Common Rosefinch

I was bit knackered after chasing around Suffolk yesterday. Today, rather than looking at other people's birds I decided after lunch, to head over to Great Yarmouth and do a quick check of the cemetery. Again, winds hadn't been easterly but a few Yellow-browed Warblers along the coast were enough to have me thinking that there was an outside chance of finding one.
The weather was glorious, 26 degrees as I parked up on Kitchener Road. Not the sort of weather conducive to finding rare migrants though. I did a full circuit of the southern part of the graveyard and had nothing other than a Jay.
I had almost finished walking the northern part and was thinking whether to go home or move on somewhere else, when I saw a finch-like bird fly into the top of a bare tree. The light was from the wrong side, but initially it looked a little bit like a juvenile Greenfinch. But once I got the bins on it I started to think Common Rosefinch! It gave a single call which I immediately  recognised from all my summer birding in Latvia.......definitely Common Rosefinch. Then it flew off. No photos sadly, but I confirmed the call on xeno-canto, just to be sure. I searched for an hour but couldn't relocate it. Nevermind, I was happy and rather than tire myself out I ended on that note went away home.
I've seen plenty of these in Latvia, but its not on my Irish list and is a British tick for me. The only one I came close to, was a bird I saw briefly at the Myrtle Warbler twitch on Cape Clear in 2010, that was almost certainly a Common Rosefinch. But 'almost certainly' is not good enough, so I never ticked it.
This time I will!

Great Yarmouth cemetery - 22nd September 2013