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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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 ...
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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...
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Monthly marathon

01 July 2001
Comments Other The long pointed wings and long, tapering, forked tail of the bird in Monthly Marathon number 177 (plate 109, repeated here as plate 198) will have been readily identifiable as a swift (Apodidae) to all but the most inexperienced of obser vers. The pho...
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Reviews

01 July 2001
Comments Reviews PIGEONS AND DOVES By David Gibbs, Eustace Barnes & John Cox. Pica Press, Sussex, 2001. 615 pages; 76 colour plates; 314 species illustrated in colour; 309 maps. ISBN 1-873403-60-7. Hardback, £38.00. Everyone is familiar with pigeons and doves; ind...
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