Redpoll? Northern Ireland (1 Viewer)

[yan wang]

Hi I'm new to birdwatching and new member here in the forum. This is my first post.
I came across these group of small birds last weekend in National Trust - Downhill Demesne, Castlerock, Northern Ireland. This place is along the north coastline of NI. It was late afternoon early evening, so not ideal light condition.
I think these are not linnet because there are no obvious contrast between the head and the back. And twites are kind of rare in NI. So probably redpolls？

first and second pictures are of the same individual, third is taken another time at another spot in NI, but not sure about the ID

Any ideas would be appreciated, I'm trying to learn to tell these redpolls and linnet and twite apart, it's a bit confusing. Thank you for your help

 

[SteveClifton]

The birds in pics #1-3 are all Linnets, and as far as I can tell all birds in pic #4 are Linnets too.

I accept that Twite are rare in Ireland, so a good feature to separate Linnets from Redpoll is the white shafts along the bases of the primaries and outer tail feathers. You can see this, for example, in pic #3, and in pic #4 the lower left and upper right birds show this feature on the tail.

 

[yan wang]

thanks a lot Steve. that is very helpful