How common are Redpolls?

FUDGEY · #1 (**permalink**) 24-01-2010, 07:31 PM

The birds in my garden are reaching huge numbers now. It's costing me an arm and a leg, but worth every penny. The numbers seem to be building day by day. Roughly I have 40 siskin, 50 goldfinch, 30 chaffinch, 20 house sparrow, 20 bramblling along with half a dozen pheasants, collared doves, wood pigeon, jackdaw, dunnock, green & bullfinch, blackbird, song thrush, robin sparrohawk and several other species. Today I even had a reed bunting appear. Any how yesterday my friend spotted a female Redpoll so I spent 10 minutes in my hide to get a picture. I was over the moon to see 3 (2 females and a male) I have spent 35 years roaming my area in search of wildlife & only seen 1 before. Are they pretty numerous and I've just not observed them or should I be as excited as I am?

Adam Cheeseman · #2 (**permalink**) 24-01-2010, 07:39 PM

Lesser Redpolls are pretty common and widespread, but I find they are more usually heard than seen. They will often form mixed flocks with Siskin and these can be three figure number flocks, usually associating around birch or alder trees. Today I had one flock with 3 of each so can be small as well.
The Common Redpoll is not common and many sightings can often be attributed to pale looking Lesser Redpolls. Commons are more of a continental species that occurs here in small numbers mostly in winter. Arctic and Hornemann's Arctic Redpolls are rarer still.

Cheers,

Adam

FUDGEY · #3 (**permalink**) 24-01-2010, 07:45 PM

Tyvm Adam, I actually thought they were common Redpolls and didn't consider lesser. I'm on my phone and can't post a photo at moment, but I'll put one of the male & female tomorrow. Are they easy to tell apart?

FUDGEY · #4 (**permalink**) 25-01-2010, 04:00 AM

Common or Leser ID please?

aeshna5 · #5 (**permalink**) 25-01-2010, 04:28 AM

Those are the Lessers, which are the UK breeding species. Around London there seem to be more of them about this winter + unusually seem to be more widespread than Siskins round here.

Generally the numbers are probably scarcest in the south-east; there was quite a decline around the 1970's.

FUDGEY · #6 (**permalink**) 25-01-2010, 06:55 AM

Ty for ID aeshna, I just presumed it was a acommon redpoll as I thought wrongly obviously the Lesser woyuld have less red on it. Heres a poor pic of the male and you can see it has got a lot of red on it. Thanks for letting me know, you learn something everyday.