Recent reports

01 May 1999
Comments News and comment This summary of unchecked reports covers 8th March to 4th April 1999. The text and photographs relate to unchecked reports, not authenticated records. Pied-billed Grebe Podilymbus podiceps Walton Reservoir (Surrey), 16th March; Stowbridge Pit (Norfolk)...
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Monthly marathon

01 May 1999
Comments Other The species in the photograph (plate 32, repeated here as plate 74) is clearly a wader, and its general shape and coloration shows that it is either a Calidris or a Tringa sandpiper. The lack of patterning and its dull colour tells us that it is in win...
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News and Comment

01 May 1999
Comments News and comment We have previously drawn attention (Brit. Birds 91: 206) to the dramatic decline in breeding-bird populations on the North Staffordshire Moors, no doubt largely linked to agricultural changes that have included overgrazing and drainage. It had been hop...
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Reviews

01 May 1999
Comments Reviews Global warming might destroy tundra worldwide within the next century. There are many pleasing illustrations by the first author; diagrams, however, are frequently so complex and printed so small that they fail to make their points clearly, and typogra...
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Letters

01 May 1999
Comments Letters THE COMMERCIALISATION OF ORNITHOLOGY It seems strange that a seven-line suggestion by Ian Moorhouse (Brit. Birds 91: 330) that an increase in the average age of observers might help to explain a decline in the numbers of some common birds should be con...
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Notes

01 May 1999
Comments Notes THREE PIED FLYCATCHERS AND A COMMON REDSTART DEAD IN SAME NESTBOX On 24th May 1995, while checking nestboxes at Bailey Einon wood, near Llandrindod Wells, Radnorshire, I discovered that one box contained three male Pied Flycatchers Ficedula hypoleuca a...
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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...
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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...
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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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