Z 5 7Z_ British Birds AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY JOURNAL Editors Stanley Cramp I. J. Ferguson-Lees P. A. D. Hollom E. M. Nicholson Photographic Editor Eric Hosking Volume 57 1964 H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd 61/62 WATLING STREET LONDON EC'4 List of illustrations Plates i-y Plate 8 Plates 9-12 Plates i)- 1 6 Plate 17 Plates 18-21 Plates 22-27 Plate 24 Plates 27-72 British bird-photographers — Seton Gordon : Golden Eagles Aquila chrysaetos, Cairngorms and Sutherland; Ptarmigan Pa go pus mutus , Cairngorms; Black-throated Diver Gavia arctica. North Uist ; Whooper Swan Cygnus cygnus, Argyll ; Greenshanks Tringa nebular la, Rothiemurchus ; Puffins Fratercula arctica and Razorbills Alca lorda, Skey; and Dotterel Charadrius morinellus, Cairngorms (Seton Gordon) . . . . . . . . . . . . facing St. Kilda Wrens Troglodytes t. hirtensis, perched and at nest, and habitat showing cleits, St. Kilda (Estlin Waters) facing Oystercatchers Haematopus ostralegus, young begging, adults chiselling and prizing open mussels, adult being attacked by juvenile Black-headed Gull Pants ridibundus, Cumberland (N. Tinbergen) . . . . . . facing Parrot Crossbills Poxia pytyopsittacus, female regurgitating pine seeds to young, habitat, sorted material from nest, nestling, female on nest, greeting at nest, comparison of beaks of male and female, Sweden (Viking Olsson) facing Red Grouse Pagopus l. scoticus, male singing on ground (Ian M. Thomson) . . . . . . . . . . facing Collared Doves Streptopelia decaocto, including feeding, nesting, flocking and close-up of head, Norfolk, Ger- many, Essex, Cheshire and Hungary (H. A. Hems, Rolf Lachner, A. Winspear Cundall, C. P. Rose, D. Turner- Ettlinger, Eric Hosking and N. J. Antoine) Diseases of skin and soft parts: Starling Sturnus vulgaris with skin lesions on neck and abdomen; Goldfinch Carduelis carduelis with waxy thickening of eye-lids ; lesions on feet of Woodpigeons Columba palumbus\ papilloma of foot of Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs . . . . . . . . facing Lapwing Vanellus vanellus and Black-tailed Godwit L imosa limosa under nest-protectors, Netherlands (J. T. Hen- driksma) . . . . . • • • • • . . facing More examples of the best recent work by British bird- photographers: Tawny Owl Slrix aluco, Breconshire (Keri Williams); Shelducks Tadorna tadorna, Suffolk (R. K. Murton); Storm Petrel liydrobates pelagicus, Shetland (D. A. P. Cooke); Buzzards Bu/eo buteo, Denmark (Harold R. Lowes); Kestrels Falco tinnunculus, Cheshire (Harold Platt); Ptarmigan Pagopus mutus , Iceland (C. P. Rose); T rcccrccpcr Ccrthia familiaris, Y orkshirc (Morlcy Medley) ; Coal Tit Par us a ter, Ayrshire (William S. Paton); Whin- chats Saxicola rubetra, Glamorgan (Graham F. Date); PAGE 24 49 68 112 162 163 189 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Plate 33 Plates 34-38 Plates 39-40 Plate 41 Plates 42-43 Plate 44 Plate 4J Plates 46-33 Plates 34-37 Plates 38-61 House Sparrow Passer domesticus, Somerset (Richard Coleman); Grey Wagtails Motacilla cinerea , Sussex (A. N. FI. Peach); and Redpoll Carduelis flammea, York- shire (Arthur Gilpin) . . . . . . . . facing The late Ralph Chislett (1883-1964) (John Armitage) facing Slender-billed Gulls Larns genei, adults in flight and on ground, standing in nest, habitat, nest and eggs, nest with chicks, part of colony, France and Mauritania (F. Roux, K. Weber and H. Hafner) . . . . . . . . facing Mediterranean Black-headed Gulls Larns melanocepbalus, first-winter bird swimming, in flight and compared with Black-headed Gull L. ridibnndus, Sussex (R. H. Chari- wood) Albino gull, with just the tail pigmented, either Herring or Lesser Black-backed Gull Larns argentatus or fnscus, Yorkshire (G. E. Holloway) . . . . . . facing Breeding plumages of Hippolais warblers (sketches by D. I. M. Wallace); Melodious Warbler H. polyglot ta in hand (P. D. Kirby); and Icterine Warbler H. ic/erina at nest (Eric Hosking) . . . . . . . . . . facing Solitary Sandpiper Tringa solitaria in hand, Nottinghamshire (A. R. Johnson); White-rumped Sandpiper Calidris fnscicollis in hand, Suffolk (H. E. Axell) Mute Swans Cygnus olor with ‘Polish’ cygnet, Essex (C. P. Rose); dead adult Gannet Sul a bassana with splinter of wood which it had swallowed, Sutherland (Paul