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News and comment

01 September 1973 Comments News and comment Pickled birds on the menu A recent press statement by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds draws attention to a distasteful matter not yet covered by legislation: the importing of pickled birds from Cyprus. It is thought that five to s...

Letters

01 September 1973 Comments Letters Scope of 'British Birds' I have been receiving British Birds for a few years now, and it appears to me that the present trend is to include more and more foreign material. For example, the March 1973 issue contained papers on the iden...

Notes

01 September 1973 Comments Notes Unusual hunting behaviour of Sparrowhawks During February 1972, at Benacre, Suffolk, I spent several hours observing a pair of Sparrowhawks Accipiter nisus hunting over a particular field which had been left to seed. This field was the feeding ...

Studies of less familiar birds 171: Red-necked Nightjar

01 September 1973 Comments Main paper Squatting motionless on the ground among dead wood and sand litter, the Red-necked Nightjar Caprimulgus ruficollis is made almost invisible by its disruptive pattern of grey, rufous and buff, with heavy streaks on the crown and scapulars characteristic...

Identification of some scarce or difficult west Palearctic species in Iran

01 September 1973 Comments Main paper Following the joint initiatives of Dr D. A. Scott and P. A. D. Hollom, and through the courtesy and assistance of the Iranian Department of Environmental Conservation, an expedition visited Iranian Baluchistan between 31st March and 19th April 1972. It...

The buff variety of the Collared Dove

01 September 1973 Comments Main paper The most striking visual difference between the Collared Dove Streptopelia decaocto and the Barbary Dove, a domesticated descendant of the African Collared Dove S. roseogrisea, is that the former is darker and greyer, with blackish primaries, and the l...

Recent reports

01 September 1973 Comments News and comment An adult Purple Heron Ardea purpurea stayed at Minsmere (Suffolk) from 1st to 18th and an immature remained there from 9th to 24th, while at Sandown (Isle of Wight) one arrived on 17th. In Lincolnshire single Little Egrets Egretta garzetta occurred at ...

The Index of Heron Population, 1944

01 May 1945 Comments Main paper The number of reports on sites occupied by Herons in 1944, which were received at the Edward Grey Institute, was i n . Of these 77 were in England, 6 in Wales, 8 in Scotland and 20 in Ireland. We are indebted to 55 informants, of whom a considerable numbe...

Notes from Fair Isle, 1939-45

01 May 1945 Comments Main paper IN the spring of 1944, George T. Arthur (G.T.A.), and the writer (G.W.), visited Fair Isle, Shetland, between March 28th and April 17th. In autumn, the island was again visited by the writer between August 14th and 21st. Eighty-seven different species and...

British Recoveries of Birds Ringed Abroad

01 May 1945 Comments Main paper the last twelve years, records of the recovery in the British Isles of birds ringed abroad have been incorporated in a series of articles written and compiled by the late H. F. Witherby and the present writer.* In these articles birds ringed in the Britis...

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