With the news that a Great Grey Shrike had been seen in East Runton, near to Cromer Waterworks, this was naturally my first port of call today and on arriving on site it was immediately seen briefly perched up before dropping out of sight.
Frustratingly it then decided to lie low for nearly the next two hours, during which time my first Waxwings(6) of the winter flew over heading south, and good numbers of Blackbirds, Redwings and Fieldfares passed over too.
Eventually it reappeared right in front of us virtually exactly where it had dropped down, and proceeded to show well, but being alongside the railway, each train that passed flushed it, but after a bit of a fly round it soon returned to the waterworks compound and occasionally came right onto the railway embankment performing admirably for us.
With the nights now closing in and it being such a dreary day into the bargain, I then did a whistle-stop raid on a few of the clifftop sycamore woods on the patch in the remaining daylight with the hope of finding a Pallas's Warbler. No such luck but I came close with the discovery of a Yellow-browed Warbler at Sidestrand which I was still more than happy with as it had looked like this was going to be the first autumn for quite a while that I hadn't self-found one on the patch. So an excellent ending to a great day on the patch and although the autumn is now fast coming to an end, hopefully with one last blast of effort over the next few days there may still be that one more decent bird to be found.
