Letters

01 March 1998
Comments Letters The lead story in November's 'News and comment' on 'Kittiwake versus Great Skua' (Brit. Birds 90: 530) suggested that predation by Great Skuas (Bonxies) Catharacta skua on Kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla is a recent phenomenon. Not so! Bonxies killing and ...
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Letters

01 May 1996
Comments Letters In October 'News and comment' (Brit. Birds 88: 489), Shelley Hinsley's letter in the New Scientist about feeding peanuts in the summer was quoted. Readers may feel that this reference indicated the wholesale death of nestling tits Parus nationwide thro...
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Letters

01 December 1995
Comments Letters The theme of the British Ornithologists' Union's 1995 Annual Conference (organised jointly with the UK Joint Nature Conservation Committee) was 'Feral and Introduced Birds'. It became apparent from the papers presented at the Conference that a variety ...
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Letters

01 December 1988
Comments Letters The identity of 'Mystery photograph 97'. In the light of 25 years' experience in studying Aythya hybrids, I do not consider that the bird in mystery photograph 97 {Brit Birds 77: plate 254; 78: plate 19; 81: plate 343) is a Tufted Duck A. fuligula X Po...
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Letters

01 October 1985
Comments Letters Distinction between Mandarin and Wood Duck in female-type plumages. A comprehensive description of differences between Mandarin Aix galericulata and Wood Duck A. sponsa was given by C. Holt {Brit. Birds 11: 227-232). As he noted, however, some of the c...
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Letters

01 December 1984
Comments Letters Tufted Duck carrying young. In connection with the recent notes by Montse Carbonell and Stephen B. Edwards (Brit. Birds 77: 318-319), I should like to draw attention to a previous published account by my husband, the late Dr Jeffery Harrison, of a fema...
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Letters

01 August 1983
Comments Letters The origin of 'twitcher'. Richard Porter (Brit. Birds 75: 537) has traced 'twitcher' back to 1968, but what were 'people who chase rare birds' called before that? My recollection is that before the Second World War they were known as 'pot-hunters', and...
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Letters

01 March 1979
Comments Letters Field identification of Snowy Egret. When discussing the problem of distinguishing the Snowy Egret Egretta thula from the Little Egret E. garzetta in the field, Stanley Cramp (Brit. Birds 70: 206-214) and I. J . Ferguson-Lees (in...
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Letters

01 April 1978
Comments Letters Golden Eagle killing red deer calf I am prompted by C. J. Northeast's note (Brit. Birds 71: 36-37) to draw attention to A. Baxter Cooper's excellent first-hand account of an immature Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetos killing and attempting to lift...
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Letters

01 February 1957
Comments Letters ICELAND R E D W I N G S WINTERING SIRS,--October 1956 saw an unparalleled " i n v a s i o n " of Iceland Redwings (Turdus musicus coburni) through Fair Isle, big movements occurring on the i2th, i8th-2oth and 2zLth-25th with westerly weather. Of 333 Redwi...
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