I spent a very pleasant 90 minutes behind one of the screen hides at Walton Heath taking advantage of the last of the warm afternoon sunshine.  Although there were few water birds about, (just a few tufties, pochard and a pair of little grebe), there was a good mixed flock of hirundines.  Sand martins were by far the most numerous but I also saw a single swallow and a couple of house martins.  These seemed to be feeding on something on the water surface so I assume there was a hatch of an insect going on.  I was interested to see that the sand martins sometimes seemed to go right under the water in the excitement of the chase.

There were two brief bittern flights, a single grey heron in flight and no great white or little egrets today.  There was a rapid left to right flight through the tops of the reeds by a sparrowhawk and a leisurely right to left flight by a strongly marked marsh harrier.