Search

Winter feeding hours of Robins, Blackbirds and Blue Tits

01 March 1948 Comments Main paper IT IS a matter of common knowledge that birds do not spend the whole of their waking hours looking for food, even during the short days of mid-winter. Gulls and waders, for instance, may be seen standing in flocks, inactive for hours on end. The watcher k...

The Tendency of the blackbird and Song-Thrush to breed in their birthplaces

01 November 1947 Comments Main paper THE degree of inbreeding of a population is of obvious importance from the point of view of the differentiation of races and species. An analysis was therefore made of the ringing returns for British Blackbirds (Turdus m. merula) and Song-Thrushes (Turdus...

Notes

01 September 1947 Comments Notes ON April 22nd, 1947, near Muthill, Perthshire, I caught a glimpse, from a car, of a commotion in some rough grassland near the edge of a wood. I stopped the car and my wife and I then saw that a pair of Carrion Crows (Corvus c. corone) was attacking some...

Notes

01 July 1944 Comments Notes The following observations are for the year 1943. KESTREL (Falco t. tinnunculus).--On July 17th I noticed a female which after landing on the ground started to run about with its body in a crouching attitude and gait a fast lope. The bird appeared to be ...

The Age of the Blackbird

01 February 1943 Comments Main paper THE potential age, the age to which birds can live, has been the subject of several papers, the earlier ones based on records in captivity, e.g. Gurney (1899), Mitchell (1911), Flower (1925), and the later ones on ringing returns, e.g. Witherby (1926), Ni...

Notes

01 November 1942 Comments Notes SOMETIME ago my attention was attracted by the curious behaviour of a pair of Carrion-Crows (Corvus c. corone). They were on a house in one of the new housing estates near London, and were engaged in Walking or half-running up and down the sloping roof w...

Song Form in the Thrush Family

01 October 1942 Comments Main paper SOME time ago, I read of a German Professor who stated that the Blackbird (Turdus m. merula) composes some six hundred phrases every day. At that time I had not made a definite study of the song of the bird, but what I had heard did not seem to be in acco...

Notes

01 May 1941 Comments Notes WHEN reading Mr. D. Lack's article on the Chaffinch (antea, p. 216), I was particularly interested in the paragraph on " female song." Just over a year ago (early in March, 1940) I heard at Brent Park, Hendon, a bird singing, which I did not recognize at...

The Vocal Activity of Blackbirds at a winter Roost

01 July 1939 Comments Main paper THE noise made by the Blackbird (Turdus m. merula) in going to roost is a characteristic part of the countryside in winter, and is associated in the minds of many with a frosty evening. The following note describes an attempt to measure these roosting ca...

Notes

01 May 1939 Comments Notes IN May, 1937, I watched a hen Blackbird (Turdus m. merula) at the weir at Cropston Reservoir, Leicestershire, catching what I took to be minnows, but they may have been sticklebacks. The fish had been stranded in small shallow pools and were swimming abo...