Harvey) facing British bird-photographers — Harold R. Lowes: Goshawk Accipiter gentilis, Denmark; Slavonian Grebe Podiceps auritus, Inverness-shire; Black-throated Diver Gavia arctica, Sutherland; Dipper Cinclus cinclus, Sutherland; Black-tailed Godwit Limosa limosa, Denmark; Avocet Recnrviroslra arose tta, Denmark; Kentish Plover Cbara- drius alexandrinus, Denmark; Golden Eagle Aquila cbrysaetos, Hebrides; Ring Ouzel T ttrdus torquatus, Yorkshire; Short-eared Owl Asio flammeus, Orkney; Dartford Warbler Sylvia undata, Dorset; and Wood Warbler Phylloscopus sibi/atrix, Yorkshire (Harold R. Lowes) . . . . . . . . . . . . facing Cetti’s Warbler Cettia cetti, arriving at nest with food, brooding eggs and young, looking into nest, and habitat, Portugal (M. D. England); and tail of bird in hand, Sussex (R. H. Charlwood) . . . . . . . . facing Birds in winter of 1962/63: Song Thrush Turdus philomelos, Essex; flocks of waders on ice-floes, Cheshire; Canada Geese Branta canadensis and other waterfowl on ice-free PAGE 204 220 240 241 284 285 324 356 BRITISH BIRDS Plates 62-68 Plates 69-76 PAGE water, Lancashire; Starling Sturnus vulgaris. Redwing T. iliacus and Fieldfare T. pilaris feeding upon fallen apples, Essex; Redwings on London roof; Song Thrush dead on hard snow, Hertfordshire (C. P. Rose, Roger Warhurst, Eric Hosking and John Markham) . . facing 408 White-tailed Eagles Haliaetus albicilla, female at nest with young, adult feeding nestling, young exercising, im- matures perched and at water’s edge, comparison of bill with that of young Golden Eagle A.quila cbrysaetos, adult with prey, adult in flight, nests on low-lying islet, on rocks and in tree, Sweden, Norway and Iceland (Svante Lundgren, Christer Wastesson, J. F. Willgohs, Bjorn Bjornsson, Jomas Sigurdsson, Eric Hosking and Lea MacNally) . . . . . . . . . . . . facing 460 British bird-photographers — -J. B. and S. Bottomley: Nut- hatch Sit/a europaea , Lancashire; Black-tailed Godwit Limosa limosa, Denmark ; Curlew Numenius arquata, Westmorland; Snipe Gallinago gallinago, Westmorland; Magpie Pica pica, Westmorland; Dipper Cinclus cinclus, Lancashire; Red-necked Grebe Podiceps griseigena, Den- mark; Little Grebe Podiceps ruficollis, Westmorland; Pied Flycatcher Muscicapa bypoleuca, Westmorland; Spotted Flycatchers M. striata, Westmorland; Wheatear Oenantbe oenanthe, Westmorland ; and Great Spotted Woodpeckers Dendrocopos major, Lancashire (J. B. and S. Bottomley) facing 500 Printed in England by Diemcr & Reynolds Ltd., Bedford British Birds Principal Contents 3 1 DEC(5«J w.. ^-Purchased. Birds in Ireland during D. G. Andrew Grey Wagtail passage in Britain in 1956-60 J. T. R. Sharrock British bird-photographers : x — Seton Gordon (with seven plates) Herd composition and dispersion in the Whooper Swan Raymond Hewson Notes Letters News and comment Recent reports Vol. 57 No. 1 January 1964 THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE British Birds AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY JOURNAL Editors Stanley Cramp, I. J. Ferguson-Lees, P. A. D. Hollom, E. M. Nicholson 'Editorial Address 30 St. Leonard’s Avenue, Bedford Photographic Editor Eiic Hosking 20 Crouch Hall Road London, N.8 ‘News and Comment' Rarities Committee Raymond Cordero D. D. Harber Rohan Lodge, Wadhurst Park 1 Gorringe Road Wadhurst. Sussex Eastbourne, Sussex Contents of Volume 57, Number 1, January 1964 Page Birds in Ireland during 1960-62. By D. G. Andrew .. .. .. i Grey Wagtail passage in Britain in 1956-60. By J. T. R. Sharrock . . 10 British bird-photographers: 1 — Seton Gordon (plates 1-7). Text by Eric Hosking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Herd composition and dispersion in the Whooper Swan. By Raymond Hewson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Notes: — Fulmar incubating eggs of Herring Gull with its own (G. A. Richards) 31 Unusual behaviour of non-breeding Shelduck (L. P. Alder) . . . . 31 Coot caught by a swan mussel (A. K. Kent) . . . . . . . . 32 Curlews displaying in autumn (Dr. Bruce Campbell) . . . . . . 33 Unusual nesting site of House Martin (Miss Winwood Reade) . . . . 34 Yellowhammer taking Great Green Grasshopper (T. A. W. Davis) . . 