A surprise visitor from Greenland

It’s been a wonderful season to see the winter finches. I’ve seen many flocks of redpolls this winter – they are tiny, streaked birds with jaunty little red caps. The adult males have a bright pink breast, too.

When they arrive from the North, they don’t know where the feeders are. They don’t even know what feeders are. They eat birch and alder seeds. Gradually, they see where the other birds are feeding, and learn how to get seeds out from feeders.

In late January, I decided it was time for me to feed the redpolls. I put out my tubular feeder with perches and tiny holes, just the right size for the tiny redpolls to poke their tiny bills into and bring out a tiny thistle seed.

The redpolls didn’t find the feeder for several days, and I got impatient. I bought three inexpensive “thistle socks” at the nature store of the Fields Pond Audubon Center. I filled the “socks” with thistle seed, and hung them up. The next day I had five beautiful little redpolls feeding.

Two days later, I had a dozen redpolls. I got greedy; I wanted more redpolls. I am usually frugal, and thistle – a.k.a. nyger seed – is expensive. For the first time in my life, I scattered the thistle seed over the snow crust to attract even more redpolls. (It was very cold, and no more snow was forecast for several days. I wouldn’t want to waste those expensive seeds!)

Several days later, I had 75 redpolls. They were perched on five bird feeders, and also all over the ground, eating thistle seed.

I happily scanned with binoculars the many little redpolls all over my yard, in bushes, on the feeders and on the ground. I scanned them carefully. One was lighter than all the rest.

I looked at this one very carefully for a long time as it hopped around. Its flanks had almost no streaks. All the other redpolls had heavy streaking on their flanks. This redpoll had no brown on its back; it had narrow black streaks with white in between. Its rump and its under-tail coverts (the feathers under its tail) were white.

This was not a common redpoll; it was a hoary redpoll, and the subspecies from northern Greenland. I was thrilled. I sent a report to Maine Audubon’s Rare Bird Alert, and that report will be sent to birders nationwide.

I hadn’t seen a hoary redpoll since 1995, when one appeared at my feeder. The 1995 hoary redpoll was of a different subspecies, and it was the first one I had ever seen.

For information on Fields Pond Audubon Center, call 989-2591.