ID photo guide: Lesser, Mealy and Coues’s Arctic Redpoll
These three redpoll forms are the most likely to be encountered in Britain, though one is scarce and another rare. Andy Stoddart provides all the information you need to split these tricky finches.
Named for the characteristic red markings on their heads, redpolls are charming small finches. The group’s taxonomy is unsettled, with several different very closely related forms considered to be anything from one to five species. However, three species are usually recognised and these can be confusingly similar. Here, Andy Stoddart looks at the three forms most likely to be encountered in Britain and Ireland – Lesser, Mealy (a subspecies of Common) and Coues’s Arctic Redpolls – providing all the information and advice you need to recognise each of them.
BASIC PRINCIPLES
Redpolls are delightful, characterful small finches found throughout the northern regions of the Holarctic. They are, however, notoriously problematic to identify.
There is considerable sex, age and seasonal variation and much character overlap between the three currently recognised species, while posture and light conditions have a major effect on their appearance. In this respect they can be likened to large gulls and their identification requires a similar tolerance of uncertainty.
Most birds have to be identified by reference to a ‘suite of characters’ which, when taken together, will render most identifiable. The occasional bird, however, will have to be left unidentified.
Most authors recognise at least five forms grouped into three species, but their taxonomy is far from settled. The three most commonly encountered forms (representing all three species) are dealt with here.
Lesser Redpoll
This species breeds in Alpine central Europe, Britain and Ireland, and around the southern North Sea and the Baltic. In winter it withdraws from the more northerly or high-altitude parts of the range. This is the commonest redpoll in most of Britain and the only regularly breeding one. It nests widely across much of the country, but there are large gaps in its distribution in central, southern and south-west England. Current estimates suggest a British population of 160-190,000 pairs.
Lesser Redpoll can be seen here year round, but it is also a partial short-distance migrant, with some birds leaving these shores in autumn. In winter it can be found in a wide variety of habitats, most typically in birch and alder woodland but also in weedy fields and recently in gardens, where it is attracted to nyger seed.
This is the smallest redpoll
(it looks small compared to a Blue Tit); it is short bodied and relatively short tailed. In many cases it is readily distinguishable by size alone.
Its plumage is dark and swarthy, with rich warm brown hues throughout. The flanks are dingy buff with very strong blurry streaking, the undertail coverts can be streaked throughout and washed buff, the rump is mainly dark and the greater covert wing-bar is often suffused brown. Adult males are pinky-red on the face and breast.
Common Redpoll
The subspecies flammea, ‘Mealy Redpoll’, breeds in the boreal zone across the whole of northern continental Europe, Asia and North America. In Britain it is a rare, irregular breeder in Highland, Orkney, Shetland and the Outer Hebrides. It winters to the south in all three continents, but is highly irruptive and nomadic.
In Britain this species is predominantly a late autumn and winter visitor, mainly to Scotland and the north and east of England. Its appearances are erratic, however, with some winters seeing very few, while in other years very large influxes occur. Even in irruption years, though, arrivals are quickly absorbed within northern and eastern Britain and this remains a scarce bird in the South-West and Wales. Winter birds frequent the same habitats as Lesser Redpolls. Common Redpoll is longer than Lesser, and both longer tailed and larger billed. Some (formerly labelled ‘holboellii’) are strikingly long billed. Greyer, paler plumage hues will distinguish many Common Redpolls. In particular the supercilium and nape ‘shawl’ are often contrastingly ‘frosty’ and the underparts and wingbars are often whiter.
The dark grey flank streaking is typically bold and smudgy, often forming parallel lines. The rump can show much white, but is typically overlain with thick dark streaking and the undertail coverts have multiple dark ‘arrowhead’ marks (although adult males show less streaking in both these areas).
Adult males are red on the face and breast but freshplumaged birds in autumn/ early winter can look more pale pink due to the presence of white feather tips.
Arctic Redpoll
‘Coues’s Arctic Redpoll’, the subspecies exilipes, breeds throughout the Holarctic tundra and birch zone (though not in the east Canadian Arctic, Greenland or Iceland). Many winter at high latitudes, but some also irrupt south in association with Common Redpolls. (The bird is named for the American army surgeon and ornithologist Elliott Coues, who pronounced his name ‘cows’).
This form is almost exclusively a late autumn and winter visitor to Britain, where it occurs in very variable numbers. In most winters it is rare, but occasional influxes occur. Unsurprisingly, the geographical spread of records mirrors that of Common Redpoll. Though most readily found within flocks of Common Redpolls, it may also be discovered with Lessers or even alone.
Arctic Redpoll is close to Common in total length, though on average, is shorter billed and longer tailed. It is, however, densely feathered and fluffy – an adaptation to Arctic cold. This dense feathering gives it a distinctive structure, making it appear bigger than it really is with a fat-faced, bull-necked, broad-backed appearance. It seems to have difficulty in covering its rump and has a distinctive habit of fluffing up its rump and flank feathers to such an extent that it looks almost spherical!
Some birds (especially adult males) are strikingly pale and obvious, but others (firstwinters and females) much less so. In addition the plumage distinctions become less obvious as winter progresses into spring.
The separation of darker Arctic Redpolls from paler Commons is a classic identification problem.
There are two main pitfalls: identifying a fresh, ‘frosty’ and pink-breasted adult male Common as an Arctic, and identifying darker, more streaked female and first-year Arctics as Commons.
Many observers feel, understandably, most comfortable in claiming only the most ‘obvious-looking’ Arctics, labelling more difficult birds ‘intermediates’ or, less satisfactorily, identifying them as Commons. In reality, however, only a very small percentage are truly intermediate.
Typical Arctic Redpoll plumage clues are a very pale mantle and scapulars with white or pale straw hues, a rump which is wholly white and unstreaked or which has a clear band of unstreaked white (although some can be lightly marked throughout), a bright white ground colour to the flanks with variable and often limited light grey streaking concentrated on the upper and mid flanks, a bright golden-buff plain-looking face with a weakly defined ear covert surround and white undertail coverts which are either unmarked or contain just a few narrow grey shaft streaks. Adult males are weakly flushed pink on the breast and can be almost unmarked on the flanks. ■