Wednesday 16th May

Still depressingly little to report. Yesterday I went out and got caught in a hail storm. Apart from the pleasure of seeing literally hundreds of hirundines and swifts all hawking low over the water there was precious little to see. Today, it was at least sunny but this meant that there were fewer swallows etc. to view. Three LITTLE EGRETS and a grey heron were on the floods but once again not a single wader. Burgess Field too is not it's usual self: whilst there are plenty of whitethroat and garden warblers singing away out there I've still to hear a grasshopper warbler and apart from one rather reluctant bird on one occasion, I've not heard any sedge warblers singing at all. I don't know whether they're a) all still on the continent waiting for better weather before crossing; b) they've already come over but are not bothering to sing at all or c) they've decided not to bother with breeding this year and are staying put. I'm hoping that everything is just late this year and that we'll eventually get all our warblers and also a decent wader passage at some point.

The only other point of interest today was I twice saw a pair of swifts mating in mid air over Burgess Field. I've described this in previous years but it's always interesting to see how they fold their wings out of the way and flutter downwards until it's all over.

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