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Recent reports

01 October 2004 Comments News and comment This summary of unchecked reports covers mid August to mid September 2004. Canvasback Aythya valisineria Private site (Kent), 15th August. Ferruginous Duck Aythya nyroca Chew Valley Lake (Somerset), 20th August to 1st September. Zino's/Fea's Petrel Pterod...

News and Comment

01 October 2004 Comments News and comment The decline of the Corn Crake Crex crex is a familiar, if depressing, story. Mechanical mowing and the early harvesting of crops, before the end of the breeding season, have had a catastrophic effect on Corn Crakes in Britain and across much of western Eu...

Conservation research news

01 October 2004 Comments News and comment One of the assumptions that scientists often make about territorial birds is that individuals will choose the best breeding sites available. Consequently, when populations are small, every individual occupies a high-quality site but, as populations grow, ...

The Carl Zeiss Award 2004

01 October 2004 Comments Main paper One of the difficulties for the judging panel of the Carl Zeiss Award, for photographs of rarities assessed by the BBRC during the preceding year, is that we have to think of something new to say in our report each year. This year it was easy, in fact it ...

AudouinÕs Gull: new to Britain

01 October 2004 Comments Main paper ABSTRACT A second-summer Audouin's Gull Larus audouinii was found at Dungeness, Kent, on 5th May 2003. It lingered in the area for the remainder of the day, commuting between the shore and nearby pools on the RSPB reserve. It was present again the followi...

Rare breeding birds in the United Kingdom in 2002

01 October 2004 Comments Main paper This is the thirtieth annual report of the Rare Breeding Birds Panel, which presents details of the status of Britain's rarest breeding birds for the year 2002. The totals are generally set out by county or region, occasionally by country; most actual loc...

Recent reports and News

01 August 1959 Comments News and comment The items here are largely unchecked reports, and must not be regarded as authenticated records. They are selected, on the present writers' judgment alone, from sources generally found to be reliable. Observers' names are usually omitted for reasons of sp...

Notes

01 August 1959 Comments Notes Display flight of Bitterns.--On 18th May 1959, at midday, I saw three Bitterns (Botaurus stellaris) rise from a re,ed-bed near Walberswick, Suffolk, and mount in a fresh N . E . breeze to a height which I estimated to be 600 or 700 feet. Not much wingflap...

Watching migration by radar

01 August 1959 Comments Main paper So FAR AS I know, the first time that radar echoes were definitely identified as coming from birds was in the spring of 1940, when an experimental equipment on a wavelength of 50 cm. at Christchurch, Hampshire, detected gulls (Larus spp.) (Shire, 1958). U...

The spread of the Eider in Great Britain

01 August 1959 Comments Main paper range of the Eider (Somateria mollissima) in the southern half of Great Britain since the Second W o r l d W a r , and also to describe the increasing number of birds which are recorded in summer along the same parts of the coast even though they are far ...

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