Redpoll

Redpoll and Siskins have been conspicuously absent from the garden winter. Ringers have been noting it all over the country and the feeling is an abundance of natural food in the form of a bumper pine cone crop means they don't need to come into gardens. A few are beginning to move though with several heard and seen flying over the garden.

I was pleased to catch and ring this 2nd calendar year male!

 The small patch of red on the cheek shows it to be a young male whilst the pointed and worn tail feathers confirm the age. The primary tips are also more worn than you'd expect in an adult bird that had replaced its flight feathers during its post breeding moult. This was a bird born last year and is now Euring code 5.