Siberian Pipit wondering what it’s doing in Southern California

Siberian Pipit in Southern California

I take a lot of bike rides down the Ballona Creek. It’s just a block from my house, so it’s convenient. And it combines exercise and birding. My bike rides have led to some good finds, too (Bar-tailed Godwit, Mountain Plover, Pacific Golden-Plover, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Sabine’s Gull, Black-legged Kittiwake). Along the creek are some little league ballfields that attract meadowlarks, starlings, sparrows, and pipits in the winter. Whenever I pass, I give them a quick scan to see what’s around.

On a late afternoon bike ride a few days ago, I stopped to scan the ballfields. There were some pipits walking and bobbing. As I looked through them from the bike path, one immediately stood out. It had a really dark triangular malar, black streaking on the chest that formed a necklace, white underparts. The dark streaking extended to the flanks. This was obvious even from distance in poor light with my cheap binoculars. I immediately thought Siberian Pipit. Siberian Pipit was previously considered a subspecies of American Pipit. Recently,  it was elevated to its own species.  And there were only three previous LA County record in eBird — a single bird (probably) that appeared for 3 straight winters at soccer fields near Griffith Park.

The pipits flushed, but remarkably the darker-streaked bird and a couple other American Pipits stayed still. Tragically, I didn’t have my camera on me. So I hopped the bike-path fence to see if I could get a closer look. The pipits flushed away from me, but stayed in the same field. I took a cell phone picture through my binoculars. It a crappy shot, but it shows the dark malar and suggests the dark streaking. It was not gonna be good enough for an ID though.

My attempt at documentation with only a cell phone and binoculars

Luckily, a regular bird-watcher stopped when he saw me on the other side of the fence and my bike abandoned on the bike path. He had a Canon DSLR with him, and allowed me to snap some photos with it. The light was fading, and I didn’t want to wander with a guy’s camera for long. So I just took a few. He kindly shared the photos with me that night. They confirmed my observations. A dark triangular malar. Dark chest streaking that extended to the flanks. A white throat, chest, and flanks. 

Dark Malar
Pinkish leg?
Dark streaking
Comparison shot

But the photos were distant. And they didn’t show the birds’ leg color (pink/red for Siberian Pipit, dark brown for American Pipit). Convinced this was likely a wintering bird, I went back to the fields 5 times over the ensuing days. There were 20-50 American Pipits there each time, but not the darkly-streaked bird. With all that time looking exclusively at American Pipits, I became convinced the bird was outside the spectrum of American Pipits. It was certainly well outside the spectrum of malar and streaking and throat/chest/flank ground color shown by the present American Pipits.

There was a big variety in the extent of streaking, and the darkness of the streaking, on the present American Pipits. Some had dark triangular patches at the malars (though the bulk of the birds did not). But at most, those malars were dark brown. And many were patchy dark triangles that had fuzzy edges. None showed a large black triangle with defined edges like this bird. Some had dark streaks that headed down the chest (though many of the birds did not). None showed a necklace formed by sharpie-thick black streaks headed down the chest like this bird. Some showed streaking that continued along the flanks (though most of the birds did not). But that flank streaking was brown and the streaks were short dashes. None showed extended black multi-level streaking at the flanks like this bird. Some had whiter throats and chests. But all of them showed creamy or buffy coloring somewhere on the sides of the chest and flanks, if not all over it. None had the uniformly white ground of this bird from throat to chest to flanks.

I changed my eBird entry to Siberian Pipit, where I assumed it would remain unconfirmed with better documentation.

A Christmas Return

After 5 visits without seeing the bird, I had basically given up hope that the Siberian Pipit was around. Nevertheless, on Christmas, after I trip to LMU to see a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, I stopped at the ballfields one last time hoping for Christmas magic. I didn’t see any pipits on the first 2 fields I checked. But the third field had some pipits moving around. In my first scan through the flock, one bird immediately jumped out. It had a big black malar, and sharpie-thick black streaking on the chest that extended down the belly and flanks. It’s throat, chest, belly and flanks had a uniformly white ground. The bird I suspected was a Siberian Pipit was back.

Pink legs!
Comparison

I knew I needed to get good looks at the legs. If this bird had pink or reddish-brown legs, that could confirm the Siberian Pipit ID.  After spending 10 minutes in tall grass and clover, the bird wandered out into the open. Through my binoculars, the legs looked reddish. But leg color on a single bird can vary significantly depending on the angle of view and lighting. So I made sure to get photos from the front, side, and back. The lack of direct sunlight minimized the chance of deceptive lighting making the legs look reddish. In nearly all my photos, the legs look pinkish or reddish-brown. 

I got word out that the Un-American Pipit was back. I shared a back-of-the-camera photo to the nerds on WhatsApp that showed pinkish legs. Happily, a couple birders headed right over. The flock hadn’t flushed, and they got better photos than mine.

I special thank you to Andy Birch, birder and artist extraordinaire. He’s incredibly helpful with tough IDs. His write-up and sketches of the difference between American Pipits and Siberian Pipits shows how tricky this ID can be. Glad he encouraged me to keep looking and get better documentation.