Turdus eunomus indeed!

I headed off to Beeley near Matlock in Derbyshire on Monday morning hoping to see the dusky thrush - a bird I had certainly never seen before. Advice was to park in the Dukes Barn activity centre car park. It had space for perhaps a dozen or so cars but there must have been several hundred when I arrived and the poor little village was gridlocked! I chatted to a local who found it all very exciting and who said he'd ''even been on the internet to look up the bird''. Nothing had ever happened in Beeley since the plague years.

It was in fact a multiple twitch as the bird was pretty mobile - so there was a twitch by the church, another by the playing fields and another by the orchard alongside the Dukes Barn site. I stayed at that one.

Shutters clicked excitedly for a song thrush...

Dusky Thrush Robins were hurtling about chasing each other. Robin Briefly the bird landed in an apple tree. It stayed only seconds and flew.

Dusky Thrush Dusky Thrush Dusky Thrush A couple of hours passed with various reports of brief sightings. Apparently on the playing field the bird was a long way off. I hoped it would return to the orchard. It did. On the ground this time. Here we come... Dusky Thrush Over here! Dusky Thrush Dusky Thrush Better views... Dusky Thrush Dusky Thrush Dusky Thrush Dusky Thrush Dusky Thrush Dusky Thrush

273 UK 2016; 10th lifer of the year and my 429th British Isles species. Guess that may be 2016's swansong...