Amur Stonechat at Trimley Marshes

After an interesting Eastern type Stonechat had been typically found the previous Sunday and having to wait all week, albeit I had a few days off but there was the small matter of attending 2 Deep Purple concerts one in Birmingham at the BP Pulse Live arena on Monday (driving back Tuesday) and going down by train on Wednesday to attend a show that night at the 02 Arena at Greenwich, travelling back Thursday and working Friday meant I had to wait until the following Saturday 9th November to twitch this bird. The weather was on my side as it had been misty and murky all week and this weather pattern continued for the first part of the weekend at least. Amur Stonechat is the Stejneger's Stonechat of old with the last one seen (a first for Suffolk at the time) in Suffolk in October 2016 at Landguard and typically it did a bunk by the following weekend. Having not visit Trimley since the Whiskered Tern/ Little Bittern celebrated double bill in 20--, I had to look up where to go vagually remembering heading for Trimley St. Mary then crossing the railway line (where I had to wait for 6 minutes whilst a seemingly neverending goods train trundled past! At the end there was parking for around 15 cars and luckily there was one spare space so parking up I took the very long 1 mile + walk through farmland. Around a 1/4 of the way down an immature or female Black Redstart was seen flitting around in a large Oak tree not the usual habitat for this species but very welcome nonetheless. I carried on walking turning a corner right past some agricultural machinery and then following the track winding first one way and the next before a large bush was seen on the right, just past this was a load of Umbilfers set in a long strip of set aside by the edge of the field and the vehicular track plus 3 birders. I quickly got onto the bird, a fine Amur Stonechat, which appeared to be a 1st winter, it was flying and perching up onto the top of the umbilifers or perched half way up or even sometimes on the ground. The bird was incredibly confiding at times it flew past flycatching just above our heads and on 2 occasions it flew past me just a foot away. It perched on around a dozen times in vegetation on the very edge of the road just a couple of feet away. It had a black face, white throat, brownish streaked crown with a rusty streaked back, rusty rump with rusty uppertial coverts and a pale creamy wash on the underparts. It had a black bill and legs. As time went on more people arrived and was especially pleasing to catch up with Justin Z, Ellie Z & Justin's son having not seen them for several years. Equally pleasing was seeing David W, Roy M, Lee W from the Ipswich area and closer to home Rob W and James W. The bird continued to show well for all until one perosn went out to collect faecal samples (to confirm the bird's ID but given the showiness of the bird and all the photos taken that might not be necessary. Sadly, this action spooked the bird a little and it moved to the further side of the set aside strip for the next 30 minutes or so. As I walked back I saw the Black Redstart in the same area, this time flitting in the large trees the otherside of the road. Again typically elusive but occasionally seen. Please note some of the accompanying photos have been lightened.