Whilst the preparation for the usual wonderful christmas dinner was taking place around 1pm when I was distributing the pressies I witnessed a massive influx of small finches in and around my back garden feeders and bordering trees.

Around 20 Long Tailed Tits were at the bottom my garden, at my feeders were a dozen or so Blue and Great Tits, 20 odd Goldies, half a dozen Chaffinches, 2 Robins and a real christmas day bonus of 3 possibly 4 Lesser Redpolls – a new species for my garden 😉

Upon looking more closely at the patchy images I took through the double glazing I saw that 2 of the Redpolls looked different in both colouration and size whilst on the same niger seed feeder, WOW not a Common (Mealy) was it with the Lesser? I am not sure but to me the bird seen on the right in the 2 images below looks larger, paler in colour and also has less red markings, more orangey on its cap!

Please do take a look and let me know what you think? If it is a Common is this a rare occurance or not? I will be looking like a hawk in the garden tomorrow in the hope the birds come back and may even set up my one man bird hide just in case 🙂

I look forward to your thoughts people, below are the best images from today!