Click photo to see complete painting

Common Redpoll

Status Irregularly common in winter. Abundant some years, occasionally rare to absent other years. Whether this irregularity is the result of availability of food, prevailing winds at times of migration or to other less obvious factors is not known. Fall birds generally first appear in October or November (average 30 October, earliest 4 October); an exceptionally early bird was seen at Cape Sable on 8 September 1965 (B.J. and S. Smith). Numbers build by late December, when estimates of 100-1000 or more Common Redpolls have been made on Christmas Bird Counts around the province.

The latest reports are generally in April (average 11 April, latest 4 May). Two later spring birds at St. Esprit, Richmond County, on 10 June 1982 (R. and M. Meyerowitz) were unusual but reports from Sable Island in 1968 were quite startling: following a sighting of three birds between 8 and 10 June, three of these little northerners were seen on 6 July, one on 12 July, one on 26 July, and one on 2 August (C. and N. Bell, I.A. McLaren). Winter 1935-36 was a "redpoll winter." They were common from December to April and for the two weeks of mid-April the local winter population, augmented by northbound transients, swarmed over parts of the Annapolis Valley. On 18 April, C.A. Borden had "millions of small birds" come out of the sky and settle all about him while he was pruning the trees in his apple orchard at Sheffield Mills, Kings County. The birds were seemingly unconscious of his presence, alighting close by and chattering excitedly. In all his years of orcharding he had never seen anything like it. They stayed a few minutes and then suddenly the entire flock rose into the air as one bird and whirled away in a cloud. Nothing so dramatic has been reported in recent years but redpolls were very common in the winters of 1959-60, 1968-69 and 1981-82.

Description Length: 13-14 cm. All plumages: Bill short and sharply pointed. Adult male: Crown bright satiny red; rump and breast delicately suffused with pink; back streaked brown and gray; wings and tail dark brown, the wings with two light gray bars, and the tail well notched; belly white; flanks and rump streaked with brown. Adult female: Similar but without pink on rump or breast; underparts and rump more heavily streaked with brown.

Range Breeds in the northern parts of the Northern Hemisphere. In North America, breeds south to Newfoundland, central Quebec, northern Manitoba and northern British Columbia, and winters south to the central United States.

Remarks Redpolls are closely related to Pine Siskins and American Goldfinches, both of which they resemble in size, manner of flight and feeding habits. In winter these three species commonly fly together in mixed flocks, but as the time in spring for northward migration approaches, great numbers of redpolls often congregate and travel by themselves. On 17 April 1942 I saw one of these great mass migrations in progress near Wilmot, Annapolis County. The branches of a small roadside apple orchard were so thickly covered with redpolls that the trees presented a leaden-gray appearance. The ground below was so thickly covered that it looked like a gray carpet in motion, as thousands of individuals hopped about. The centre of this great flock was not more than 30 m away, and the din of birds' combined twitterings was impressive, as though each one in its excitement was trying to out-twitter the others. When flushed by a blast from my car's horn, the roar of their wings was like a sudden gale of wind. As they wheeled into the sky in dense formation, twisting and turning as though uncertain of the proper course to follow, they looked like an immense swarm of giant bees. Never before or since have I seen so many redpolls at one time.