To the Corse this morning to try to catch up on some spring migrants. As usual, wetland birds mostly upstream - 3 Canadas, a pair of greylags, shelduck pair, 6 little egrets, grey heron, a dozen herring gulls and 4 lesser black backs, 2 mallard. Just one snipe on the way through to the hide.
A few hirundines passing the hide - swallows, sand martins, a few house martins. A very few sedge and reed warblers, two white wagtails (♂ and ♀ unless I'm mistaken) just in front of the hide. A single whitethroat was singing from a bramble patch, and to my delight a lesser whitethroat was rattling away in the dense blackthorn scrub by the pines, a spot where I've found them before. Chiffchaffs and willow warblers of course, the latter in the willows in the former decoy ponds by the pines. I heard 5 different Cetti's warblers on my travels. 6 mallard and 1 teal near the hide.
So not bad. No grasshopper warblers singing (but not a great day for it), no repeat of last year's garganey, positively no raptors. Access remains in a deplorable state, the cattle having been driven along the track to which walkers are now confined by the new fencing, resulting in mid-wellie soft mud, as bad as it's been all winter. I would have stood no chance without my walking poles.
