Classical Redpolls!

For more than a week now a group of 30-40 Redpolls have been visiting our garden and surroundings. It's a mixed group with both Lesser and Mealy Redpolls. Today I succeeded in catching one of each species. Both were classical examples of both species! Below of short photo study of the birds:

Lesser Redpoll (Acanthis cabaret), looks like a 1cy with a moulted GC9 (see arrow), male (hint of pink in rump)

 Mealy Redpoll (Acanthis flammea), 1cy male, note the 5 retained outer-GC and tertails

I would be happy with unstreaked undertailcoverts in combination with a white rump:)

 And a nice comparison of the two species!

Ducks, ducks, ducks

At the Yperenplas near Wilp some rare ducks for our county have been found a few days ago by Maarten Kaales (totalbirding.blogspot.com). On the big lake there he found a male Ferruginous Duck, a hybrid Ferruginous Duck X Pochard and a female Scaup. A pretty nice assembly in one group of ducks. They were discoveresd on Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday I went there with Bram and Tammo. It didn't take long for us to find all three species there. According to Arno ten Hoeve there were even two hybrids present. So perhaps it's a hybrid family: father Ferruginous, mother Pochard and their two kids have visited our county :)

The light was horrible, but despite that I managed to get some recordshots of the ducks.

 Ferrigunous Duck (Aythya nyroca), male

Hybrid Ferrigunous Duck X Pochard (Aythya nyroca X ferina), male

Scaup (Aythya marila), female

Here are some landscape pics:

 Thousands of geese, mainly White-Fronted and Barnacle Geese have been present along the IJssel.

A view on the IJssel with Deventer as its background, flooded land as a result of high water levels (which is common in winter).

Yesterday morning I had two Redpolls spec. foraging together with a Siskin in an alder behind my garden. Everyday several groups of Siskins fly by, maybe some movement!