Last Lifer of 2016

Today I went to the little city of St. Asaph in North Wales to see the Black-throated Thrush that has been showing there recently. St Asaph is on the River Elwy in Clwyd and with its ancient cathedral is the second-smallest city in Britain.

After playing hide and seek with the little blighter for nearly five hours in the field, this is the best photo I managed to take when it returned to its favourite hawthorn bush in the paddock behind the New Inn.

It was a very difficult bird to locate and photograph, so I'm fairly pleased with what I've got. Here's the best of the rest:

This is a first-winter female bird, which doesn't have the distinctive black throat of the adult male.

 Like many other birds including Waxwings and winter thrushes, this bird has flown in from Siberia, probably because food is scarce there now.

Completely blurred, but included to show the underwing:

Having dipped on the Dusky Thrush at Beeley in Derbyshire twice this month, I was really glad to get this one.