Redpoll ID (1 Viewer)

Ear-coverts can look darker in some Arctic individuals
http://www.tarsiger.com/images/masa/Carhor11.jpg
http://www.tarsiger.com/images/komi/car_hor_2_001_0747.jpg

This bird's stripe in the greater wing coverts becomes quite quickly narrower ( from inside to outside ), so it might indicate to Mealy too.

wrexile1 said:

Haven't we all Dan...

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Everyone except me, apparently.

hannu said:

This bird's stripe in the greater wing coverts becomes quite quickly narrower ( from inside to outside ), so it might indicate to Mealy too.

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or it may indicate old outer greater coverts, which are notoriously difficult to see in the hand on a redpoll, never mind in the field.

Paul

if I'd found this I would've been inclined to call it a Mealy (at least at first) based on colour and 'feel' ... clearly not a cabaret and not shouting Arctic, but then I'd get views revealing the unmarked white rump and ut covs and all would be thrown into utter bleedin confusion; for me (possibly only me) it lacks that sort of squat, 'mongolian-faced' look and elements of frostiness-ness in it's plumage I'd expect on Arctic (rightly or wrongly) but what with all the overlap etc I'd be calling in the cavalry ...

edit: and a bloke with a mist-net

London Birder said:

• if I'd found this I would've been inclined to call it a Mealy
• but then I'd get views revealing the unmarked white rump and ut covs and all would be thrown into utter bleedin confusion;
• it lacks that sort of squat, 'mongolian-faced' look and elements of frostiness-ness in it's plumage I'd expect on Arctic
• I'd be calling in the cavalry ...

edit: and a bloke with a mist-net

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Agree with all of the above - nightmare of a bird... Is there really anyone out there who could ID this without a mistnet, and on what criteria?

Either a first-winter exilipes Arctic at the Mealy end of the range, or a hybrid. My first impressions were Arctic however.. and that rump puts me right off Mealy.

Take a look at:
www.geocities.com/blgp_birder/ArcRedpoll_28_12_04_3.JPG

This bird should catch by nets. Even it looks very pale, I think still, it's Redpoll, not Arctic.
Follow 'story' is based on the article: 'Identification of Arctic Redpoll (Car hor exilipes), author: Pekka J. NIkander Lintumies-magazine 6/1992
"There is a lot of individual variation among Redpolls and Arctic Redpolls and a combination of several characters is usually needed when identifying them.

pic 1 :
The dark centres in the upperpart feathers of Redpoll are on the average broader and longer than in Arctic Redpoll forming evenly thick and unbroken dark longitudinal lines on the mantle and back. On Arctic Redpoll the dark feather centres are thinner, thus not forming the uniform dark longitudinal lines. On Arctic Redpolls, the white or buffish-white "tramlines" in the middle of the mantle are broad, whereas Redpoll usually shows much thinner and weaker whitish "tramlines". In Arctic Redpoll scapulars are usually the darkest part of the upperpart, standing out as a dark patch from otherwise relative pale, buffish mantle. On Redpoll the mantle and scapulars are usually concolours. Note that Arctic Redpolls with the darkest upperparts do not necessarily show any contrast between the mantle and scapulars.

The facial pattern of Arctic Redpoll is more uniform than in Redpoll. The ear-coverts are uniform buffish or buffish-white, usually unstreaked, but sometimes showing faint greyish streaking. Thus the ear-coverts do not stand out as a darker area from the otherwice pale face, whereas in Redpoll the ear-coverts are darker, clearly separated from the paler surroundings. Due to the paler, more uniform head pattern the eye of Arctic Redpoll stands out more clearly, giving that species a somewhat different face-expression. Some Redpolls can show rather pale ear-coverts, but even these birds have a dark area around the ear-coverts.

pic 5
The dark shaft streaks in the in the flank feathers are thinner and more well defined in Arctic Redpoll, whereas in Redpoll shaft streaks are broader and more diffuse, resulting in a different flank pattern. On Arctic Redpolls, the flank streaking is thinner and sharper, often formed by a well separated individual shaft streaks. In Redpoll the individual shaft streaks run together forming long, broad and uniform streaking on the flanks.

pic 1 & 2
Some adult male Redpolls have a totally unstreaked rump and longest undertail coverts, thus being very similar to the Arctic Redpoll.

