A "frosty" looking Redpoll species turned up in the garden late afternoon today. A quick look at it had me running for the camera with high hopes of a Mealy Redpoll in mind. My initial indicators were the pale flanks and white wing-bar.
I didn't have too much time to look through the books after taking the photos but, a quick call to Barry this evening led me to a very good Redpoll article online. Having read through the article now it looks like this bird is an adult female Lesser Redpoll. The females especially show a great deal of similarities and I can appreciate the WRP's recent notification regarding Mealy Redpolls. Many other more experienced observers may even have identified this species straight off but, I was surprized to find areas like the pale rump and larger appearance may have a lot of overlap with Lesser Redpoll.
These last 2 photos have been brightened up a lot and the bottom one was also taken through a window. I just wanted to illustrate the size of this bird next to a Siskin. I've had Lesser Redpolls before but, I've never noticed one as pale as this one before.
The dark head with a lack of more defined facial markings and the quite dark uppertail-coverts seem to suggest Lesser Redpoll? Please feel free to shed more light on this area.
No comments:
Post a Comment