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Recent reports

01 August 2004 Comments News and comment This summary of unchecked reports covers mid June to mid July 2004. Lesser Scaup Aythya affinis Gart Gravel-pits (Lothian), 19th-20th June; Pennington Flash (Greater Manchester), 8th-9th July. Wilson's Storm-petrel Oceanites oceanicus 5 km SW of Bishop Ro...

Monthly marathon

01 August 2004 Comments Other Monthly Marathon photo number 208 (Brit. Birds 97: plate 145, repeated here as plate 263) is a real `stinker', causing your solutionwriter many hours of frowning and even more cursing! There are no prizes for making the initial identification as a duck, a...

News and Comment

01 August 2004 Comments News and comment Arctic Terns Sterna paradisaea desperately hawking moths in the evening sunlight, gangs of Great Skuas Stercorarius skua lined up along the roads waiting for the next rabbit to be squashed, and Common Guillemots Uria aalge presenting seaweed to their mate...

Reviews

01 August 2004 Comments Reviews THE SKYLARK By Paul F. Donald. T & A D Poyser, A&C Black, London, 2004. 256 pages; maps; tables; figures; line-drawings; blackand-white and colour photographs. ISBN 0-71366568-8. Hardback, £35.00. Paul Donald clearly has a penchant for visually undi...

Letters

01 August 2004 Comments Letters I write in reply to the letter by Combridge et al. (2003), and to agree with their view that the claim by Roberts et al. (1999), of `a real increase' in numbers of breeding Honey-buzzards Pernis apivorus in Britain in the last 30 years, has not yet been s...

Conservation research news

01 August 2004 Comments News and comment Whenever the topic of climate change crops up, there is an understandable tendency to start thinking in local terms. What will happen to Dotterels Charadrius morinellus and Snow Buntings Plectrophenax nivalis in the Scottish mountains; when will the next ...

Notes

01 August 2004 Comments Notes The island of Ustica, lying at 38°42'N 13°12'E in the Tyrrhenian Sea, is approximately 60 km north of western Sicily and 270 km northeast of the Cap Bon promontory in Tunisia (fig.1). Although covering an area of only 7,600 ha, its isolation makes it at...

Essential reference books

01 June 1995 Comments Main paper Every birdwatcher needs a personal ornithological reference library consisting of at least a few books, in addition to field guides concerned solely with bird identification. We have obtained the independent, expert, personal opinions of the ten members o...

Looking Back

01 June 1995 Comments Other Twenty-five years ago, in June 1970, 'The "bird of the month" for many observers must have been Quail Coturnix coturnix, about 35 being found in the Bristol area alone and the total number reported exceeding 100. The main concentrations appear to have bee...

Obituary: Ian Prestt (1929-1995)

01 June 1995 Comments Obituaries Ian Prestt CBE (1929-1995) For several years, Ian Prestt and I lived about a mile apart. One evening, he telephoned me and told me that a local man had found what he thought were Hobbies Falco subbuteo with flying young. I was sceptical, knowing that ther...

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