Sunday 6 May 2012

Redpolls - the scary zone! Great orme May 6th

After all that;s been going on on Bardsey the last few weeks with strange looking Redpolls - not classic Mealies and certainly not little brown Welsh birds, I came across one myself today. Slightly larger than Lesser Redpoll, nice big white wing bars, pale face, whitish tramlines up back and a hint of a pale rump. Lots of Redpolls on the move today - some 50+ with all but this one being typical Lessers. 3 Yellow Wagtials, 8 Tree Pipits, Sedge Warbler, Lesser Whitethorat and 2 Common Redstarts best of the rest. A superb movement of 100+ Wheatears, the vast majority Greenlands, built up during teh morning. The polace was bouncing by the time I left at 11am. Two pictures of the pale Redpoll and one of a typical Lesser. Of the 50 odd seen today 49 looked wmall, brown and streaky. Does this automatically mean the pale bird is a Mealy Redpoll? Any comments welcome. Steve Stansfield?

3 comments:

  1. Whilsr ringing Twite in Nant Francon this morning, was getting lots of Redpoll coming to the bait. Several very pale birds, some of which have been around for a couple of weeks now.

    Kelvin

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  2. Did you catch any Kelvin? Redpolls or Twite? A Hundred + Wheatear on the orme this morning - you could walk right up to some. Colour ringing?

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  3. Catching both. I'll let you know next time I go and we'll take some in hand photos of the very pale Redpolls.

    Kelvin

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