Notes

13 March 2014 Comments Notes Two pairs of Kestrels nesting on one electricity pylon On 15 th April 1971, in an area of reinstated opencast land at Staveley, Derbyshire, loud trilling calls drew my attention to four Kestrels Falco tinnunculus on an electricity pylon. There were two ol...
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Notes

01 September 1971 Comments Notes Moorhen walking underwater.--In view of the controversy mentioned in a footnote in The Handbook (5: 198-199) and the various records of Moorhens Gallinula chloropus submerging or swimming underwater which have been published in British Birds since that ti...
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Notes

01 February 1968 Comments Notes Bill-colour of Garganey ducklings.--On 22nd July 1967, on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, I came upon a female Garganey Anas querquedula with two half-grown ducklings. Not having seen ducklings of this species before, I took special note of their colouring. In...
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Notes

01 July 1967 Comments Notes Call-notes of Slavonian and Black-necked Grebes in autumn.-- On 24th September 1966, at the Queen Mary Reservoir, Middlesex, I heard an unfamiliar call which I eventually traced to an apparently immature Slavonian Grebe Podkeps auritus. It persistently ut...
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Notes

01 March 1967 Comments Notes Lesser Kestrels feeding after dark on insects attracted to artificial light.--At dusk each evening during 13th- 15th May 1964, at Titov Veles, Yugoslavia, I watched up to 43 Lesser Kestrels Falco naumanni hawking for moths and other insects in the vicinit...
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Notes

01 April 1966 Comments Notes Weasel killing Kestrel.--I was interested in Mrs. Sybil Selwyn's observation of a Kestrel Falco tinnunculus which caught a Weasel Mustek nivalis and carried it up into the air, but then let it go {Brit. Birds, 59: 39). On Z7th December 1930 I was watching...
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Notes

01 April 1965 Comments Notes Manx Shearwaters and other sea-birds as prey of Peregrines and Golden Eagles.--The following observations may be of interest in view of the recent note by A. J. Gaston (Brit Birds, 5 7: 466-467). On 30th September 1964, at about 2,000 feet on Hallival, Is...
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Notes

01 January 1964 Comments Notes Fulmar incubating eggs of Herring Gull with its own.--On 27th May 1963 I was walking along a cliff top four miles south of Ballantrae, Ayrshire, when I surprised a Fulmar Fulmarus glacialis off its nest. As it flew, a brown egg rolled out and smashed on t...
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Notes

01 April 1962 Comments Notes Little Grebes attacking Moorhens.--With regard to the recent note by J. B. and S, Bottomley on Little Grebes {Podiceps ruficollis) attacking Coots (Fulica atra) and domestic ducks {Anas sp.) {Brit. Birds, 54: 427), it seems worth reporting that I saw seve...
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Notes

01 May 1960 Comments Notes Broken e g g s i n nests of Sparrowhawk.--I can add two records to Dr. D . A. Ratcliffe's list (Brit. Birds, 53: 128-129) of broken eggs of Sparrowhawks (Accipiter nisus), one of them showing that the phenomenon goes back some time. On 7th June 1927, near...
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