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Seventy-five years ago

01 March 1986 Comments Other 'SHAG IN SUFFOLK. ON January 23rd, 1911, an immature Shag (Phalacrocorax graculus) was sent to me by post with a request to name it, and the following account of its capture:--"My son was riding his bicycle home the other evening about 7.30, and the bi...

Identification, habits and status of Great Knot

01 March 1986 Comments Main paper Among Arctic waders, the Great Knot Calidris tenuirostris is surely one of the least known and most obscure. It is very surprising that this can be said of a member of the well-studied and popular genus Calidris, especially one of conspicuously large s...

PhotoSpot. 19. Hooded Wheatear

01 March 1986 Comments Main paper The Hooded Wheatear Oenanthe monacha is one of the rarest and least-known species breeding in the western Palearctic. It haunts the most desolate and silent of desert places--ravines and rocky wadis--but, contrary to thestatement by Meinertzhagen (1930...

Mystery photographs

01 March 1986 Comments Main paper The combination of small size (evident from the relative proportions of the eye, head and bill), blackish cap and ear-spot, and small, all-dark bill on the left-hand gull in last month's photograph (plate 50, repeated here) should have pointe...

Personalities. 33 John R. Mather

01 March 1986 Comments Main paper Johnnie Mather (he has never lost the familiar title) was showing an interest in birds by the age of nine, building up a childhood collection which no longer exists. The 'magpie instinct' has not declined, and now he is an avid collector of bird a...

Woodlarks in Britain, 1968-83

01 March 1986 Comments Main paper The breeding population of the Woodlark Lullula arborea in Britain has fluctuated widely, both in numbers and distribution, over the past 100 years. The reasons have not always been clear. In the past, the Woodlark has been regarded as a sedentary spec...

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