Phil and I found a well-marked Tree Pipit at Sabkhat Al Fasl on Friday 2 October 2015. The bird was seen initially from some distance and caused some thoughts of Olive-backed Pipit. The bird appeared to have relatively plain upperparts, lacking streaking of Tree Pipit and sometimes looking olive toned but other times more brownish.
The bird, however, lacked the obvious white supercilium and strong black lateral crown strip normally shown above the supercilium of Olive-backed Pipit. The bird was well marked below with large dark breast streaking ad had a very obvious ear covert spot, although this lacked the black mark below that is often obvious in Olive-backed Pipit.
As we got closer to the bird it became apparent it was a well-marked Tree Pipit and a couple of photos are shown below. One thing to mention is the bird looks much browner in the photos that it did in the field.
Jem Babbington
Jem Babbington is a keen birder and amateur photographer located in Dhahran, Eastern Saudi Arabia where he goes birding every day. Jem was born in England and is a serious local patch and local area birder who has been birding for almost forty years and has birded in more than fifty countries. Jem is learning to ring birds in Bahrain as a perfect way to learn more about the birds of the area. Saudi Arabia is a very much under-watched and under-recorded country.
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