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Report on rare birds in Great Britain in 2020

01 October 2021 Comments Main paper ...

South Polar and Great Skuas: the timing of primary moult as an aid to identification

11 June 2013 Comments Main paper By Dick Newell, Steve Howell and Dani López-Velasco Abstract The plumages and moult cycles of immature large skuas are poorly known, and some first-year Great Skuas Stercorarius skua can closely resemb...

Letter

01 August 2008 Comments Letters It is now over a decade since the first of three recent controversial large skuas turned up in Britain, and the debate on their identity continues to ebb and flow. Jiguet (2007) was among the more recent to discuss the three birds – in Dorset, in J...

Notes

01 March 2005 Comments Notes Little Grebe swallowing small mammal Cream-coloured Courser showing feeding attachement to desert road Exceptional numbers of Oriental Plovers in southern Siberia in 2003 Ruffs feeding on contents of Giraffe's stomach Ta...

Monthly marathon

01 December 2000 Comments Other It's a Ruff Philomachus pugnax, isn't it? October's Monthly Marathon picture (plate 300, repeated here as plate 363) is one that I expect many people will have recognised instantly without necessarily being able to put their finger on exactly ...

Letters

01 March 1995 Comments Letters I was fascinated to read the reference, in the item on 'Identification by taste', to my great-grandfather, John Cordeaux (Brit. Birds 87: 447). I looked up his last publication, a revised list of British Birds belonging to the Humber District (1899), a...

Monthly marathon

01 September 1994 Comments Other The two birds shown in plate 94 were named as White-fronted Geese Anser albifrons (37%), Bean Geese A. fabalis (35%), Pink-footed Geese A. brachyrhynchus (14%), Greylag Geese A. anser (8%) and Lesser White-fronted Geese A. erythropus (6%), wi...

Monthly marathon

01 October 1986 Comments Other Skylark Alauda arvensis (68%) Woodlark Lullula arborea (18%) Lesser Short-toed Lark Calandrella rufescens (5%) Oriental Skylark A. gulgula (4%) Thekla Lark Galerida theklae (3%) Lapland Bunting Calcarius lapponicus (1%) There were also a small number o...

Seventy-five years ago

01 August 1982 Comments Other 'EVERYONE who takes an interest in the birds of this country will have the greatest satisfaction in learning that the Ruff, so long lost to Norfolk as a breeding bird, has once more nested in the county.' (Brit, Birds 1: 65, August 1907) ...