Bird of the Week – Common Redpoll

The very Common Redpoll, WC gets counts in the hundreds at his feeders. Still, the males, with the reddish wash on their chest, bring a bit of color to an Interior Alaska winter. The winter of 2013-2014 has already been a tough one for Redpolls. Their primary winter food is birch mast, the seeds of the Alaska Paper Birch. The windstorms devastated the birch mast, so food supplies are short. And it takes a lot of food to keep these little guys moving at sub-arctic temperatures. Happily, they are enthusiastic breeders, double- and sometimes triple-clutchng each summers. For more bird photos, please…