Country diary: you only see tough little birds on the hike to the tor

The meadow pipit is a common companion for hikers on Dartmoor. Photograph: Charlie Elder

The moor is sulking under a cloud, wet and windswept, trying to shake me off like a damp dog. I can barely stand upright at the top of Brat Tor, steadying myself with one hand on grey rock rough as shark skin.

Beside the stone cross at the summit, erected in 1887 to commemorate the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria, I look out across the valley, where the River Lyd begins its hard run off the moor, elbowed left and right by boulders and thrashed into a frenzy down deep ravines. From above, the stepping stones I used to cross the river resemble exposed dinosaur vertebrae.

The stone cross on the summit of Brat Tor. Photograph: Charlie Elder

The top of the tor is crowned with creased lumps of granite and the surrounding slopes covered with pale grasses and stands of bent bracken the colour of toasted cinnamon.

At this time of year skylarks have fallen silent and the cuckoos are long gone. But if you listen carefully you can make out needle-sharp sounds piercing the rush of wind and water: meadow pipits. Once you tune in to their peeping calls you realise there are plenty about.

Inconspicuous on the ground, these squeaky, streaky brown birds flush ahead of you as you walk, rising rather weakly before alighting, like leaves kicked up in the breeze.

Meadow pipits (Anthus pratensis) are common on heaths, in coastal habitats, meadows and open grassland across Britain, particularly in the north and west, but have suffered declines in many areas. In Devon, numbers have dwindled across lowland farmland over recent decades, and uplands such as Dartmoor provide a vital sanctuary.

If they appear slightly edgy and neurotic, that is forgivable. Meadow pipits are a staple prey item for merlin, and their nests are plundered by predators and parasitised by cuckoos. Yet this put-upon bird is anything but a Darwinian dead end, being a successful and widespread species – and far tougher than its delicate appearance suggests, enduring in some of our harshest landscapes.

Stepping stones over the River Lyd. Photograph: Charlie Elder

Welcome companions of hikers in all weathers, they can feel like the only birdlife around on a squally autumn day such as this. Their staccato calls follow me back down to the river and out to the edge of the moor.