A couple of Coues's

Well, I got there eventually. Lengthy hikes around Hopes Reservoir, Lothian, enabled me at long last to connect with this species and get fairly irrefutable photographic evidence of Coues's Arctic Redpoll. Didn't help that the flock kept taking off for no reason, disappearing and then re-emerging on the other side of the reservoir, some 2 miles away on the perimeter footpath! Damned hard work but well worth it. The top right-hand image seems to show a different bird - with far less streaking on the flanks and perhaps a more typical individual? Perhaps it's just the angle of the shot. (Bottom right image taken on 5th, others on 6th January 2019.) I saw all the diagnostic features but these may have been on different individuals: the pure white rump, the pure white undertail coverts, the fluffy white thighs, the short bill appearance (with fluffy surround), the beady eye, the grey 'background colour' of the mantle...