Goodbye for now

Here we are at Kirkenes airport reflecting on a superb 10 day ring trip hosted by Nigel and Sissel at Nesseby on the Varanger peninsula. The weather was kind and we only missed a couple of afternoons due to strong winds. We ended up with a super total of 3902 birds ringed, 2500 of which were Redpoll. We have posted some images already looking at the plumage variation in this species and readers how check out our previous trips (http://varangerringing.blogspot.com/) will see our continuing debate about this topic. Most guides recognise 3 distinct species in Europe… the nominate species is usually referred to as either Common/ Mealy Redpoll; the Lesser Redpoll breeds in the UK and most books recognise the Arctic Redpoll as a separate species. 

The birds we have been catching are mainly Common/ Mealy Redpoll with 3 key features; a relatively large bill, streaked rump and streaked undertail coverts as shown below:


However, many of the birds show variations on this theme- here is a typical example:


As you can see, although the rump is still streaked, the undertail coverts are completely white. The next bird seems like a real candidate for an Arctic Redpoll:


It has a very small beak, and much of the rump is plain white but unfortunately when we look on the underside…..


There is a clear dark centre to at least one of the undertail coverts. So where does this leave us? Confused! There is quite a lot of research suggesting that there is a single species with full range of morphological appearances- and we have seen pretty well all of them.

Varanger is a fabulous place for birding, ringing and wildlife generally but one of our abiding memories will be of a great team working together as you can see below.


The Wilderoe plane has dropped us at Kirkenes and sadly we will be saying goodbye in about an hour as we get on the SAS flight to Oslo and then to Heathrow. We hope to be back sometime soon.



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