Recent reports

01 March 1993
Comments News and comment This summary cover s the period 18th January to 14th February 1993 These are unchecked reports, not authenticated records.   American Wigeon Anas americana Male, Whitegate (Co. Cork), January to at least 8th February. American Black D...
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Monthly marathon

01 March 1993
Comments Other The grey-and-black-and-white bird in December's puzzle picture (Brit. Birds 85: plate 322) was named by entrants as: Caspian Tern Sterna caspia (42%) Gull-billed Tern Gelochelidon nilotica (40%) Laughing Gull Larus atricilla (6%) Whiskered Tern Ch...
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News and Comment

01 March 1993
Comments News and comment LAST CENTURY, Ailsa Craig in the Firth of Clyde supported a quarter of a million pairs of Puffins Fratercula arctica, then common rats Rattus norwegicus got ashore. Slowly but surely, Puffins-- and other seabirds as well as vegetation--were devastated ...
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Twenty-five years ago...

01 March 1993
Comments Other 'The nesting of a pair of Snowy Owls Nyctea scandiaca on Fetlar, Shetland, in 1967 was the first substantiated record in the wild in the British Isles. Publicity was inevitable and so the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds organised a round...
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Mystery photographs

01 March 1993
Comments Main paper On a sunny October morning, while searching for migrants on a scrub-covered coastal headland, a movement in a patch of bracken and bramble catches the eye. After skulking for a few minutes, the bird eventually hops on to an exposed perch, ruffles its p...
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Letters

01 March 1993
Comments Letters Song Thrushes and Redwings feeding on periwinkles. I was surprised to see the note on Song Thrush Turdus philomelos feeding on common periwinkles Littorina littorina in Kent (Brit. Birds 85: 618). Song Thrushes always fed on the old periwinkl...
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Notes

01 March 1993
Comments Notes P r e s u m e d Red-crested Pochard X Northern Pintail hybrid. On 30th August and 6th October 1990, and during August 1991, at Rutland Water, Leicestershire, I observed what I presumed to be a male Red-crested Pochard Netta rufina X Northern Pintail An...
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Reviews

01 March 1993
Comments Reviews H a n d b o o k o f the Birds o f Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The Birds of the Western Palearctic. vol. VI: warblers. By S. Cramp et at. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992. 728 pages; 31 colour plates; numerous line-drawings. ISBN...
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Announcements

01 March 1993
Comments Editorials 'The F a m o u s G r o u s e ' Scotch whisky Christmas puzzle. The solution to the puzzle set on page xiii in the December 1992 issue included the following four species': ROOK , SMEW, COOT and TEAL. The two commonest of the several corr...
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