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Bewick's Swans in the British Isles in the winters of 1954-55 and 1955-56

01 December 1959 Comments Main paper results of the periods of severe frost in the winters of 1954-55 and 1955-56 were the unprecedented numbers of Bewick's Swans (Cygnus columbianus bewickii) which occurred in Great Britain. The influx in early 1956 was particularly spectacular, and the bir...

Recent reports and News

01 December 1959 Comments News and comment By I. J. FERGUSON-LEES and KENNETH WILLIAMSON T h e i t e m s here are largely unchecked reports, and m u s t not be regarded a s authenticated records. T h e y are selected, on the present w r i t e r s ' j u d g m e n t alone, f r o m s o u r c e s gene...

Notes

01 December 1959 Comments Notes Birds drinking the sap of a birch tree.--On 13th April 1958 I was watching a Marsh Tit (Parus falusiris) feeding at the edge of a deciduous wood at Minsmere in Suffolk when I noticed it return several times to the same place on a tree. At first I thought ...

Pollen contamination of birds

01 December 1959 Comments Main paper of 1957 and 1959 an unidentified substance was found adhering to the bills of four migrant species trapped at Portland Bird Observatory, Dorset. This has now proved to be an accumulation of Citrus pollen, and the following birds have been recorded carryin...

Photographic studies of some less familiar birds: CI. Ross's Gull

01 December 1959 Comments Main paper Photographs and text by J. KlST (Plates 66-69) Ross's GULL (Rhodostethia rosea) is indeed, as Fisher and Lockley (1954) put it, "one of the most mysterious birds of the world". It is also still true that very few ornithologists have seen it alive and so w...

Song Sparrow at Fair Isle

01 December 1959 Comments Open Access By PETER DAVIS and ROY H. DENNIS ON THE EVENING of 27th April 1959, R.H.D. found an unfamiliar small bird--"like a cross between a Hedge Sparrow and a bunting"-- skulking in a tangle of rusty barbed-wire near the derelict radarstation on Ward Hill, Fai...

Obituary: Arnold Whitworth Boyd (1885-1959)

01 December 1959 Comments Obituaries IN A NOTE in the third volume of British Birds, the late T. A. Coward mentioned some ducks seen at Marbury Mere in Cheshire on 10th April 1910 by one A. W. Boyd, and during the space of nearly 50 years which has passed since then only three volumes--two i...

Letters

01 April 1948 Comments Letters SIRS,--Messrs. Wagstaffe and Williamson's paper (antea, Vol. xl, p p . 322-325), on t h e cabinet colour changes in bird skins, will be read b y all workers in systematic ornithology with great interest. That these changes occur is of course well known, a...

Notes

01 April 1948 Comments Notes IN a recent volume of British Birds (antea. Vol. xxxix, pp. 212 and 340) records are given of Ravens (Corvus c. corax) nesting in heronries. I should like to record that for several years up to 1942, a pair of Ravens nested in a circle of tall pines cont...

The incubation and fledging-periods of the Razorbill

01 April 1948 Comments Main paper THE incubation-period of the British Razorbill (Alca tarda britannica) does not appear to have been accurately recorded. The Handbook of British Birds (Vol. v, p. 146), quotes the incubation-period as "25 days in incubator (F. G. Paynter), 26-30 (O. A. J....

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Bewick's Swans in the British Isles in the winters of 1954-55 and 1955-56

Recent reports and News

Notes

Pollen contamination of birds

Photographic studies of some less familiar birds: CI. Ross's Gull

Song Sparrow at Fair Isle

Obituary: Arnold Whitworth Boyd (1885-1959)

Letters

Notes

The incubation and fledging-periods of the Razorbill

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