Hawfinch #29

Woke up to drizzle which soon turned into rain so I was not encouraged to go out at all. The forecast was for heavy rain all day and with most good birding sites being an hour away I couldn't summon up the enthusiasm to make an early start. 
After a little while, it looked like it was getting brighter, so I bit the bullet and headed over to the closest one of the places on my list - Lynford Arboretum. It was 40 minutes away and miraculously there was only drizzle on the way and when I arrived, it had stopped completely. Maybe it was my lucky day? 
I made my way up to the 'feeding tunnel', about 100m from the café and stood watching for a while on my own. There were plenty of tits and finches, but they were not what I had come for. I wanted to see Hawfinch. I knew at least one had been seen in this location and a few more over on the paddock (out in the open) and I turned on Merlin to see what it could pick up. Wren, robin, blackbird, great tit, blue tit, nuthatch.....and Hawfinch! So, I knew there was likely to be at least one in the area, so just waited. 
First came the tits and chaffinches, flitting in and out, then the Yellowhammers, a couple of females and a stunning male, then a few brambling, that were very difficult to pick out on the ground amongst the dead leaves at distance....and finally, the huge beaked Hawfinch! Hurrah :) 
He hung about for a few seconds, just long enough for me to get my camera focussed and then disappeared!!  So, I waited some more and after a few minutes he was back, under the tree digging around. This time I managed to fire off a few shots before he hopped off again. It's the closest I've ever got to a hawfinch, but it is still on max zoom and heavily cropped. But it's closer than the usual dot in a tree :)
A couple of other birders were coming back from the paddock and we chatted for a while about what they had seen(not much more than me really) and just as I was about to head off down there, the heavens opened and it started to chuck it down. We all raced off to the café to shelter and waited a while for the rain to stop. Which it did, for about 3 minutes and then started again. Looking at the forecast, it was only going to get worse, so I decided that, as I'd seen the hawfinch closer than ever before and certainly closer than I would in the paddock, and I'd also added yellowhammer and brambling to my annual list, my luck had run out and I headed back home. It is still raining now, 2 hours later, so seemed to be a good decision. Hopefully tomorrow will be a little drier.