Hawfinch at Bramfield 250th year bird tick

Another lifer for me a Hawfinch seen at St Andrew's church in Bramfield.
I have dipped out at least 3 times this year looking for one, when we arrived at just after 7 o'clock it was really bad light & a mist was spreading over the field's, but the first bird we see is a nice Barn Owl flying at the side of the church & then sits on a post but in bad light it's to far away for a photo, as I walk round the church another Barn Owl flies up to give a beautiful view.
As we stand looking for the Hawfinch, Brian starts to take the Mickey out of me & calls me a tart as I had not seen a Hawfinch before, later on about 50 other birder's turn up & as we have a good old talk to a lot of them it turns out that many of them needed the bird for a life tick,so it seems I was in good company.
After about an hour we see up to 5 Hawfinchs fly in to the churchyard, they don't hang about to long & fly off over the road.
In all we spend about 5 hours here & we see the birds flying back & forth into the churchyard on many occasions, but the light was very bad to get anything like a good photo for the equipment I have.


Not great but better than nothing

As I have said these birds are pulling in the birders one being Lee Evans, which we didn't think would be so popular. we meet some nice people & have a good old talk, Paul Hackett who is a digiscoping expert  gives the boys some really good advice.
We see what we think is 5 + 3 Hawfinchs but not sure if they were the same birds seen again.
Last year was the first year that I started to list the birds that I had seen & 223 where seen so to reach 250 birds this year is a good effort for me.Thanks to Brian for taking me everywhere to see all these birds, also thanks to Jimmy who along with Brian spot the birds for me to see.

Before we head home we call in at Amwell to see the Scaup & a really good looking pair of Smew. it's my first visit to Amwell & it's a nice place so I will be coming back again,the boys had been here before, but it must have been before I got into birding.


Off home now another nice day birding
meeting some nice people & seeing the
target bird, always gives a nice feeling
on the drive back,although not to far from
home today.


Amwell

                                                                                                

                                                                              


Just about a pair of Smew

Long-tailed Tit