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Mystery photographs

01 July 1996 Comments Main paper This is obviously a diurnal raptor, with the give-away short neck, long tail and broad wings which will cause other birds to raise the alarm and bring it to our attention. The wings are too broad and rounded at the tips for it to be a falcon and i...

Bird photograph of the year

01 July 1996 Comments Main paper BIRD PHOTOGRAPH OF THE YEAR. 1996, its nineteenth year, and for the second year in succession, this competition was again sponsored by Canon (UK) Ltd. It is remarkable that, year after year, we continue to see the same photographers reaching the short-...

Breeding success of raft-nesting divers in Scotland

01 July 1996 Comments Main paper ABSTRACT A study in 1972-78 showed that Red-throated Gavia stellata and Black-throated Divers G arctica nesting in an area of south Argyll, Scotland, where there was a shortage of island nest sites, suffered very low breeding success compared with othe...

Population trends of breeding birds in the United Kingdom since 1800

01 July 1996 Comments Main paper Building on the extensive reviews by Alexander & Lack (1944) and Parslow (1973), a scoring system is used to assess the general population trend of each species that bred in the United Kingdom during the entire 196-year period 1800-1995. This semi-...

Breeding biology of Buzzards at Sedbergh during 1937-67

01 September 1971 Comments Main paper Since 1937, observations on Buzzards Buteo buteo breeding within ten miles of Sedbergh, Yorkshire, have been recorded by the Sedgwick Society of Sedbergh School. The present paper shows the results of an analysis of these records, supplemented by my own o...

Studies of less familiar birds 167: Golden Oriole

01 September 1971 Comments Main paper Plates 61-63 The 28 species of Old World orioles (Oriolidae) form a remarkably homogenous group of arboreal passerines of wide distribution over Africa, Eurasia and Australasia. Systematically they are placed between the drongos (Dicruridae) and the crows...

North American waterfowl in Europe

01 September 1971 Comments Main paper The natural occurrence of North American birds in Europe is a wellestablished fact substantiated by recoveries of ringed birds. The transatlantic crossings of waders and passerines have been excellently treated by Nisbet (1959, 1963) and, more recently, b...

Rook numbers in Nottinghamshire over 35 year

01 September 1971 Comments Main paper frugilegus in Nottinghamshire in 1962 and compares the figures with those from four other censuses in the previous 34 years. The first counts were made by A. Roebuck in 1928 (Roebuck 1933) and again in 1932. There was then a wartime census by A. I. H. Doc...

Studies of less familiar birds 129. Cetti's Warbler

01 September 1971 Comments Main paper C E T T I ' S W A R B L E R Cettia cetti, named after an 18th century Italian Jesuit zoologist (see Macleod 1954), is unique in various ways. Apart from being the sole species in a subgenus characterised by long, soft plumage and a very rounded tail with ...

A study of Swift weights

01 September 1971 Comments Main paper N E A R L Y A L L OF 2,546 Swifts Apus apus caught at Rye Meads Sewage Purification Works, Hertfordshire, in the late spring and summer of 1962 (845) and 1963 (1,701) were weighed and examined before being ringed and released. The pattern of the weights w...

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