Well, Merlin Photo ID thinks its a Meadow Pipit anyway, which if it is, it's the first time I've knowingly photoed one.
Prospect Park, Reading, UK
Canon R5 MkII + RF200-800mm lens
Welcome to /c/birding, a community for people who like birds, birdwatching and birding in general! Feel free to post your birding photos or just photos of birds you found in general, but please follow the rules as outlined below.
This should go without saying, but please be nice to one another. No petty insults, no bigotry, no harassment, hate speech,nothing of that sort! Depending on the severity, you'll either only get your comment removed and a warning or your comment will be removed and you will be banned from /c/birding.
This is a community for posting content of birds, nothing else. Please keep the posts related to birding or birds in general.
When posting photos or videos that you did not take, please always credit the original photographer! Link to the original post on social media as well, if there is one.
Absolutely no AI-generated content is allowed! I know it has become quite difficult to tell whether or not something is AI-generated or not, but please make sure that whatever you post is not AI-generated. If it is, your post will be removed. If you continously post AI-generated content, you'll be banned from /c/birding (but it's obviously okay if you post AI-generated stuff once or twice without knowing you did so).
Please provide rough information location, if possible. This is a more loosely-enforced rule, especially because it is sometimes not possible to provide a location. But if you post a photo you took yourself, please provide a rough location and date of the sighting.
I'm afraid I was mostly trusting Merlin, which only offered Meadow. Looking up the difference between the two in a book, they are very similar, and I'm not familiar with them - Merlin perhaps went by eye markings or side streaks, or perhaps balance of probabilities based on time of year/location (Tree Pipits being rarer).
P.S. I've not knowingly photoed a Tree Pipit either!
@KevinFRK
heh, merlin can't always be wrong but "think horses not zebras" can lead birders to miss a lot of rarities and strays
i think my next step absent the input of a more experienced local birder to review the photo would be to pull up the local ebird records for the patch where you saw it
if everybody else, including the people who regularly visit the patch are reporting Meadow Pipit, & especially if Tree Pipit has never been seen on that patch, you can be pretty confident
good luck! the field markings on these birds are REALLY tough for me
Fair comment.
I've never had much success with the local Berks Birds recording site, but a reasonable suggestion. This suggests historically you get sightings of Tree Pipits maybe April to occasionally August here (Berkshire), while Meadow Pipits are much more reported, including in the last few days.
Comparing the photos on their site, I can see more why the thickness of the streaks at the sides (suggested by WILDGuides Britain's Birds) might be a good indicator, if not perfect.