Holarctic Redpoll

The Holarctic Redpoll, Acanthis flammea is a species of finch family Fringillidae found mostly in Europe and North America.

Taxonomy
The European birds have sometimes been separated as Lesser Redpoll, Acanthis cabaret, (e.g., BOU) but genetic studies have failed to find any differences between them and Common Redpolls (Ottvall et al., 2002). Worse, Marthinsen et al. (2008) found little genetic difference between any of the redpolls. There may be only one redpoll species.

Mason and Taylor's detailed study using SNP's (2015) found little genetic differentiation among the redpolls. At this point the balance of the evidence is that there is only one species involved.

Subspecies
It contains the following subspecies:


 * Common Redpoll / Mealy Redpoll, Acanthis flammea flammea
 * Greater Redpoll, Acanthis flammea rostrata
 * Lesser Redpoll, Acanthis flammaea cabaret
 * Arctic Redpoll / Hoary Redpoll, Acanthis flammea hornemanni
 * Coues' Redpoll, Acanthis flammea exilipes

Calls
The song of a Common Redpoll consists of a twittering series of trills while calls are a soft chit-chit-chit-chit and a faint swe-eet.