Reviews

01 August 1983
Comments Reviews The Shell Guide to the Birds of Britain and Ireland. By James Ferguson-Lees, Ian Willis and J. T. R. Sharrock. Michael Joseph, London, 1983. 336 pages; 1,800 coloured illustrations. £7.95. The publisher's description on the back cover claims, with jus...
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Recent reports

01 August 1983
Comments News and comment These are largely unchecked reports, not authenticated records. Dates in this report refer to May except where stated otherwise. The weather during the month was dominated by slow-moving depressions crossing the country, bringing unsettled, ver...
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News and comment

01 August 1983
Comments News and comment Opinions expressed in this feature are not necessarily those of 'British Birds'  Arrested birdwatchers. The detention in early June of two English birdwatchers, Simon Albrecht and Dennis Buisson, whilst birdwatching in Turkey (Brit. Birds ...
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Announcements

01 August 1983
Comments Editorials Bill Oddie's new book If you liked Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book, you will not hesitate to get his new one, due to be published by Methuen on 22nd September, Called Gone Birding, it costs £6.95 and, by special arrangement with the publis...
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Letters

01 August 1983
Comments Letters The origin of 'twitcher'. Richard Porter (Brit. Birds 75: 537) has traced 'twitcher' back to 1968, but what were 'people who chase rare birds' called before that? My recollection is that before the Second World War they were known as 'pot-hunters', and...
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Seventy-five years ago

01 August 1983
Comments Other 'AN invasion of Pallas's Sand-Grouse (Syrrhaptes paradoxus) into this country was not unexpected since the bird appeared numerously in European Russia in the latter half of April, and has been reported from several parts of Germany . . . The following ...
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Notes

01 August 1983
Comments Notes Peregrine probably raising five young Late in the evening of 17th May 1980, Jim Beswetherick telephoned me to say that he had counted five chicks in the eyrie of a Peregrine Falco peregrinus in Cornwall. On 19th, A. Rattray and I visited the ey...
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Mystery photographs

01 August 1983
Comments Main paper Is this neat, smooth mystery bird with a black-and-white tail band perhaps a dove Streptopelia diving from an overhead wire to a patch of spilled grain? The strongly two-toned wings might support such a conclusion—but no, surely the triangular head a...
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Personalities. 31 Hilary Burn

01 August 1983
Comments Main paper Hilary Burn Dominated as it is by often brawny and frequently bearded males, what a pleasure to include in this series a truly feminine female subject. Although almost invariably clad in her favourite jeans, Hilary Burn manages to look elegant ...
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