The main discussion in The Netherlands is why this bird is not just a pale
example of a Mealy Redpoll (Flammea). Some critical people has the opinion
that this bird is not an Arctic redpoll because:

- The mantle is too dark (lacks the whitish base colour).

Diagree. I think this photo shows that there is the white base in the centre. http://www.birdforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=34694

- Flanks too heavy streaked.
At the extreme end perhaps, but very neat, not 'messy' like Mealy.

- The bill is too large.
Personally, I don't place too much importance on this feature and I can't find a photo which shows the bill well enough in profile anyway.

- Eear-coverts too dark.
Not as 'hollow-cheeked' as some but still not extreme.

- White supercilium not reaching above the bill.
This is a new feature to me so cna't comment.

- and especially the bird lacks the well known "jizz" of an Arctic Redpoll
(not like an "frosty snowball", neckless, bulky, fluffy, etc.).
Well, only the extremes are frsoty snowballs. Usually just hornemanni but some exilipes can be described like this. Is it significant that the exilipes illustrated in the Rare Birds of Netherlands book is the palest I've ever seen? To me this does look very bull-necked. The 'fluffiness' may be noticeable in the hand, but is not a field feature IMO.

Some people think that all the features shown by this bird are possible for
Mealy Redpoll. Is this right?

Personally, I find the most worrying feature is the amount of buff on the outer greater coverts and some of the other wing feathers, which I woudl expect to be more or less white.

It is an interesting bird, and rather borderline, but I would say it was an exilipes Arctic if it turned up in Shetland.

We had a similarly difficult bird in 2004 - see
http://www.nature-shetland.co.uk/naturelatest/birdarchive04oct.htm and look at 15th and 9th October. Looking at that bird again it was very small-billed, pale-cheeked and sparsely streaked compared to this bird.

Now I'm off to read Paul Baxter's comments properly and I may be back!

Tim Allwood said:

if they ain't classics they can be impossible

Tim

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Not true - but you do need to see an awful lot of them and accept that some may be impossible.

hannu said:

pic 1 & 2
Some adult male Redpolls have a totally unstreaked rump and longest undertail coverts, thus being very similar to the Arctic Redpoll.

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This is true, but I would say that it is almost certain that this is not an adult male, in which case the white rump and undertail coverts mean that its is highly likely that it is an Arctic.

Mike Pennington said:

This is true, but I would say that it is almost certain that this is not an adult male, in which case the white rump and undertail coverts mean that its is highly likely that it is an Arctic.

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Yes, I think it is important to take in mind that this bird is almost certain an 1e winter bird, mainly because it has pointed outer tailfeathers (as you can see in pic. 5).

As Goudving points out in #32, the bird seems to be a 1st winter according to pointed tail feathers, also quite worn,which would be expected du to the partial moult in 1cy, which is important to the birds appearance, not the "snowball" like ad. male impression.
I also noticed the large bill, but since there is overlap in measurements,
flammea: bill (F) male.8.2-10.4
(F) female.7.2-9.7
Depth at feathering.5.7-6.5
exilipes: bill (F) male/female.7.0-9.6
Depth at feathering.5.6-6.3
hornemanni: bill (F) male/female. 8.3-10.8
Depht at feathering.6.7-7.7
(From Svensson)

