For a pleasant change there was plenty of early morning visible diurnal migration over Norwick with a few flocks of Meadow Pipits, Redwings, a Fieldfare, several flocks of Brambling and even 8 Goldcrests were seen to take to the air and fly as a loose flock inland from Valyie. Whilst this was nice to see it also likely resulted in what amounted to a very brief encounter with an Arctic Redpoll that flushed from the ground at Valyie with c.8 Redpolls that I took to be a small flock of Mealy Redpolls at the time. They all alighted in the sycamores and having only secured a few images of the Arctic the entire flock took flight calling but I anticipated/hoped that they would simply circle around before settling again. But there was a flock of c.20 Redwings flying overhead and inland at the time and much to my horror the Redpolls climbed-up into the sky to initially loosely associate with the Thrushes for a while before separating from them until I lost them as specks high in the sky heading towards Saxa Vord camp. Whilst at Valyie I also saw c.10 Robins, a Yellow-browed Warbler, the Common Rosefinch and 2 Little Buntings. Geoff & Robbie then very kindly helped us set a new window at our house that took a fair while during which time a Common Redstart, a Chiffchaff, 2 Blackcaps, a Goldcrest and a Blue Tit spent varying times in our garden and a few Brambling overflew. During the afternoon I headed for Lamba Ness seeing a Jack Snipe, 2 Bluethroats and another 10 Robins. Skaw added a Yellow-browed Warbler and 3 Chiffchaffs.
