This message was sent to Mark Houston on March 13th in regards to the
possible Hoary Redpoll that was seen earlier this week.

Thanks for taking a look at the redpolls at my feeder, as I'm not
really sure about the identification process involved for a Hoary Redpoll.
I never considered the shape of the beak, as a critical identification
measure. Considering this, I am reluctant to say that the bird I saw
earlier this week was a Hoary Redpoll, as we were basing most of our
identification on a lighter-colored bird and a white rump.
This afternoon, there was probably close to twenty redpolls at the
feeder. I didn't get a very good look at all of them, but there was one
bird that was sitting on a branch with his back to me. Again, this bird had
a white rump. I looked at his beak and it looked like it was a Common
Redpoll's beak. If a white rump can be found in Common Redpolls, I would
say that this bird was a Common. I also filmed this bird, but the quality
is not very good, and he is facing away from the camera, so we only get
peaks at his beak and breast. Of course I'm not sure if this is the same
bird that was seen earlier this week, but this bird does have a white rump,
which we used earlier to identify the bird, along with the paler overall
color.
Thanks again for all your help.

Matthew Moskwik
Elk, WA
yuhaus at hotmail.com
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