Possible Coues Arctic Redpoll

Thanks for your reply Ben. I have sent it off to the British Birds Rarities Committee to see what they think.
Several people convinced me that it was a Coues's but we will see. I haven't had an acknowledgement yet but I suppose they do not meet everyday
I will be happy enough if you are right but the more I looked at photo's of Coues's the more I think I am right. It compared very favourably with the recent Sculthorpe bird which Andrew Vaughan and myself dipped on on a very windy day.
Either way (Coues's or Arctic) it would be a garden lifer that for 26 days I called a Mealy Redpoll. Oh well never too old to learn
Let me put it this way - if it isn't a Coues's then there are many photos on the internet that are also sheep dressed up as mutton

Super bird that, Chris,

Would certainly be in the scandi arctic camp personally, with the caveat that utc also looked good, no photo’s showing?

Intergrade at worst!?

Cheers,

Ben

On March 25th I posted some photos on the Forum and Twitter of what I thought may be a Mealy Redpoll that had been on my feeders for a few days as its plumage was distinctive and two toned.. I asked whether others agreed that this was indeed what it was. I even sent it to BirdGuides who put it in to their Gallery as a Mealy with the comment “nice”. A few other people also commented that they thought it was a Mealy.

Over the next few days whenever I saw the bird I wondered briefly to myself if indeed this was something other than a Common Redpoll. I looked at other photos on the Internet – especially the Sculthorpe bird which Andrew Vaughan and I had dipped on an extremely day windy day in Norfolk just a couple of days before I discovered “my bird” on the feeders on my flowering cherry in Lincoln

Anyway the bird was a regular on the feeders until Wednesday 10th of April. I posted the last photo I took of “my mealy” with the comment that it had departed for pastures new. It hasn’t been since and today the lesser redpolls didn’t turn up.

Within minutes of the post my phone was pinging as I had comments from people believing that I was wrong in my identification and in fact this bird was a Coues Artic Redpoll. The former chair of Portland Bill Bird Observatory commented that he believed it was a Coues. In another guy even commented that it was s 2cy. Then today Bardsley Island Bird Observatory then said that looking at the bill and rump the bird looked more like an exilipes Arctic Redpoll than a Mealy

What do others think? Comments welcomed