Thursday February 25

A bright sunny morning, cold and crisp with a very light breeze.

I decided to walk along the road before heading down to the pool. This tactic was aimed at getting a photograph of the Tawny Owl, which never seems to notice me when I walk down the hedge from Bannams Wood.

Sleeping Tawny Owl

That worked pretty well.

I was pleased to see that, despite the overnight frost, the pool was ice-free. It was also virtually bird-free, but the Flash field was a different story.

To begin with I counted six Snipe, six Lapwings, three Green Sandpipers, and 41 Teal. They were on the furthest flash, and amongst them strode a year-tick in the form of a Redshank. This is a species which turns up every spring, but I don't think I've ever seen one this early in the year.

Redshank

During the process of trying to get a photo which showed that the Redshank had orange legs (it was mostly wading up to its haunches), I had a look at an oak tree. Sitting in it was another year-tick, a Little Owl. This is the last of the species known to be resident on the patch that I needed to catch up with this year.

Little Owl

So a pretty good morning.

For the rest of this blog I will be wittering on about Redpolls, so those of a nervous disposition should look away now.

In the small field above Stapenhill Wood an explosion of small finches told me that the Redpolls were still present. I thought that rather than tie myself in knots trying to locate a Mealy (or better), I would play devil's advocate by taking the view that they were all Lesser Redpolls and trying to argue the case from photographs.

I should immediately point out that the sun was bright, and the birds were a bit distant. Whenever I try to approach them, they nearly always fly off. This is how far away they were:

Technically, there are Redpolls in this shot.

So to get anything worthwhile I had to crank the camera up to maximum zoom, with all the usual drawbacks of loss of definition etc that brings. Excuses over, here are some images of Lesser Redpolls.

"normal" Lesser Redpoll

Note the buffy flanks and pale buffy head and ear-coverts.

Not all Lesser Redpolls have streaks on the undertail coverts

The above shot shows a pale Redpoll which appears to have unstreaked undertail coverts, a feature which is associated with Arctic Redpoll. However, you can find sources which say that Lesser Redpolls can also show that feature. Unfortunately the bird is facing me, so it is hard to say whether it looks small-billed. The strong sunlight may be bleaching the flanks and the ear-coverts on the right side of its face. The plumage is not "fluffy" which is a point in favour of our identification of it as a Lesser Redpoll, but to progress things further I need to see its upperparts and rump.

It was sufficiently interesting that I continued scoping on the next occasion that the flock appeared in the hedge, and I have to say that I did see a bird which seemed to show pale down its back which may have continued towards the rump. Unfortunately the bird took flight almost as soon as I had it in the scope so I didn't get a clear view.

Some of the Lesser Redpolls did show their rumps quite well, and these were generally either pink (adult males) or buff coloured. To show how you have to look long and hard at this feature, I am now going to show a series of photos of a bird which you might think has a pale greyish Mealy-like rump.

The bird to look at is the middle one of the three

Same bird, now on left.

Same bird again

Now I think this bird is probably a Lesser Redpoll. It looks the same size as the Lesser Redpolls it is with, and the fluffed up "rump" is actually its lower mantle. The lower rump has a hint of buff in it and it could be that the strong light is making the rump a tad paler than it actually is. The head, nape, and scapulars show no evidence of any frostiness.

The next interesting bird is another pale fronted one. This one appears to have streaked under tail coverts, so it is not the bird in the second photo. However, it is quite hard to argue that it is still a Lesser Redpoll.

Redpoll sp

This really does look pale, so to claim it as a Lesser Redpoll I will need to point out that the strong sun is perhaps making it look too pale and it has a hint of honey-colour on its breast. It may be the bird I thought had whitish in the rump, so it could be a Mealy.  On the other hand it might have a tawny brown mantle. Unfortunately Redpolls tend to sit motionless and then fly off rather than move around allowing a full view of all their features. As usual I failed to see a whitish rump on any of the birds when I saw them fly, and this could be a clincher in my attempt to portray them as all being Lesser Redpolls. However, there were about 80 present so its hard to confirm that I saw every one well enough.

Redpolls eh !