Saturday, 2 April 2011

Lesser or Mealy ???

Been away to Wales for a few days and it will take more than that to sort out the pics I took.  In the meanwhile any takers for Lesser or Mealy for the following videos from Big Waters this afternoon?



Answers on a Fiver

6 comments:

Andrew Kinghorn said...

Lesser Redpoll I would say
- Ground colour looks rather gingerish/brown all over
- Underparts are a nice ginger tinge and this bird doesn't look that frost either above or below.
- Can't see any hint of any white on rump which is a good ID factor of typical Mealy Redpolls.

Hope this was off some help when you come to making your decision.

Alan Tilmouth said...

I'll disagree with Andrew on this one

- white supercilium
- strong white tramlines at centre of mantle
- long primary projection
- size compared to Tree Sparrow, it appears too large for Lesser IMO.

Alan Tilmouth said...

Oh and nice white rather than buff wingbars.

Johnnykinson said...

Yes, that's definately a Tree Sparrow you have there John.
Stake YOUR birding reputation on it!

HowdonBlogger said...

Thanks for the comments Guys, it was like being in the hide on Friday and Saturday with many different opinions. The one thing that swings it for me was the size as Alan said, having also seen another obvious Lesser Redpoll very close it to for a couple of seconds.

John

Now wheres my list

Andrew Kinghorn said...

Well done Alan! You clearly spotted a few things I didn't. Looks like I need to spend another whole winter watching these birds.......

The primary projection is very noticeable indeed, how did I miss that? Nice white mantle straps and at the end of the first video I can see a fairly large whitish rump.