Recent reports

01 May 1999
Comments News and comment This summary of unchecked reports covers 8th March to 4th April 1999. The text and photographs relate to unchecked reports, not authenticated records. Pied-billed Grebe Podilymbus podiceps Walton Reservoir (Surrey), 16th March; Stowbridge Pit (Norfolk)...
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Monthly marathon

01 May 1999
Comments Other The species in the photograph (plate 32, repeated here as plate 74) is clearly a wader, and its general shape and coloration shows that it is either a Calidris or a Tringa sandpiper. The lack of patterning and its dull colour tells us that it is in win...
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News and Comment

01 May 1999
Comments News and comment We have previously drawn attention (Brit. Birds 91: 206) to the dramatic decline in breeding-bird populations on the North Staffordshire Moors, no doubt largely linked to agricultural changes that have included overgrazing and drainage. It had been hop...
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Reviews

01 May 1999
Comments Reviews Global warming might destroy tundra worldwide within the next century. There are many pleasing illustrations by the first author; diagrams, however, are frequently so complex and printed so small that they fail to make their points clearly, and typogra...
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Letters

01 May 1999
Comments Letters THE COMMERCIALISATION OF ORNITHOLOGY It seems strange that a seven-line suggestion by Ian Moorhouse (Brit. Birds 91: 330) that an increase in the average age of observers might help to explain a decline in the numbers of some common birds should be con...
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Notes

01 May 1999
Comments Notes THREE PIED FLYCATCHERS AND A COMMON REDSTART DEAD IN SAME NESTBOX On 24th May 1995, while checking nestboxes at Bailey Einon wood, near Llandrindod Wells, Radnorshire, I discovered that one box contained three male Pied Flycatchers Ficedula hypoleuca a...
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Monthly marathon

01 December 1986
Comments Other The third photograph (plate 262 in the September issue) was clearly trickier to identify than was either of the first two (Skylark 68% right and Brambling 87% right). Entrants identified it as: Bluethroat Luscinia svecica (45%) Sedge W'arbler Acrocepha...
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Corrections

01 December 1986
Comments Editorials Vol 78 Pages 422 PLUMAGE, AGE AND MOULT TERMINOLOGY Plate 200 shows an adult winter (not a first-winter) Dunlin Calidris alpina. 486 PARROT CROSSBILLS IN BRITAIN Line 22: 'Tyne & Wear' should read 'Durham'. 522 RECEN...
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PhotoSpot. 21. Desert Finch

01 December 1986
Comments Main paper On moderate views, the Desert Finch Rhodospiza obsoleta is just another sombrely coloured desert bird (plate 356), so that the first close views of one can come as quite a surprise--or at least they did to me--when they show a striking and beautifully ...
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