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India’s Paddyfield Pipit Index Rose 14% Long Term but Fell 1.5% Per Year Recently

Paddyfield pipit perched on a stump in Kanha National Park
Conservation · Population & status

The 2025 interim update to State of India’s Birds, released on 6 May 2026, estimated a positive long-term change in India’s paddyfield pipit (Anthus rufulus) abundance index. The updated long-term estimate was +13.9% and clearly supported a long-term increase.

The current annual trend pointed in the opposite direction. The index declined by an estimated 1.5% per year, and the updated estimate clearly supported a recent decline.

State of India’s Birds classifies the paddyfield pipit as a resident open-habitat species in India. The updated analysis estimated its national distribution range at 2,170,268 km². Its national conservation priority remains Low under the assessment framework carried forward from the 2023 report.

The 2025 update used about 48 million eBird observations available through 31 May 2025, compared with 30 million in the 2023 assessment. The trend values describe change in a reporting-based abundance index rather than a direct count of individual birds. It updated numerical estimates for 942 species while retaining the previous trend and range-size categories.

Sources and image credit

  1. State of India’s Birds Partnership. (2026). State of India’s Birds: Range, trends, and conservation status – 2025 interim update (Version 2) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20036633

Image: Charles J. Sharp / Wikimedia Commons — paddyfield pipit photographed in Kanha National Park, Madhya Pradesh, India, on 17 November 2017; representative species image; cropped to 16:9 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

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