34 Letters : — Disturbance of breeding and resting birds by bird-watchers (C. R. Tubbs) 34 The need for definitive English names of birds (G. C. Backhurst; M. Biggs; and A. A. Wright) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 An interpretation of variation in the dark-headed forms of the Yellow Wagtail (J. T. R. Sharrock and M. B. Dale) . . . . . . . . 37 News and comment. Edited by Raymond Cordero . . . . . . . . 41 Recent reports. By I. J. Ferguson-Lees . . . . . . . . . . 43 Annual subscription £2 6s. (including postage and despatch) payable to I !. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Watling Street, London, E.C.4 tours for naturalists YUGOSLAVIA (Metkovic) RUMANIA (Danube Delta) POLAND (Mazurian Lakes) HOLLAND (Texel Island) FRANCE (Camargue) Academy Travel Ltd 24/28 BLOOMSBURY WAY, W.C.I Telephone: HOLborn 2417 THE ROYAL SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS invites applications for the post of Reserves Manager The duties include the main- tenance and administration of the Society's 23 reserves, the super- vision of the wardening of these reserves and a variety of measures for the conservation of wild birds. An extensive knowledge of birds is essential and experience in land agency or forestry would be advantageous. Salary £1,000- £1,250 p.a. Contributory super- annuation scheme Further details and application forms from The Secretary, R.S.P.B. The Lodge Sandy, Bedfordshire Birds of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight EDWIN COHEN The main part of this book consists of a systematic list of the birds of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, bringing up to date the last work on the sub- ject by J. E. Kelsall and P. W. Munn which was published in 1905 and has long been out of print. Mr. Cohen has given a summary of the status of each species as described in Kelsall and Munn as a comparison with the status today. In addi- tion, he has included chapters by several contributors on the birds of various local regions and on the geology and botany of the area. The text is illus- trated by sixteen photographs showing habitats ‘Indispensable to Naturalists’ Southern Evening Echo 30s OLIVER & BOYD Swoop — a proven aid to ornithologists and a vital food for hungry birds You can use Swoop wild bird food for scientific or for humanitarian reasons, or for both as you prefer. It has very apparent uses as bait for bird photography and study — and equally it is vital to the actual existence of wild birds in adverse conditions. Swoop’s balanced formula of twelve different foods — each carefully test- ed for acceptance by granivorous, insectivorous and omnivorous birds — has been shown to attract no fewer than 34 different species, including Redwing, Goldcrest, Snow Bunting, Crossbill, and even Woodcock. Recommended and used by the R.S.P.B., Swoop wild bird food is available at all grocers and pet shops. "It.D B1HI> FOOD ^vbu\k Price 1/11 per pack. SWOOP * balanced- formula f I wild bird food Swoop gives life to hungry birds British Birds Vol. 57 No. i Birds in Ireland during 1960-62 By D. G. Andrew In i 960 Irish records ceased to be submitted for inclusion in the annual reports of the Rarities Committee (see Brit. Birds, 54: 174). The advantages of having all records of rarities within these islands considered by one body and collected together into one report are obvious, and it is very much to be hoped that a happy solution to the difficulties will be found before long. One unfortunate result of the secession is that much interesting information from Ireland that used to find its way into British Birds has now ceased to do so. This paper (originally commissioned as a detailed review of the Irish Bird Reports * for the three years in question) attempts to fill the gap by summarising the more significant observa- tions during the years i960, 1961 and 1962. I am particularly grateful to Major R. F. Ruttledge for reading through a draft and for making a number of helpful comments. BREEDING BIRDS The only recent information on the status of the Red-throated Diver Gavia stellata is that a pair has continued to nest at a well-known haunt in Donegal, but only in 1961 was breeding successful there. The Gannet Sula bassana colony on Great Saltee, which was founded in 1929 and which had laboriously increased to only four pairs in 1954, has at last really got going and 65 nests were counted there in 1961, though there were ten fewer in 1962. The Pochard Ay thy a ferina is still a scarce nesting duck in Ireland and these three years have pro- duced only one breeding record — in Galway in 1962. On the other hand, the Eider Somateria mollissima continues to increase: for instance, *No. 8, i960 (38 pages); No. 9, 1961 (39 pages); No. 10, 1962 (40 pages). Edited by Major R. F. Ruttledge. Published by the Irish Ornithologists’ Club. Copies obtainable from the Hon. Sec., J. R. Dick, c/o 45 Kildare Street, Dublin. 