Great start to 2018: GND, Arctic Redpoll & Viking Gull

Having finally bade farewell to 2017, the first birds seen in 2018 were Blue Tit & Chaffinch in the garden. next birds were the excellent Great Northern Diver again seen from the railway bridge looking east over Lake Lothing again distant and only seen on 2 brief resurfaces this time. Seeing Ali, OFB and then Chris M they pointed me in the direction of a female Common Scoter that spent most of her time in the sunny bits of Lake Lothing looking across towards a red/ black boat. Teal, Wigeon could be seen distantly on Leathes Ham but no Pintail seen surprisingly. I then drove down to Hazlewood Marshes and it seemed like the other birders from East Anglia had the same idea so I couldn't park in the car park or the verge nearby so I had a half mile walk back up the footpath track from hallowed Marshes, it had the advantage that I saw a flock of around 25 Redpolls fly in and the silvery white and white rumped Coues' Arctic Redpoll clearly seen in flight. They settled in the usual bush by the track. It was then that, really annoyingly, a tractor driver started his tractor up and for the next hour, yes 1 hour spent the whole time driving up and down by the bushes constantly flushing these birds ( I counted 21 passes, yes twenty- one!) and he seemed to target the areas just where we were looking. Whether he was legitimately clearing the path, I don't know, but it was really annoying for all of us, 1 hour of valuable time was wasted thanks to this "work?" As soon as he finally put the tractor away, the birds, usually a flock of 25 or so Redpoll, flew into bushes and the fine Coues' Arctic Redpoll was seen along the right hand end under an under-hanging branch, I managed a few shots of the bird. They then flew but 10 minutes later they settles in bushes around 30 yards further along the track and again the Coues' was seen reasonably well. It was accompanied by Lessers including a fine Pink male but on their last fly over to the bushes, a Mealy Redpoll seen with them too. 2 Great- spotted Woodpecker seen in a distant tree and Curlew heard too. Good to see Chris L and also saw John R here too, Rob Wils was here briefly but perhaps wisely left after the tractor man started his chinanigans although he had initially left to move his car. Time was getting, thanks to the lost hour, I drove to North warren parked by the sluice cottage (sadly no Sibe Chiff- Chaff) and walked over to the beach were around 25 Snow Bunting was seen on the weedy and grassy ridge just south of where I was. They suddenly flew north and I watched them feeding around 100 yards away. meanwhile on the sea were a flock of 240 Common Scoter (60% were female) no Velvets seen amongst them. Turning my attention to North Warren Marshes around 200 Barnacle Geese seen plus along the northern end by some gates at least 3 White- fronted geese clearly seen. The lure of White- winged Gulls (both potentially Iceland and Glaucous) from the North of the county had me driving up to Southwold Harbour, and as I got out at the very crowded Harbour, I could clearly seen a very pale Gull perched on the groins. The car park was almost choke-a-bloc but I managed to find a space and quickly get out and take picture of the bird. Size wise it was half way between Iceland & Glaucous Gull, looking around Herring Gull sized. Curiously, the head wasn't delicate enough for Iceland, looked more herring-like to me and it had an all dark fairly robust heavy bill and it clearly wasn't either an Iceland or pure Glaucous Gull, but appeared to be maybe a hybrid. Anyway, I concentrated on getting pictures of this instructive bird, albeit in poor overcast light, it then suddenly flew out to sea, 2.55pm. 5 minutes later somebody came with bread and it flew to a perch just feet (around 15 feet, Ferguson views indeed, the aforementioned of course were enjoying views of a pure Iceland, no less a little further north though!) from the mid jetty and I had outstanding views of the hybrid, Viking Gull. Only my second sighting of this hybrid so rarer for me than an Iceland (I still would have liked to have seen the Iceland as well.) At around 3.10pm it suddenly flew west (someone else was throwing bread down nearer the Harbour Inn!). Finally a look at Ness Point revealed 2 Turnstone and 1 lone Purple Sandpiper on the very tip of the finger completed a very satisfying New Years day birding.