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Magnolia Warbler in Scilly: new to Britain and Ireland

01 February 1995 Comments Main paper I was walking along Barnaby Lane, St Agnes, on 27th September 1981, with Alaric Sumner, after an uneventful morning's birdwatching, when we spotted a small bird perched close to the top of a Pittosporum bush. My first impression was of a warbler with b...

Barrow's Goldeneye in Strathclyde: new to Britain and Ireland

01 February 1995 Comments Main paper The recent full acceptance of the male Barrow's Goldeneye Bucephala islandica at Irvine, Strathclyde, from 4th November to 28th December 1979 (Brit. Birds 85: 519-520) ends a long period of uncertainty regarding the status of this species in Britain an...

Beidaihe, China: East Asian hotspot

01 February 1995 Comments Main paper China has come a long way since 1958 when 'Sparrows [probably meaning any passerine], rats, bugs and flies' were proscribed as pests and a war declared on them. The extermination of a reputed 800,000 birds over three days in Beijing alone was apparentl...

Rare breeding birds in the United Kingdom in 1992

01 February 1995 Comments Main paper This is the twentieth annual Report of the Rare Breeding Birds Panel. It sets out, in the now well-established format, details of the breeding, probable breeding and possible breeding records for each species on the Panel's list. The amount of informat...

Mystery photographs

01 March 1983 Comments Main paper This bird was, no doubt, instantly identified by most readers. Even a photograph gives the impression, from its bearing and proportions, that this is a rather large wader. Straight bill and long legs (judging from the tibia) rule out several species, a...

Personalities. 29. W. E. Oddie

01 March 1983 Comments Main paper Two things immediately struck me when I met Bill Oddie. The first was his stature—he's even smaller than Richard Porter—and the second was his extraordinary energy. The occasion was to finalise plans for a trip to India, Bill's first major for...

Identification pitfalls and assessment problems. 3. White Stork

01 March 1983 Comments Main paper Whit e Stork Ciconia ciconia. Although it may seem puzzling to those not involved in assessing reports of unusual species, unacceptable claims of White Stork are not infrequent. Besides the escape factor, which is quite high, the reasons fall i...

Two hens, but a single nest: an unusual case of polygyny by Hen Harriers in Orkney

01 March 1983 Comments Main paper In June 1981,I was told of a nest of Hen Harrier Circus cyaneus on the East Mainland of Orkney with ten eggs, and two females in attendance. Since an unusually high percentage of first-year males (25%) bred on the West Mainland of Orkney in 1981, ...

Survey of some of Europe's breeding birds

01 March 1983 Comments Main paper In an attempt to establish basic information on changes in status of the breeding birds of Europe for a paper presented at the XVIII International Ornithological Congress in Moscow, we contacted one correspondent in each European country. The detailed ...

Sap-sucking' by woodpeckers in Britain

01 March 1983 Comments Main paper The production by woodpeckers (Picidae) of rows of'peck marks' on the stems of healthy trees is well documented for various European countries such as Czechoslovakia (Turcek 1954) and Germany (Gatter 1972). It is known as 'tree ringing' or 'drilling', ...

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