Monthly marathon

01 April 2000 Comments Other February's mystery bird (plate 71, repeated here as plate 116) is clearly a medium-sized leaf-warbler Phylloscopus. There are no obvious wing-bars or tertial tips, and apparently no central crown stripe, so we can immediately rule out a number of speci...
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Looking back

01 April 2000 Comments Other ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO: `I have just obtained a bird which is in the list of your desiderata, and I therefore hope it will be acceptable to you. As the bird agrees in every respect with the description given of the stork (Ardea Ciconia), excep...
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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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