Hoary Redpolls

Saturday January 19,

It was kind of an odd really. I was up before it was completely light, but noticed Redpolls on the front feeder. Cool! I thought, but immediately realized one was not a Common Redpoll It was too pale and not streaky enough. No way, I thought . It has been so long since I have looked at winter finches in a field guide, I had to look up Redpoll in the index.

For someone like me, finding a rare bird is is not a pleasant experience. Sure it is initially exciting, but then the self doubt follows. In the case of Common versus Hoary Redpoll the differences are not all that obvious. Hoary is lighter, having a “frosted” appearance and fewer streaks and a shorter bill. According to the Sibley guide under tail covert streaking is something that can be used to separate the 2 species when other features overlap. Well it was dark and I did not see the under tail coverts. Just a whitish Redpoll with almost no streaks on its flanks.

The day was overcast and pretty dark but I was very lucky. The Redpolls kept returning to the feeders and over the course of the day I got great looks and even managed to get some photos. Careful study revealed that the unstreaked pale birds did indeed have little or no streaking on their under tail coverts.

Because of the lousy light photography was difficult. I could not get the camera to focus on the feeder just 3 feet away because it would focus on the intervening window instead. Out in the branches 15 to 20 feet away I had more luck, although the lousy light resulted in less than perfect but adequate pictures of 3 individuals.

Even with fairly good diagnostic photos the doubt still lingered. The thing about rare birds is they are well... rare. This is now the 2nd ultra rare Ohio bird I have had in my yard this decade, and that is pretty unusual for a place like my little yard. At least I got pictures which is a relief.

Lest I be accused of sitting on these birds I did call my birding friend Anders and left a message. I was not in the mood to deal with the skepticism of some other people and left it at that. Anders finally called back but it was getting dark and I promised to call if the Hoary Redpolls showed up again the next day.

Sunday was frustrating because while there were plenty of Common Redpolls the Hoary Redpolls did not return. I got a headache scrutinizing every lighter Common Redpoll that showed up. I was surprised actually, because after studying the Hoary Redpolls for several hours the previous day, the Commons were obviously Commons and even the pale birds had more streaking on their under tail coverts. I now wonder if I didn’t have more than the 5 individual Hoary Redpolls I counted yesterday.