Flying Pipit in Denmark from 1. sept 2023 - Tree or Meadow? (1 Viewer)

[Orewoet]

Hello everybody!

My first post here, trying BirdForum because I am often in need of a verification or just some ID idea's.
I often use iNaturalist's AI to help me on my way to an identification, but that is of course not flawless.
And I hesitate to post birds on iNaturalist as I use eBird as well.
Since both share there observations to the GBIF database it would mean a double entry if I post both on iNaturalist and eBird.

Anyway.
An observation from the garden in Jutland today: Three birds flying low, unorganized and actually with lots of rapid changes of their flight path as they seemed to "play" with each other. Their flight pattern reminded me of swallows - almost that fast.
As they flew past I thought that they were very yellow as seen from below, but there was an early morning sun so maybe that explains the colour.
I checked the AI from iNaturalist (without posting) with the best picture (1) and it proposed Tree Pipit. That seems reasonable.
But why not Meadow Pipit? Beats me!

Any idea's?

 

[Alexander Stöhr]

Hello,

welcome to Birdforum!

I think, the AI is going by the marked contrast between appearant bold streaks to the breast and the nearly absence of them on the flanks.
In many Meadow Pipits, the underparts are more unformely streaked.

But the pictures seems slightly to "unnatural sharp" to me, as contrast in streaking is enhanced by jpeg artefacts and sharpening. I hope, this doesnt come out as harsh or an offence to a new member. But you should read this as a reason, why I hesitate to trust this feature in this pictures with confidence.
Especially, because other threads here has shown, that the streaking on the underparts is very variable.

Having written this, and comparing your pictures with Rolands (and others) excellent site Tree Pipit Anthus trivialis – Birds in Flight – ID guide, Tree Pipit might well be a reasonable ID, slightly better than Meadow Pipits. But I still hesitate to exclude Meadow Pipit with confidence.

Welcome to Birdforum again!

 

[Butty]

Welcome to BF.
Tree pipit or meadow pipit seems likely. Impossible to identify further.

 

[Orewoet]

But the pictures seems slightly to "unnatural sharp" to me, as contrast in streaking is enhanced by jpeg artefacts and sharpening. I hope, this doesnt come out as harsh or an offence to a new member. But you should read this as a reason, why I hesitate to trust this feature in this pictures with confidence.
Especially, because other threads here has shown, that the streaking on the underparts is very variable.

Hej Alexander,

Thank you for your friendly and elaborate answer!

And you are absolutely right, as a habit I play with "curves" and sometimes with "sharpening" in Gimp to try to make features more clear to myself and who knows others. I am very careful not to introduces features by doing so, comparing back and forth, but I completely understand that it might effect the initial "feel" of the picture. I might underestimate that, thank you for pointing it out to me.
I therefore quickly add the untouched (though cropped as the original is 8 MB of mostly sky) version. I am rather sure that I only played with picture nr 1.

I looked in the birdguide "Flight identification of European Passerines" by Thomasz Cofta, and noticed that just about the only clear difference seems to be the stripes on the breast and underpart. But I felt totally unable to identify the bird(s) with certainty as I have no idea whether this striping pattern is a strict rule or more a loose rule of thumb. But I see in your answer it is more a rule of thumb.

And thank you for the excellent birds-in-flight link! Very interesting and a great addition - bookmarked.

 

[Orewoet]

Welcome to BF.
Tree pipit or meadow pipit seems likely. Impossible to identify further.

Thank you!