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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Monthly marathon

01 September 1992 Comments Other June's bathing bird (plate 132) was named as a greater variety of species than any previous photograph in this series: Pied Wagtail Motacilla alba (63%) Hoopoe Upupa epops (6%) Citrine Wagtail M. citreola (4%), with other votes for Barnacle Goose Brant...
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Seventy-five years age

01 September 1992 Comments Other ' G O R R K C T P R O N U N C I A T I O N O F C H O U G H AND P O C H A R D . T o the Editors of British Birds. Sirs, I think I am correct in stating that the generally accepted pronunciation of the word Chough is like the word rough. T h e other day, how...
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