Another lovely calm day with plenty of warm sunshine. A walk around Norwick had produced a Sparrowhawk, a Woodcock, plenty of small flocks of Great Black-backed and Herring Gulls arriving for the first time this Autumn, 6 Blackcaps, a Siberian Chiffchaff, one of the Yellow-browed Warblers, c.10 Brambling and c.15 Chaffinch but just as I was passing the cemetery nearing home I heard Redpolls calling and turned around to see a Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll accompanied by a much smaller Redpoll sp. flying past me. Whilst watching them fly west, I heard a deep 'chet chet chet' from above me, looked up and there was a superb clean-flanked Hornemann's sat on wires virtually directly above me. On obtaining only a couple of images and I heard another series of call from behind me, turned around, and there was another 2 clean-flanked Hornemann's and a Northwestern Redpoll also sat on the overhead wires! Almost immediately the four birds on the wires flew to some nearby seeding vegetation c.70m away. But before I had reached them frustratingly they flew again, in the direction of the beach. I headed home where I was greeted by Brenda telling me she'd seen a Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll in our garden! I sat down with a coffee and she casually remarked ''it's back'' and sure enough... it then spent a while in our garden before flying off high north. I revisited Norwick but couldn't relocate any Redpolls. At Skaw I saw a Siberian Chiffchaff but on returning home managed my second garden tick of the morning - a Great Tit! We then headed for Burrafirth to complete the beached bird survey where the highlight was a large flock of lively newly-arrived Gulls that included a Glaucous Gull.
A walk around Norwick produced 6 Blackcaps, a Common Chiffchaff and 3 Siberian Chiffchaffs. Holsen's road added another 3 Siberian Chiffchaffs and a Little Bunting and there were 3 Siberian Chiffchaffs at Skaw too. Burrafirth added another Siberian Chiffchaff and a Siskin. We then returned to Westing where there was again no sign of the Wagtail but the Whinchat was still present and the Eastern Stonechat was still proving wary although Robbie had managed to obtain much better images of it earlier in the day.
A walk around Norwick produced a Common Chiffchaff, a Siberian Chiffchaff, a Blackcap, a Great Tit, 2 Northwestern Redpolls, 4 Common Crossbills and my first Waxwing of the year but I failed to see either of the Arctic Redpolls albeit the weather was poor. Skaw added two more Siberian Chiffchaffs but there was no sign of the Pine Bunting.
