Stumbled upon around 20 Lesser Redpolls on my patch late morning today, including two Mealy Redpolls. One of the birds appeared particularly pale (especially when seen in flight), and for a brief period of time I flirted with the possibility of an exilipes.
However, better views confirmed it to be 'just' a pale Mealy Redpoll although it was sporting a nice metal ring on its right leg - yep, it was last week's bird. Last week, I suggested it was a first-winter female. However, it appears to be a first-winter male - a faint pink wash is apparent on the upper breast, and there is also the slightest hint of a pink tinge in the rump.
The bottom photo demonstrates quite nicely the strong and regular streaking on the upperparts - a feature I do not associate with exilipes (usually much finer, whispy and irregular streaking). Then there are the other obvious features - a broad streak on the longest undertail covert coupled with finer streaks on several other UTCs, the white (but finely-streaked) rump, the base colour to the upperparts, large bill and so on.
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