Yesterday's pied flycatcher reappeared late morning today behind the Observatory kitchen. A reed warbler was the other passerine migrant of note. Waders were more varied with an avocet, 4 golden plover and a grey plover joining 6 curlew and 27 oystercatchers moving south.
The star of the morning however wasn't a bird, but a Large Conehead, a member of the grasshopper/cricket family. A first for the site, it's a recent colonist in Britain, having established itself in the south in the last 30 years from the continent.
Sandhill Rustic is a nationally scarce species with this form restricted to an area from North Kent to the South Suffolk coast.
Birds Ringed: Reed Warbler 1.