Monthly marathon

01 April 2004
Comments Other Monthly Marathon photo number 204 (Brit. Birds 97: plate 26, repeated here as plate 113) captures a scene all too often encountered, whether birding at home or abroad: a view from the rear of a streaky, brownish passerine perched on a fence before it v...
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Monthly marathon

01 March 2004
Comments Other Photo no. 203 (plate 77) shows three falcons gathered at the entrance to what is obviously a nest-site. Most birders will immediately recognise these birds as kestrels and, with just two species breeding within the Western Palearctic, the choice lies b...
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Monthly marathon

01 February 2004
Comments Other Well, it makes a change from a pipit Anthus or a gull Larus I hear you cry, and it will be fairly obvious to most readers of British Birds that photo number 202 (Brit. Birds 96: plate 329, repeated here as plate 52) shows one of the blackand-white flyc...
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Monthly marathon

01 January 2004
Comments Other A novice birdwatcher looking at Monthly Marathon photo number 201 (Brit. Birds 96: plate 245, repeated here as plate 25) might wonder if the bird depicted in the photograph is a wader, with the stripes on the mantle possibly suggesting a species of sni...
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Looking back

01 January 2004
Comments Other `An unrecorded occurrence of a probable Redflanked Bluetail in Lincolnshire.­­The extract quoted below is from page 82 of the typescript of an as yet unpublished book by the late G. H. Caton Haigh entitled "Birds of a Lincolnshire Parish being A List...
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Monthly marathon

01 December 2003
Comments Other Every so often, this competition includes something which initially defies identification. The bird depicted in plate 213, repeated here as plate 403, is one such individual, since it lacks any clear or familiar plumage features that would normally all...
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Monthly marathon

01 October 2003
Comments Other At one time or another, we have all been faced with unsatisfactory, and often brief, rear-end views of an apparently unfamiliar bird disappearing into cover. Most will be common birds seen badly, but occasionally the views suggest that something more e...
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Looking back

01 June 2003
Comments Other As in previous years, I send a number of observations made between October, 1927, and April, 1928, at the most westerly of the large Staffordshire reservoirs, and include a few made at Gailey Pool. `There is not a great deal new to report. Ducks have, ...
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