Spring is springing and the migrants are now flooding in.
Over the last couple of days, with the wind swinging back to the south, there has been a big arrival of migrants. Yesterday evening there was a good number of swallow and sand martins moving west with at least 50 birds roosting overnight. Both willow warbler (130) and blackcap (131) were added yesterday but more numbers were in this morning. At least 15 blackcaps and 2 willow warblers were around the Meadow Trail and an elusive firecrest near Fen Hide.
An early start this morning (04:30) monitoring bitterns paid off with the usual male booming at the east end of the reedbed but a 2nd bird twice in flight was more interesting - hopefully its a female.
10 female/immature marsh harriers left the reedbed at dawn and headed off west. Probably migrant birds that stopped off overnight. Bearded tits were showing well early on with 2 males within 10m of the path. While surveying there was a reasonable amount of visible migration (birds moving west along the coast). In 2 hours, 200+ woodpigeon, 4 lesser redpoll (132), 10 jackdaw and 5 stock doves were noted.

In the garden, the blackbirds managed to lay 2 eggs before the nest got raided but the robins are still incubating and should be hatching soon.