Redpoll Bonanza

This has been my best Winter by far for Redpolls visiting the garden. It has always been a sporadic visitor in very small numbers, with birds pretty much always seen feeding in silver birch, never on the feeders, rarely returning on a regular basis. This year has been no different, but larger flocks have been seen plus more regular ones and twos. At midday on March 17th a small flock of about 10 birds bounced out of the adjacent wood (as per usual!) into the birches and I had about 5 minutes to watch them before they spooked, never to return. This is the second largest flock I have had following 13 birds on Boxing Day. Whether they are always in the surrounding woods, which are vast, and just chance upon my garden occasionally, or whether they are transient flocks I am not sure. The flock today was binned and scoped during their brief feeding and of the birds I scrutinised, all were Lessers, but one was a Mealy - an obviously larger, greyer bird showing pale mantle lines and rump.  I keep hoping these birds will hang around a bit more, but they never seem to.  When I actually have a telescope and camera on hand to try and grab a record shot, there are only Lessers on view!  The shot below is another poor record, but shows a fairly typical worn Spring Lesser Redpoll exhibiting pale mantle lines, but a very brown colouration to the rest of the mantle, along with very white looking wing bars, tertial and primary feather edging.