On January 12th, during a round at Heidestein in Zeist for the Patchwork Challenge 2024, I encountered this bird in a group of Mealy Redpolls. The bird stood out among the Mealy Redpolls due to its white belly and light head.

People who occasionally observe Redpolls know that you should never focus solely on one characteristic of the bird. It often involves combining all the characteristics to ultimately arrive at ‘something.’

The bird does not have a red breast. This rules out an adult male Redpoll. Thanks to Frank Neijts, this bird can be identified as an adult female.

“Your bird seems adult to me due to the slightly rounded, not super-pointed, and intact tail feathers, and in photo 7 (waarneming.nl), I think I can just see the broad white tertial edges. Without red on the breast, not even a little, this is then an adult female.”

Before his response, and in the field, it seemed to me to be a second calendar year bird. In that plumage, a bit of flank streaking is still allowed for an Arctic Redpoll. Even on the undertail coverts, streaking can still be present.

Some of the characteristics point to an Arctic Redpoll. Pale head and cheek. White belly. Small bill and the overall white impression. Only the flank streaking is just too much/too thick for a pure Arctic Redpoll, both for an adult female and for a second calendar year bird. Additionally, there are too many/too thick black streaks on the undertail coverts. This would still be somewhat acceptable in a second calendar year bird, but what this bird has falls just outside the variation within Arctic Redpolls. For an adult female, it is certainly too much.

I saw the bird only briefly at the end of the afternoon. It was getting quite dark, so I had to overexpose a lot, both in the field and on the computer. This, of course, also contributes to the white impression.

I leave this bird undetermined myself. That it is not a pure Arctic Redpoll does not mean it is suddenly a pure Mealy Redpoll. To me, this bird hovers somewhere between these two taxa.

For more photos, see here:

Waarneming.nl