Looking back

01 February 1999
Comments Other `We had here, in the winter of 1845, immense numbers of the gray phalarope (Phalaropus platyrhynchus). Every winter we have a few, but on this occasion they came in such flocks as had never been before noticed. They appeared to have had a long flight a...
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European News

01 February 1999
Comments Main paper This six-monthly compilation, inaugurated 22 years ago (Brit. Birds 70: 218), provides the only reliable continent-wide summary of important occurrences, ranging from changes in breeding or wintering distributions to irruptions, nationally rare birds a...
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Editorial: Britain & Ireland

01 February 1999
Comments Main paper Should Britain and Ireland be regarded as one coherent unit or two, for the purposes of biological recording? Ireland is quite distinct from Britain. It is an island (with many associated smaller islands and islets), so is easily defined. Quite rightly...
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Monthly marathon

01 February 1999
Comments Other December's twig-perching passerine (Brit. Birds 91: 580, plate 168, repeated opposite as plate 23), photographed by senior Young Ornithologist of the Year, Ben Phalan, was named by competitors as Common Redstart Phoenicurus phoenicurus (4%), Moustached...
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News and Comment

01 February 1999
Comments News and comment The Game Conservancy Trust (GCT) is not a stranger to this column, and we frequently exhort the birdwatching community to take a little more interest in what it is doing and what it is saying. Two cases in point have reached us in recent weeks. The GCT...
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Letters

01 February 1999
Comments Letters Although there have been many letters and papers in recent ornithological publications on the status of the Ruddy Shelduck Tadorna ferruginea in Great Britain, often with reference to the big influx into northwest Europe in 1892, all have missed what c...
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Announcements

01 February 1999
Comments Editorials BIRDS: A REMINDER Although colour-marking may be used in purely local studies (e.g. of behaviour), the majority of studies of marked populations depend upon co-operation from all observers who sight the marked individuals. Only in exceptional instances...
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Reviews

01 February 1999
Comments Reviews By Mark Beaman & Steve Madge; illustrated by Hilary Burn, Martin Elliott, Alan Harris, Peter Hayman, Laurel Tucker & Dan Zetterstrøm. Christopher Helm, London. 1998. 868 pages; 51 explanatory figures; 293 colour plates and 59 text illustration...
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