Well it looks like I (we?) was misled by a Sibley's drawing once again. (Though I do not dispute Sibley's is a great improvement over previous guides). The drawing of a juvenile Horned Lark in my Sibley's bears little resemblance to the birds in the photos. The Sibley's drawing shows juveniles with a dark breast and heavy white spotting on the back and head, together with an overall dark brown coloration. (And my National Wildlife Federation photographic guide shows a photo of a juvenile Horned Lark that looks quite similar to the Sibley drawing -- so Sibley is not completely wrong here -- and is described as "odd speckled plumage held briefly".) But I have found one photo (but only one) of a juvenile Horned Lark that suggests they can look like suprisingly similar to the subject bird (with bug eyed appearance, pale stout bill, etc.), as well as similar to a Sprague's Pipit. See here:
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Horned_Lark.html
It would be nice to have more photos of juvenile Horned Larks for comparison, but
I am leaning towards juvenile Horned Lark at this point. I agree the facial pattern, among other features, looks wrong for Sprague's Pipit (I was actually looking at European Pipits to see if I could find a better match).
A few comments on the above comments:
Legs are the only thing that don't say lark to me and that's easily light or a photo artifact.
Actually the legs are clearly grayish (and appear dark in most of the photos). Sprague's Pipit has pink legs, so the legs support Horned Lark in my opinion. (But thanks for summarizing the article from
Birding.)
If there are two birds, that would point toward juvenile Horned Lark rather than the locally rare Sprague's Pipit.
I am not sure how much that should figure into the analysis. Just recently we have been having pairs of vagrants showing up in Massachusetts, for example: Two Gull-billed Terns, two White-faced Ibis, two Ruffs, two Slaty-backed Gulls, two Townsend's Solitaires, and multiple Clay-Colored Sparrows moving in to expand their breeding range. I think there are usually good reasons that birds show up in unexpected places, and those reasons may easily apply to more than one individual.
I think these birds are juvenile Horned Larks. The birds are spotted across the breast (not streaked)...
Well, to me the breast on the first bird looks spotted, and the breast on the second bird looks streaked. And in the photo of a Sprague's Pipit I linked to, the breast looks spotted. So I am not sure this tells us much.
its definitely a juvenile Horned Lark. in addition to what others have posted, observe the tail in photos 7 and 8. although the tail is folded, you can see the thin white edging on the outer feather, then black, then grayish brown in the middle. Sprague's Pipits have much more white in the tail and no black.
I agree the tail pattern looks good for Horned Lark. But, in most of the photos I have seen of Sprague's Pipit, they show very little white on the tail when sitting/walking. See these photos for example:
http://prairieice.blogspot.com/2007/08/spragues-pipit.html
Also, at least one photo appears to show a Sprague's Pipit with dark central tail feathers:
http://www.pbase.com/image/74138205
Best,
Jim