An Arctic blast

How the weather has changed over the last two weeks. From a really warm late Autumn, we have now gone into a northerly airflow. Scotland and northern England have snow and we have the promise of some proper  Winter birds. One of these, told partly by its name, is the Arctic redpoll. These are part of a group of birds which keep changing their designation.. There are 3 you get in this country - lesser, which is the commonest, mealy or common redpoll, which is regular but less common than lesser and Arctic, which is the rarest. This in itself is also split into two separate races. Currently, all 3 can be treated as separate species. Clear!!
So, when a couple of days ago an Arctic (of the Coue's sub-species) cropped up in Suffolk in a flock of lesser and mealy redpolls there was no doubt where I would go today as that is potentially 3 year ticks in one flock. The weather forecast was grim though, with sleet and snow showers on the East coast. With all my warm weather gear I set out early and got to Hazlewood Common just after dawn. The site is just inland from Aldeburgh and was actually an area of set aside in a field.

 















There was a lane leading down past the field to a white cottage and a lot of birds seemed to using the hedge line to fly in and out of the field. The light was awful though and sleet showers kept rattling over forcing me to scuttle back to the car, which fortunately was only a minute away!
Anyway, after a bit I started to work out a pattern for the flock of birds. It was mixed - redpolls certainly, chaffinches, goldfinches, greenfinches and blue tits. It had been reported that the redpolls were around 30 in number, and occasionally when the whole flock lifted off I got to a count near that. They rarely settled for long in view, and disappeared totally when they were on the ground - not the weather for sitting out in the open I suppose!!!
After probably 20 minutes I caught a flash of white in one of the bushes. Arctic redpolls are very white, especially compared to their relatives. I got my binoculars onto the bird just as it turned away from me. This is actually good, as it showed me a bright white rump. This along with its overall white colouration made it an Arctic.

I stayed for about an hour, on my own surprisingly, or perhaps not so bearing in mind the weather! I got onto it 3 or 4 times and once it actually perched out in the open long enough for me get some decent shots of it.

You can see how white it is along its side and belly, with little or no streaking. That lovely red crown is characteristic of the redpoll group as w a whole.
As well as this beauty I got both the other two redpolls as well. The commonest was the lesser, a very brown bird in comparison.

There were also some mealy redpolls mixed in. These are sort-of in-between the other two. Lighter than lessers, with a greyer back pure white wing bars. This one below if the best example.

A few of the birds still had traces of their breeding plumage as well with pink/ red infusing their breast feathers.

As another heavy shower hit most of the flock lifted off and flew into the next field, so I took this as a sign to leave it to the 3 other birders who had just arrived. The flock did come back later as I saw it reported on RBA luckily for them!

I made my way down the coast to Landguard, where I was on Monday. Nothing much extra around but it was only a few miles out of my way on the way home. In between the showers I did manage to connect with the Iceland gull, which was mooching about near the abandoned jetty on the point.

 It was a day for white birds from the far North. This one stood out amazingly against the grey sky. As it flew off and yet another storm blew in I headed back home.

A cracking day. Three more to my year list taking me to 172 now. Arctic redpoll is always a great bird to see as well. Who knows, perhaps these north winds might bring down something really nice like an ivory gull!!!