A flock of up to 60 Common Redpolls have been visiting the feeders at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery and surrounding natural vegetation at the east end of Lee Martinez Park. 1 Hoary Redpoll has been reported among them. I have tried to photograph the paler individuals that I have observed, paying close attention to vent streaking and bill size.

I assigned a different letter to each individual redpoll photographed within each gallery, organized by date of observation.

Click on an image to enlarge. I may have additional photos of any one individual in my collection.

Does anyone think they see a Hoary Redpoll among these images? I don't think I captured any, but I have zero experience with the species. Some of these look very similar to the "Southern Hoary" shown in the Sibley Guide.

Update: After reading David Sibley's blog posts (for example, see http://www.sibleyguides.com/2008/01/a-character-index-for-redpoll-identification/) on redpoll identification, I believe that less than half of the photographed redpolls should be labeled Common Redpoll (Carduelis flammea), with the rest being labeled Carduelis flammea/hornemanni, i.e. intermediates that can not safely be assigned to a particular species within the redpoll complex. Several (if not all) of these paler birds are likely Hoary Redpoll (A. hornemanni exilipes) based on sparse and narrow vent streaks, fine flank streaks and/or whiteness of rump and edging of tertials. It may be that most of these paler birds are indeed A. h. exilipes, but all this shows the weakness of the distinction between flammea and hornemanni as full species.

Update 1/9/2013: Within each of the two galleries, I have indicated my subjective identifications of each redpoll photographed. I believe I see some "exilipes", some "flammea", and mostly "indeterminate".