I focused on the straight culmen on this bird, which, although difficult to se properly in the images, I think it seems to have, maybe not the almost concave culmen you occasional see in arctic. In pic 1 the shaggy tibia feathers is well seen, a feature you do associate with arctic.
One would expect the pale unstreaked rump (or almost so) to be at least 10mm, at best 20mm wide, which it seems to be in this one.
The greater covert tips (bar) which often form a wide white wingbar on arctic,mentioned by hannu in #22, usually narrows at the outer GC in arctic as well but might be broader at the inner, but I think this is a variable character, which also would be affected by partial moult in 1cy, or it might be a feature of birds showing intermediate characters?
Redpolls is sometimes a tricky business, and in photos!
I´d say 93.9 arctic on this one.
JanJ

Another vote for Arctic, based mainly on the rump and UT coverts which are hard to ignore.

Also, in photo one, for instance, the bill looks quite broad-based and the face is also quite pale and plain-looking although this does vary a bit in other photos

Mike Pennington said:

Not true - but you do need to see an awful lot of them and accept that some may be impossible.

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that's almost my point isn't it?

ok... some are but many aren't... i can't put a % on it!

Tim

Were there only these two birds, I mean Mealy and our 'headache' ?
Does it possible to get some blow-ups ?

mmmmmmmmmmm, some good points in favour of both sides.

My initial reaction from the photos was that it had a mealy feel to it, but as Paul says, it does indeed show all the classic diagnostic Arctic features.

Although I abhor the raising of the hybrid cop-out, I think maybe it is possible here....

GV

ps I thought that BOU were going to lump mealy and lesser back, but not Arctic?

EDIT: hadn't read the second page of this thread! Much more convinced that it is probably an Arctic now - thanks to the thorough ones amongst you.

In my mind, it's useless to speak this 'snow ball' feature, because those individuals are quite vagrant. If some adult male Redpolls have a totally unstreaked rump and longest undertail coverts, what kind of birds these are in juvenile age for its parts?

I have looked tens of photos from Arctic Redpoll and the depth of the bill is appr. same as the lenght of the bill in Arctic Redpoll ('equal triangle'). This bird's lenght of the bill has clearly bigger than the depth of the bill, so in my mind it's not enough 'compact' so as to Arctic. (Both of Mike's mentioned Shetland's birds have 'compact' bill too and at least the other bird have buffish head.).

Bird's unstreaked rump is not so wide as Jan supposed (even 20mm), because if it be so wide, it also show up in flank. In pic 2 there seems to be probably some greyish tinge beside the rump.

Bird has not any buffish colour in face, throat and upper flanks, which is mainly most typical colour feature in Arctic Redpolls, except those classical very white Arctic Redpolls, so called snow balls. Ear-coverts are clearly brownish in pic 5. Also ear-coverts looks very similar as the other bird in pic 4 (thus there is a dark area around the ear-coverts).

Mike P said that flanks streaks are 'messy' in Mealy. This is only partly true . Most of Mealy individuals have messy streaks in flanks, but also this kind of 'neat' streaks is possible to see also in Mealy. E.g the other bird in pic 4 have quite neat streaks and the bill is same looking as our focused bird.

In addition to,...
During the spring and summer the long black feathers around the nostrils wear shorter and Arctic Redpoll seem to have longer bill than in winter.

hannu said:

I have looked tens of photos from Arctic Redpoll and the depth of the bill is appr. same as the lenght of the bill in Arctic Redpoll ('equal triangle'). This bird's lenght of the bill has clearly bigger than the depth of the bill, so in my mind it's not enough 'compact' so as to Arctic. (Both of Mike's mentioned Shetland's birds have 'compact' bill too and at least the other bird have buffish head.).

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I think it is just the question how useful the "bill feature" is.

The Macmillan Birders Guide (Shirihai) state: "Altough extremes of the two species differ clearly, most individuals are intermediate in length and shape of bill, so this feature is of limited use".

And take a look at: http://web.telia.com/~u15702529/faltbestamning/nabben/mer_snosisknabbar.htm,

.....and you can see that the bill of Artic Redpoll is quit variable.