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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Seventy-five years ago

01 March 1985 Comments Other 'A Bittern (Botaurus stellaris) was shot at Newhythe, near Aylesford, Kent, on November 25th, 1909. I am pleased to say that a police prosecution followed, but the defendant, who pleaded ignorance of the identity of the bird, was let off with the payme...
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