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News and comment

01 December 2009 Comments News and comment The illegal persecution of Hen Harriers Circus cyaneus rarely attracts mainstream media coverage – but it was national news at the end of October! Two Hen Harriers were shot on the edge of the Sandringham estate in Norfolk and police interviewed Prin...

Letter

01 December 2009 Comments Letters The two outlying Orkney islets north of Cape Wrath usually known to ornithologists as Sule Skerry and Sule Stack, and on charts as Sule Skerry and Stack Skerry (Brit. Birds 100: 300–304), present problems of nomenclature. Until recently, `Solan Gee...

Notes

01 December 2009 Comments Notes All Notes submitted to British Birds are subject to independent review, either by the Notes Panel or by the BB Editorial Board.Those considered appropriate for BB will be published either here or on our website (www.britishbirds.co.uk) subject to the a...

Report on rare birds in Great Britain in 2006

01 December 2009 Comments Main paper This is the forty-ninth annual report of the British Birds Rarities Committee. It is also the first report in the post-Mike Rogers era, the last that will be compiled primarily by Pete Fraser, and the last one with an introduction from me. Nigel Hudson...

British Birds – December 2007

01 December 2007 Comments Latest issues ...

Semipalmated Plover: new to Britain and Ireland

01 October 1980 Comments Main paper At about midday on 9th October 1978, near Porth Killier, St Agnes, Isles of Scilly, F. H. D. Hicks and I heard an unfamiliar wader call: a plaintive, disyllabic 'che-wee', not unlike the 'chewit' note of the Spotted Redshank Tringa erythropus, but soft...

Predictions of future Nearctic landbird vagrants to Europe

01 October 1980 Comments Main paper Rarities generate more than their share of interest among the birdwatching public. The avid field observer thrills at breaking an arrival or departure date. The 'twitcher' travels long distances to add rare species to his list. Ringers are attracted to...

Why are Capercaillie cocks so big?

01 October 1980 Comments Main paper Chris Knights and Terry Andrewartha have taken some remarkable (pictures of displaying Capercaillies Tetrao urogallus which illustrate an obvious question: why are cock Capercaillies so much bigger than the hens? Body size and ecological niche...

Owls allopreening in the wild

01 October 1980 Comments Main paper A short note by F. Haverschmidt (Brit. Birds 71: 359-360) on one Little Owl Athene noctua preening another was based on observations at Heerlen in the Netherlands on 13th April 1939 and 27th March 1941. John W. Fitzpatrick (Auk 92: 598-599) reported wh...

The 'British Birds' Best Bird Book of the Year

01 October 1980 Comments Main paper For the benefit of those who may wish to acquire (or give as a present) just one of the many bird books published each year, British Birds will select annually the 'Best Bird Book of the Year' from those reviewed in the journal during the previous 12 m...

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