482 News and comment Maddy Hine and Russ Malin
486 Non-native breeding birds in the UK, 2015–20 Mark A. Eaton and the Rare Breeding Birds Panel
508 Long-legged Buzzard in Shetland and Fair Isle: new to Britain Tom Gale and David Cooper
515 The Carl Zeiss Award 2023 Paul French
528 ZEISS Young Birder Awards 2023
531 Letters
532 Reviews
537 Recent reports
Monitoring non-native species is an important – but often neglected – component of keeping track of Britain’s birdlife. As an observer, it’s all too easy to dismiss a pair of exotic geese on a local reservoir as escapes from somewhere nearby that can largely be ignored – until, some years later, that one pair has turned to 20 pairs and a significant population has started to establish itself. The RBBP – via records sent to county recorders – keeps track of all of the UK’s rare breeders, including rare non-native species. Some established non-native species, such as the Rose-ringed Parakeet on the front cover of this month’s issue, have already become so numerous as to surpass the threshold for inclusion in the RBBP reports. There were, however, a total of 22 non-native species that bred or probably bred in the UK during 2015–20 and qualified for inclusion in the report in this month’s issue. The report makes for fascinating reading, and may perhaps spur many of us on to submit those records of pairs of exotic species that we occasionally observe when out and about.
