arctic redpoll - south Poland ? (1 Viewer)

Hello. Could you help me with that pale redpoll ?
I suppose it may be arctic - because of lack of black spot on undertail coverts, pale pink and generally bright color. Is that so ?

I think it's a good candidate Michael for a race of Arctic Redpoll, perhaps exilipes?

Cheers

So I did not make a mistake !! Thank you very much. I do not know well differences between exilipes and hornemanni. Bird visited my garden with 20 common redpolls (I have yet to see all the pictures..). What a nice surprise !

I always thought that more than one streak on the undertail coverts was out of range for Arctic (this bird has 3 at least) so on that basis it's a Meally, or at best borderline.

SteveClifton said:

I always thought that more than one streak on the undertail coverts was out of range for Arctic (this bird has 3 at least) so on that basis it's a Meally, or at best borderline.

Click to expand...

I don't know how "set in stone" the absence of, or the inclusion of, streaks to the UTC's are regarding definitive ID of the said races regarding this taxa. The OP had singled this bird out as distinctively different from rest of group which were given as Common Redpolls, clearly a much paler bird than the rest, thus perhaps grounds for candidacy?

This taxa, as you know is a "bit of a minefield", hence the call to lump along with other taxa that are not properly understood, in my view if you have a seemingly credible candidate that appears to favour one taxon over the other (albeit might in certain quarters be considered marginally so), then one is at liberty to respond accordingly as one sees fit.

SteveClifton said:

I always thought that more than one streak on the undertail coverts was out of range for Arctic (this bird has 3 at least) so on that basis it's a Meally, or at best borderline.

Click to expand...

I'd be inclined to go for Mealy (A. flammea flammea) too - as well as having 3 undertail streaks, the flank streaks are a bit too strong for Arctic. However, intergrades / hybrids exist; possible that this is one of them.

Michał Jaro;3648419 said:

I do not know well differences between exilipes and hornemanni.

Click to expand...

A. h. exilipes is from arctic Eurasia (northern Scandinavia eastwards), while A. h. hornemanni is from Greenland. The latter is highly improbable to say the least as far east as Poland :t:

KenM said:

I don't know how "set in stone" the absence of, or the inclusion of, streaks to the UTC's are regarding definitive ID of the said races regarding this taxa. The OP had singled this bird out as distinctively different from rest of group which were given as Common Redpolls, clearly a much paler bird than the rest, thus perhaps grounds for candidacy?

This taxa, as you know is a "bit of a minefield", hence the call to lump along with other taxa that are not properly understood, in my view if you have a seemingly credible candidate that appears to favour one taxon over the other (albeit might in certain quarters be considered marginally so), then one is at liberty to respond accordingly as one sees fit.

Click to expand...

With respect Ken, although it might have stood out within the flock, extreme pale Meally Redpolls do exist-and can in fact be more striking than this individual.

Without relying just on the undertail coverts, the following exilipes features (from Nils Van Duivendijk's book) don't fit this bird very well:

Ear coverts almost concolorous with rest of rear head (ear coverts normally darker in Common) You could argue that they are the same colour here, but there is also a well-defined border which might be within range for extreme Arctic?
Pale rear scaps (lacking in this bird)
Bill not especially short (nor indeed 'buried’ within facial feathering)
Upperparts with yellow-white to white ground colour (this bird has a brown ground colour to my eyes. I can’t detect any yellow tones)
Often pale hind-neck (It looks quite dark like the mantle to me)
Often broad head and thick neck (this bird is not typically broad and full-necked as many typical exilipes)


On the undertail coverts of Coue’s Arctic/exilipes (from Martin Garner’s Winter Challenge book):
'Undertail coverts vary from un-marked white to containing one thin slate-coloured streak. Rarely two streaks or single broader eliptical streak and a number of very thin pencil’ lines.'

Given that the subject bird has 2 broader streaks and at least 2 pencil streaks, coupled with the other features that don't fit, I think it would be misleading to suggest that this is a good Arctic candidate. It might be an 'extreme outside chance' candidate but probably safer to err on the side of caution without better evidence.

Thanks a lot for all the comments. After reading couple of articles i think that little (2 barely visible) undertail streaks ang flank streaks (much smaller than in other birds i seen) may not be final. http://birdsmongolia.blogspot.de/2014/02/sugar-cubes-text-by-abu-aki-aka-axel.html
http://merseybirders.webs.com/documents/Arctic-Redpoll-ID-revisited.pdf
http://birdingfrontiers.com/2015/02/16/arctic-redpoll-and-mealy-redpoll/
What about head (not streaky) small bill , light pink breast ?

Now I see further explanations of my doubts. Thanks

So what do you think about that one - I see one thiny undertail streak ?
And that yellowish ?

Michał Jaro;3648811 said:

So what do you think about that one - I see one thiny undertail streak ?
And that yellowish ?

Click to expand...

I think the yellowish tones should be around the head and upper-parts on Arctic Redpoll, and much less so on the breast and flanks. Although warm in tone (esp in pic 3) and having mostly white under-tail I'd be leaning towards Meally for this bird.

OK thank you all for the good lesson of recognizing redpolls !!

So what about that one ?