Tuesday 10th March

Back over to Ditton Quarry this morning and 4x Lesser Redpolls were quickly located feeding in the leaf litter under the alder trees in the SW corner of the site. After 10 minutes, and with heavy rain, I felt this was going to be it, but for once persistence paid off and a flock of Redpolls bounded into view and dropped down into the alders. One by one they dropped to the floor to feed and eventually a Mealy Redpoll appeared amongst them. Again clearly a larger and paler bird, with a lovely rosey-pink breast contrasting against it's pale plummage, compared the 16 Lesser Redpolls. The flock was very flighty and flew off a couple of times before eventually returning to the alders. I got another good view of a Mealy sitting in a nearby willow before the flock flew off high southwards just before 08:50.

I returned at lunchtime to meet up with Ken Beckett who had contacted me to say he'd be interested to see the Redpolls. We saw small numbers of Lesser Redpoll in various Alders in the enjoyable 45 minutes we spent there but unfortunately no Mealies. Someone else has to see them!!! Ken also saw a couple of Goldcrest, Long-tailed Tit, male Bullfinch and Song Thrush while there.