DURING the past year or more there has been a growing realization that a large number of birds formerly thought to be rarities are reaching the British Isles regularly, and even in some numbers. In some cases a change of habit or expansion of breeding distribution may be responsible, but in all probability many of these species have been overlooked in the past and their discovery now is due to the larger numbers of bird-watchers, the considerable advances in field-identification and the enormous increase in bird observatories and trapping. The position has been reached where the flood of records of unusual species reaching British Birds has swamped the system for dealing with them, as two examples may s h o w : it was as recently as 1953 that we were still publishing full details of any Woodchat Shrike, but it is now clear that this bird is an annual visitor and! over a score were reported in 1958; similarly, there were some 14 records of Melodious Warbler last autumn, yet twenty years ago The Handbook was able to include an all-time total of only 3 occurrences of this species. Obviously we cannot now provide space for the publication of full details of all the rarer birds, and the county reports in general have less room available than we have. On the other hand, the publication of details enables the reader--now, or 50 years hence-- to make some assessment of the record for himself; it has on occasion led to
Volume:
Issue 8
