The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Siberian (tristis) Chiffchaff eventually showed well and calling frequently, in the reed bed between the 5-bar gate and the large gap in the hedge further down. Thanks Alex.
Unbelievably, we then had very good, close, overhead views of an immature HOBBY - in January? what's going on ? Has the bird over-wintered or (more likely?) come up on the same strong SW airstrip which saw Little Swift in the UK last week (among others). Lastly, to complete an unlikely trio, a Whooper Swan flew over.
Regards
Phil, with Dave Roberts and Spadge.

A bit of info' from the BTO on winter Hobby records (per Nick Moran):
The Bird Atlas has about a dozen 10-km squares with Hobby records in the 'winter' period: http://app.bto.org/mapstore/StoreServlet?id=120 (click 'Maps' tab, then 'Winter' tab). However, winter fieldwork for the most recent atlas incorporated the whole of November (the 1980s winter atlas ran fieldwork from mid November) and I'm sure most/all of those records will have been of late birds lingering into the first couple of days of that month. As far as I know, Hobby is unprecedented in the mid winter period.

Lorand & Atkin, Birds of Lincolnshire & South Humberside (1989) mention a record from Covenham on 20-01-1987 and from an historic BTO publication (BTO Guide 15: Early and late dates for summer migrants. R. Hudson, 1973) a few more dates :

15-11-70 Woodley (Berks)
21-11-14 Fair Isle
22-11-1900 Welshpool
24-11-62 Farcet (Hants)
30-11-1879 Bridgend
15-12-71 Dungeness
Autumn 1947 - Jan 1948 Isles of Scilly (shot in Jan-48)
6-11-53-> 13-01-54 Abberton

There is one contemporary record of a bird at Bedgebury (Kent) on 26-02-1961, the earliest (?) spring record.

Over-winterer or recent arrival ?

Regards
Phil