OSLO BIRDER: Record late Tree Pipit

It is getting colder and colder and with snow forecast soon I changed to winter tyres today and now feel ready for anything! That does not mean I cannot be surprised though. Today, in Maridalen I visited the field below the farm at Nes to see if there were still any Meadow Pipits left (there has been a small flock hanging on here) and I did hear one which could well be my last local bird this autumn as snow will undoubtedly push them off. As I walked over the stubble field a bird flew up silently with white outer tail feathers and whilst it was definitely a pipit it did not strike me as being a Meadow. It landed in a nearby tree and when I got the binoculars on it it did resemble a Meadow in general plumage but still did not feel like one. I was able to walk quite close to the tree and see it well and it was looking straight at me showing a fairly well marked face, warm breast and strong bill and I briefly entertained the idea it could be a Olive-backed (surely the only other option so late in the year?) but when I first saw it in the tree the rest of the plumage was not right and as it moved around in the tree I saw that no it definitely wasn’t an OBP but neither was it a Meadow.

So what was it?? A Tree Pipit obviously but this is extremely late. There is only one other October record for Oslo (9 Oct) and my latest Oslo record is 21 September. Nationally there are only 30 records of Tree Pipit on or after 26 October of which only 3 are documented with a photo and looking at the records many other should be considered as uncertain (to put it politely).

I normally ID Tree Pipit based on the noise it makes rather than its plumage. Most pipits call in flight, either when migrating over or when scared up, and this nails the ID as the call is so much different from the very similarly plumaged Meadow Pipit. I would normally say that an out of season Tree Pipit would need to be heard and seen (seen to ensure it is not an OBP which has a very similar call) but there is one structural feature that nails a Tree Pipit vs. a Meadow Pipit and that is the hind claw which is much shorter on Tree Pipit. This is not a feature I would never normally look at but today I did and my pictures clearly show it. Plumage wise the very thin streaks on the flanks are also a near certain character of Tree. Strange it never called though.

The Great Grey Shrike showed well and the Razorbill is still on the lake and was frequently diving for food so would seem to be thriving.

Earlier in the day I had visited Nordre Øyeren where 18 Taiga Bean Geese with Whooper Swans and Canada Geese was a good sighting and a Bar-headed Goose was a year tick. I had three species of raptor: White-tailed Eagle, Sparrowhawk and Goshawk which are the first BOPs I have seen for quite a while. Usually in the autumn there are a few Rough-legged Buzzards to be seen migrating south but not this year, at least for me.