Looking back

01 October 1999
Comments Other FIFTY YEARS AGO On 8th October 1949, a bird shaped like a Grasshopper Warbler Locustella naevia, but with plumage tones recalling a Sedge Warbler Acrocephalus schoenobaenus, was watched in a turnip and cabbage patch at Leogh on Fair Isle, Shetland -&nb...
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Monthly marathon

01 October 1999
Comments Other The slim body and long legs of the bird in plate 160 (repeated here as plate 216), with that obvious, long, fairly flat hind claw, long tertials, relatively long, narrow tail and distinctive, darkcentred, pale-edged median coverts all point to a pipit ...
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Reviews

01 October 1999
Comments Reviews A test of the figures (and text) for Sora Crake Porzana carolina showed that helpful characters, such as the crown pattern and eye streak, had been wholly or partly omitted; a second close read, however, of Little P. parva and Baillon's Crakes P. pusil...
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Letters

01 October 1999
Comments Letters I read with interest the letters from Bill Simpson and Paul Milne (Brit. Birds 92: 428-430), and the earlier one from Anthony McGeehan published alongside my own letter on behalf of the BOU Records Committee (BOURC) (Brit. Birds 92: 212-214). I have no...
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Best bird book of the year 1999

01 October 1999
Comments Main paper The monthly journal British Birds and the British Trust for Ornithology announce the winner of the title BEST BIRD BOOK OF THE YEAR. All books reviewed in British Birds or the BTO publications BTO News and Bird Study during the previous 12 months are e...
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The Carl Zeiss Award 1999

01 October 1999
Comments Main paper Every year, we select, from amongst the prints and transparencies submitted to the British Birds Rarities Committee (either directly or via British Birds), the photograph or set of photographs which has been most instructive in the record-assessment pr...
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Conservation research news

01 October 1999
Comments News and comment In a recently published survey undertaken by the RSPB in association with the ITE and the University of St Andrews has shown that there are more Crested Tits Parus cristatus in Scotland than previously thought. The survey, carried out using transe...
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Wintering farmland birds

01 October 1999
Comments Main paper When did you last see a flock of Tree Sparrows Passer montanus? For us, the last time was during a trip to a stake-out site where the species could be guaranteed for bird races and the like. This is unfortunately a common story, when the sight of a sin...
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