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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Looking back

01 October 1999
Comments Other `Occurrence of Sylvia Orphea [Orphean Warbler Sylvia hortensis] in Yorkshire ... My bird is evidently a female, and was observed in company with its mate for a considerable time before it was shot. The other bird had a black head, and the description I...
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Looking Back

01 August 1997
Comments Other One hundred years ago: 'Apparent Summer Appearance of the Shore Lark in Devonshire.--On the 14th inst. [August 1897], at about 4 p.m., I saw near Paignton, Devon, a bird which I think could be no other than Otocoris alpestris, the Shore Lark, an adult ...
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Monthly Marathon

01 August 1997
Comments Other The swimming gull Larus (plate 49) was named by competitors as Audouin's L. audouinii (33%), Herring L. argentatus (30%), Lesser Black-backed L. fuscus (25%), Yellow-legged L. cachinnans (6%), Common L. canus (4%) and Great Black-backed L. marinus (2%)...
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