I was up in West Yorkshire for a week over the New Year and staying not far from Wakefield where Yorkshire’s first Blyth’s Pipit has been for most of December (and still there as I write). The Blyths Pipit is closely related to the Meadow Pipit in who’s company it was moving and feeding with. Apart from the call there are several factors which can visually separate this species from our familiar pipits. It is slightly larger and has a different pattern of marking on the breast, in fact when I studied my photos I could clearly see that Blyth’s are devoid of any streaks on the belly and flanks whereas Meadow, Tree, Water and Rock Pipits (regularly seen UK pipits) have all got streaking and “ticking” on the flanks as well as the breast. I cannot describe myself at all as an expert on this species but I have seen perhaps thousands of Meadow Pipits, and loads of Rock and Tree Pipit but I confess that had I stumbled upon this bird I would have probably overlooked it as a Meadow Pipit. In total there are only 20 reports of this species in the UK but I suspect that others have been overlooked, perhaps regularly. It is a bird that breeds in Mongolia and overwinters in Sri Lanka! I was there in November and I saw a pipit which departed before I could ID it and Blyth’s was one of the species that I suspected it to be, so who knows….it may have been my second Blyth’s Pipit of the year.  It wasn’t an easy species to photograph because of the habitat and the grasses that mostly obscured a good view. Perhaps this is the rarest bird that I have photographed in the UK in fact it probably is so I hope you will excuse a bit of grass!