Recent Reports

01 January 1979
Comments News and comment These are largely unchecked reports, not authenticated records This report covers October and the first part of November; except where otherwise stated, all dates refer to October. The weather was dominated by anticyclones, especially the Azores anticy...
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News and Comment

01 January 1979
Comments News and comment SOC Conference The Scottish Ornithologists' Club held its thirty-first annual conference at the Marine Hotel, North Berwick, on 27th-29th October 1978. This marked a welcome return to an autumn conference, using the venue which had proved so su...
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Request

01 January 1979
Comments Editorials Mute Swans with yellow collars or yellow rings As part of a study of the population structure and dynamics of wild Mute Swans Cygnus olor in the Outer Hebrides, 385 were caught and marked on the Uists in the first half of August 1978. All the f...
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Announcements

01 January 1979
Comments Editorials Second International Congress of Systematic and Evolutionary Biology ICSEB-II will be held at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, during 17th-24th July 1980. Anyone interested in receiving a n information circular in the spri...
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Letters

01 January 1979
Comments Letters Thermal soaring of raptors I read D r C. J . Henty's paper on thermal soaring of raptors (Brit. Birds 70: 471-475) with interest, and not a little surprise. I t has long been known by ornithologists that raptors use thermals for soaring, a...
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Reviews

01 January 1979
Comments Reviews RSPB Guide to Birdwatching. By Peter Conder. Hamlyn, London, 1978. 176 pages; 28 colour and many black-and-white plates; many linedrawings. £2.50.  Nowadays, there is almost a plethora of birdwatching guides aimed at the many newcomers to...
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Notes

01 January 1979
Comments Notes Success of artificial island nest-sites for divers  The breeding success of divers Gavia in south mainland Argyll has been very poor For some years (e.g. one young from eight pairs): too low to ensure maintenance of the populatio...
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Personalities. 18 O. J. Merne

01 January 1979
Comments Main paper It was probably in 1961 that Britishers first became aware of a rather enthusiastic young birdwatcher by the name of Merne. This was during the heyday of Great Saltee Bird Observatory, when Oscar was persuaded to ring his first bird. Today, some 20,000...
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Ross's Gulls in Alaska

01 January 1979
Comments Main paper On 3rd August 1894, beset in ice off the Siberian coast, the Noerwegian arctic explorer, Fridtjof Nansen, entered in his diary: 'Today m y longing has at last been satisfied, I have shot Ross's Gull. This rare and mysterious in...
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