Meadow Pipit

Above: Meadow Pipit
Below: Rock Pipit (a much darker bird with dark legs)

The meadow pipit is a bird with a brown streaked back and crown and an off white or buff washed, heavily black-streaked breast and flanks. It has a pale beak and pale pinkish legs. There is a white moustache stripe on the face and just the hint of a white eyebrow stripe.

There are a number of different, but quite similar, pipits in Britain and even a few rare visiting pipits which are also similar in appearance. Often these birds are so similar that it is easy to get confused. The meadow pipit is the most common of the 4 main types in Britain (meadow pipit, tree pipit, rock pipit and water pipit) and hence the one you're most likely to see. It can be easily distinguished from the rock pipit (shown below for comparison) and the water pipit by virtue of it's pale legs and overall paler colouration. Both the rock pipit and water pipit are generally much darker birds with very dark legs.

The tree pipit causes the most difficulty when it comes to identification because it is so similar. The meadow pipit is resident (although many do migrate) whilst the tree pipit is a summer visitor only. Despite the name, tree pipits and meadow pipits often turn up in similar habitat especially on migration. So how can we tell these two apart? Well if you're familiar with bird calls, these two birds have very different, distinct calls. However, making a distinction by sight requires a good view. The meadow pipit breast and flanks tend to be more uniform in the main background colour (off white/buff) and the streaks are as thick on the flanks as they are on the breast. The tree pipit on the other hand has more buff on the breast fading to white on the flanks and the streaks on the flanks are just thin lines unlike the thick streaks on the breast. If you can see the feet, the meadow pipit has a very long hind claw as long or slightly longer than the hind toe itself. The tree pipit hind claw is not nearly so long.

Meadow pipits are common in the north west and can be found with some reliability on the salt-marshes at Marshside (Southport, Lancs), Red Rocks (West Kirby, Wirral), Hilbre Island and Frodsham Marsh (Cheshire). For photography, any of these will do, although Red Rocks is more likely to suffer disturbance from dog walkers. Frodsham, on the road down to the farm and Ship Canal from Marsh Lane bridge, is my favourite. Here you can find them posing on fence posts and with care can be approached fairly easily. I also like Hilbre in spring and summer for meadow pipits. I usually set myself up by the fence of the garden of the last house on the right side of Hilbre. Here there is a low stone wall in a 90 degree section on which the pipits like to perch. They don't seem to mind my presence so long as I make no sudden movements. On spring passage there is also a good chance of tree pipit turning up on Hilbre so you might have a chance to test your identification skills.