Pollutants in Great Bitterns

01 January 1994 Comments Main paper Within its localised reed-bed habitat, the Great Bittern Botaurus stellaris has declined in Britain in recent decades, even though its main breeding haunts are protected as reserves (Day & Wilson 1978; Smith & Tyler 1993). The reasons for the d...
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Mystery photographs

01 April 1988 Comments Main paper A quick glance at the distinctive bill-shape and long, pointed wings of last month's mystery bird (plate 73, repeated here as plate 89) is sufficient to identify it as a shearwater. The astute reader, confident in our sense of fair play, would have imm...
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Mystery photographs

01 February 1985 Comments Main paper  It is late in the year and you are sitting alone in a hide overlooking an area of pools, reedbeds arid small bushes. Suddenly, as if by magic, a large bird materialises at the edge of a nearby reedbed. The combination of large size, thick, p...
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