Redpoll Facts - Information About Redpoll

(Lesser) Redpoll - Carduelis Flammea

The Redpoll has similar habitat preferences to the Siskin, occurring in coniferous woodland. Like the Siskin it specialises in eating small seeds from Alder, Birch etc etc. The population is fairly small compared to the other Finches with around 30,000 pairs throughout the country.

Identification:

Adult

• Males are easily recognised whereas the females are a little less colourful.


• Finches are small sparrow sized birds, the Redpoll is around 12cms in length.

Male

• Tail is dark and deeply forked with thin white edges to the tail feathers


• Rump is pale and streaked, back is chestnut, heavily streaked.


• Wings are black with a large white wingbar and white edges to the primaries and tertials.


• The Redpoll has a streaky brown head, red forehead and black around the pale bill


• It has a dark eyestripe and paler supercilium.


• Underparts, throat and breast are pinky red, belly white with dark streaked flanks and undertail coverts are white with black streaking.

Female

• Female Redpolls lack all the pink underpart colours of the male, but do show the red forehead.


• They look like a washed out brown version of the male, however the wing and tail markings are similar to the males.


• Small pale bill, black legs, dark eye.

Juvenile

Juveniles appear from May onwards and look very similar to adult females.

Status and Distribution

The Redpoll is a common breeding resident in the UK with about 30,000 pairs and occurs in all counties throughout the UK. They breed quite late in the season in the north of the country.
In winter numbers increase as migrants come to the UK from Continental Europe to escape their cold winters, migrants start to arrive in October to winter in our less severe climate.
The Lesser Redpoll is very similar to its cousin the Meally Redpoll which is larger and paler.

Habitat/Food

Redpolls tend to feed high up, taking seeds in a tit like fasion, often hanging upside-down. They will occasionally take food from feeders, they prefer conifer type habitat types throughout the UK, occurring in woodlands, parks, gardens, farmland, hedgerows and towns.

In the garden Redpolls will take Seed Mixes and Niger Seed.

Song/Call

Call notes; most often a hard loud metallic ‘chhett chhett chhett, sometimes repeated 3 or 4 times
Song is the call with an added short rattle. ‘rrrrrrrr’