to Egypt, with the mission of wiping out their footprints in the sand to avoid being followed by King Herod.