Monthly marathon

01 February 2001
Comments Other December's photograph (plate 364 in volume 93, repeated here as plate 48) is obviously of a wader/shorebird (depending on which side of the Atlantic you come from) and, judging by its proportions, and by its size in relation to the vegetation in the ba...
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Reviews

01 February 2001
Comments Reviews THREATENED BIRDS OF THE WORLD By BirdLife International. Lynx Edicions and BirdLife International, Barcelona and Cambridge, 2000. 852 pages; maps, colour illustrations. ISBN 0 946888 39 6. £70.00. Many BB readers travel the World to indulge their pass...
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News and Comment

01 February 2001
Comments News and comment A national census of Mute Swans Cygnus olor will take place in spring 2001, repeating the last one, conducted in 1990. Mute Swans are widespread during the breeding season on all manner of wetlands, including small lakes and, particularly, riv...
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Letters

01 February 2001
Comments Letters Although the concluding remarks of Vinicombe & Harrop's paper (Brit. Birds 92: 225255) were somewhat contradictory, it is now received wisdom that an influx of wild Ruddy Shelducks Tadorna ferruginea occurred in northern and southwestern Britain in...
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Notes

01 February 2001
Comments Notes At 17.45 hours on 20th March 1995, at East Hyde on the River Lea, 3.2 km north of Batford, Hertfordshire, I observed an immature Grey Heron Ardea cinerea perched on a branch of an Alder Alnus glutinosa, the only tree along that stretch of the river. Ow...
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Looking back

01 February 2001
Comments Other On October 2nd, 1925, wind E. –­ S.S.W., I saw seven Surf-Scoters (Oidemia perspicillata) in a rather choppy sea off Scolt Head. The birds were fairly close inshore, so that the white patch on the nape was distinctly visible on three of them.This is...
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What is the malar?

01 February 2001
Comments Main paper If you strive to be a better birdwatcher, you have probably spent some time studying the bird-topography diagrams published in books and magazines. A working knowledge of bird topography is essential for describing plumages and for understanding the va...
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