Gone a pollin'

Post date: Feb 08, 2011 7:17:20 PM

Redpolls are enigmatic little birds, but at the same time quite confusing. With their status as a species/subspecies almost in a permenant state of flux, you can never be quite sure if you're looking at one or two (sometimes three!) different species or just one highly veriable one. This week, after spending all winter searching, but not finding any, I finally tracked down a small flock with some Siskin. Within this flock of maybe a dozen or so I'm pretty sure there were at least 3 Mealy Redpoll.

Lesser Redpoll. Our breeding (sub) species, classic Lesser appear quite delicate, basically brown, buff and off-white in plumage, fairly streaky and generally the most gaudy when it comes to summer males. However some female Mealies can appear rather Lesser-like, and some Lessers in fresh plumage can appear pale fringed! This one shows long bold flank markings all the way down, a rather buffish wash to the underparts, including the undertail coverts which have multiple streaking (but then so can Mealy!) Note the brown 'fan' of the ear coverts and the complete eye-ring.

The bird (s) below show a much whiter ground colour than the Lesser above, with the left hand bird certainly having a grey cast about the upperparts, a white greater covert bar, and a single thick based, bold black streak on the under coverts, these also do not show any buff cast on them. The streaking on the flanks is bold but not as tight in the Lesser. The eye ring appears broken,front and rear. These birds also look a bit chunkier than Lesser, but not the neckless, stubby billed almost vole-like proportions of Arctic. Probably a first-winter male Mealy.