Redpoll, Pictures of the Week for 29th February 2012

Male Redpoll in my garden, Grimescar Valley, Huddersfield, photograph taken this week. He is one of a group of six redpolls which seem to keep company with four siskins. He looks a bit like a linnet but I believe his small size and yellow beak confirms him as a redpoll.

lesser redpoll eating nyjer seed

The redpolls I see in my Pennines garden are very small birds, although my bird books describe redpolls as the same size as a goldfinch. My books are of course out of date, the newest is 18 years old. The native redpoll has been re-classified as the Lesser Redpoll, with visiting Common/Mealy Redpolls from Europe. These redpolls visiting my garden are certrainly smaller than the goldfinches, which often arrive at the same time. They all like the nyjer seeds in this feeder.

Redpolls are classed as finches but have a finer beak than classic finches such as the goldfinch.

This photograph shows a goldfinch on the washing line above the seed feeder, with female siskin on the left and female redpoll on the right. Male and female goldfinch have the same colouring, whilst with the siskin and redpoll the female has less bright colouration. The RSPB website implies that the Lesser Redpoll is an uncommon bird. I have once identified a mealy redpoll on the same feeder and it is noticeably larger than the Lesser redpolls. I feel quite priveledged to have these delightful little visitors to my garden.



I haven't altered or enhanced the colours in these photographs. Comments would be welcome, I am new to photographing and identifying these small birds. It's quite difficult, they live in different time to us, their lives and movements are very quick. I do also sometimes see wrens and goldcrest, haven't managed to photograph them, they lurk in the bushes and the conifers. 

The Twite is a Pennine bird I've never seen, they are rare. My friend, poet Char March, has been artist in residence at the Pennine Watershed Project, which led her to involvement with the Twite Recovery Project, to encourage this once widespread bird. The twite is slightly larger than the redpoll with a pinkish area on the lower back, no red on the head or chest.

Char's lovely book, The Cloud Appreciation Society's Day Out, was written after she found inspiration from both projects. It includes a poem called "The A - Z of Twite."  Her poems have in turn inspired me to put my redpolls into a poem, of sorts -

A Mature Garden

Missing

a Cacophony of kids

a Decapitation of frogs

a Nurturing of tadpoles

a Brazening of sausages

a Suckling of willows

an Ascension of Leylandii

a Cheerfulness of sparrows

a Murmuration of starlings

Extant

a Remembrance of rosemary

an Absence of skateboards

Tidings of magpies

an Arable of grass

a Sisterhood of cats

a Clambering of blackberries

an Eden of fruit trees

and blackbirds, bluetits, redpolls…