In the field behind the house were about 150 Starling and mixed in with them were 31 Fieldfare and 2 Redwing.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Possible Mealy Redpoll?
There were 9 Redpolls in the garden this morning consisting of 3 male Lesser Redpoll, 5 female Lesser Redpoll, and this one below the Goldfinch on the feeder. It didn't hang around very long so only managed 2 photos through the window. The other photo was useless so haven't posted it:
Given the overall paler colouring I thought it could be a Mealy Redpoll. On the other hand it may just be a leucistic Lesser Redpoll - but the red patch on the head is the right colour so perhaps this rules out leucism? Comparing it to a Lesser Redpoll (top left of the photo, out of focus) it is obviously much paler. It also appeared slightly larger than the Lesser Redpolls, but this may be because it was lighter and stood out from the rest so markedly. I'd appreciate your thoughts please.
In the field behind the house were about 150 Starling and mixed in with them were 31 Fieldfare and 2 Redwing.
In the field behind the house were about 150 Starling and mixed in with them were 31 Fieldfare and 2 Redwing.
5 comments:
Mealy for me.
http://uk400clubrarebirdalert.blogspot.com/2010/12/identification-of-lesser-and-mealy.html
Thanks for this link Andy. I'd checked out a few photos online but none of them had this depth of identification text. The lack of "a distinct buff wash on the outer greater coverts" and, maybe, there are white eye borders too? My photo isn't good enough to be able to pick out this clearly though.
Nice one Jeff - that must be a Mealy - looks just like the Mealy's last week at Elland GP. Good to get a decent photo as well.
Sorry no Little Owls to report today!
Definitely a Mealy Jeff.
There has been a number of threads regarding Mealy id on the Huddersfield Forum if anyone is interested.
If you click on or copy and paste the following link a number of articles can be found in the gallery section.
http://www.huddersfieldbirdwatchersclub.org.uk/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1297370602
Check out the Bucton Birder blog he's got a big article on Redpolls.
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