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Letters

01 November 1999 Comments Letters Tombeur 's note on a pale Great Skua Catharacta skua in Iceland (Brit. Birds 92: 164-165) requires further comment. Judging by the `normal' bird, it looks to me as though the photographs, as well as one of the birds, are also pale. Allowing for this, I...

Looking back

01 November 1999 Comments Other `There is a point in connection with the song of birds which I have not seen mentioned, although it must have been noticed by many who are interested in ornithology; it is the differences in the note, or rather the tone of the note, of a bird, in diffe...

Report on rare birds in Great Britain in 1998

01 November 1999 Comments Main paper This is the forty-first annual Report of the British Birds Rarities Committee and it is an almost complete record of the rare birds recorded in Britain in 1998. Descriptions and, where available, photographs of each record have been scrutinised by a te...

Notes

01 December 1989 Comments Notes Distinguishing characters of American/East Asian race of Common Scoter. The Common Scoter Melanitta nigra has an Holarctic distribution, and has been divided into two races on the basis of differences in bill pattern and bill shape. The nominat...

Monthly marathon

01 December 1989 Comments Other The bird in plate 285 was named as: Skylark Alauda arvensis (72%) Calandra Lark Melanocorypha calandra (7%) Lesser Short-toed Lark Calandrella rufescens (6%) Bimaculated Lark M. bimaculata (5%) Short-toed Lark C. brachydactyla (4%) Woodlark Lullula arb...

Diary dates

01 December 1989 Comments Editorials 5th-7th January BTO RINGING AND MIGRATION CONFERENCE. Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick, Derbyshire. Details from Chris Mead, BTO, Beech Grove, Tring, Hertfordshire HP23 5NR 16th January BRITISH ORNITHOLOGISTS' Cl.UB. Jeffery Boswall. Film 'Mov...

Daurian Starling: new to the Western Palearctic

01 December 1989 Comments Main paper Just betore lunch (at 13.00 GMT) on 7th May 1985, PVH and KBS were discussing the morning's bird census in the Observatory common room on Fair Isle, Shetland, when a most peculiar bird, resembling a Starling Stumus vulgaris, but showing a lot of white ...

Mystery photographs

01 December 1989 Comments Main paper The group of birds in the photograph are, of course, godwits Limosa. Their general proportions, together with their long, ever-so-slightly upturned, gently tapering bills, distinguish them from other superficially similar waders such as snipes Gal...

Seventy-five years ago...

01 December 1989 Comments Other 'BIRDS MIGRATING NORTHWARDS IN OCTOBER. UNDER the above heading Mr. J. H. Gurney in the November number of British Birds (p. 143), records a large migration of birds taking place over the parishes of Northrepps, Overstrand, and Cromer in Norfolk, on th...

Studies of West Palearctic birds. 189. Magpie

01 December 1989 Comments Main paper One for sorrow, two for joy . . .', but what do you get for 100 or even 150 Magpies Pica pica? Groups of this size are not uncommon, and indeed the antics of large gatherings of Magpies were described by the Reverend Darwin Fox to his cousin, Charles D...

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