3s. 6d. each. BRITISH BIRDS on Inishtrahull, Donegal, where only one pair was nesting in 1942, the number in 1962 exceeded 100. The breeding of a pair of Golden Eagles Aquila chrysaetos in Antrim from 1952 to i960 has already been recorded in these pages (Brit. Birds, 5 5 : 272), but it is disappointing to learn that the birds did not nest in 1961 or 1962. Only one recent breeding record for the Buzzard Buteo buteo is given in The Birds of Ireland (Kennedy, Ruttledge and Scroope 1954)- The Irish Bird Reports of 1954 and 1956 record about ten pairs as nesting in Antrim, but the only subsequent mention is in the 1961 Report where it is stated that ‘Only one pair definitely, but possibly two pairs, bred Rathlin Island, Antrim. Rabbits have almost entirely disappeared.’ According to The Birds of Ireland the last known breeding of the Hen Harrier Circus cyaneus took place about 1913, but it was in fact later revealed that breeding had continued in one locality. There has recently been a most encouraging increase: in 1956 at least eleven pairs were known to have bred successfully in four different counties, and in i960 nesting was recorded in five counties. Red-necked Phalaropes Thalaropus lobatus continue to hang on in Mayo, but only two pairs were known to have bred in each of the three years. The Roseate Tern Sterna dougallii colonies have fluctuated a good deal in numbers, but a new colony, established in 1961, held the remarkable total of 2,000 pairs in 1962. There have been a number of summer records of Turtle Doves Streptopelia turtur, but the only case where nesting was so much as suspected was in Dublin in i960. The small colony which had established itself in this county following the first Irish breeding record in 1939 is evidently no longer extant. Also in Dublin a pair of Collared Doves S. decaocto has bred since 1959 and breeding was suspected in Offaly in 1962, in which year also a pair nested but did not lay in Fermanagh and two pairs were seen in Cork in the summer. There were a number of other reports of Collared Doves in 1962. The authors of The Birds of Ireland were evenly divided over the acceptability of the only Irish breeding record of the Redstart Phoeni- curus phoenicurus this century (in Kerry in 1 946). It is therefore of more than superficial interest to find that breeding has recently been re:orded on four occasions — in Tyrone and Antrim in 1955, and at a locality in Wicklow in 1959 and i960. In 1962 a pair of Yellow Wagtails Motacilla flava was suspected of nesting in Tipperary. This is a species which has not been known to breed in Ireland since about 1941 except in the anni mirabiles of 1956-58 when small colonies and some exotic races were found in Antrim and Down (Brit. Birds, 52: 10). Of particular interest is a vigorous expansion in the range of the Tree Sparrow Passer m on t anus. According to The Birds of Ireland two or three pairs in Donegal were all that were then left of a much more BIRDS IN IRELAND DURING 1960-62 extensive distribution. The years 1954-58 resulted in only a handful of sporadic breeding records on the part of single pairs or very small colonies and neither 1959 nor i960 produced any instances at all. In 1961, however, there were breeding reports from Mayo, Derry and Tory Island, as well as several migration records from Copeland, Tory Island and St. John’s Point, Down, while about 50 were seen in the area of Malin Head, Donegal, in October. In 1962 records were even more widespread and at least ten pairs bred in Co. Dublin (where up to 40 birds had wintered), five pairs at St. John’s Point (where a flock of 5 5 had been seen) and at least one on Tory Island. These developments coincided with a similar expansion in Scotland where Tree Sparrows recolonised Fair Isle and Shetland in 1961 and St. Kilda in 1962 — in each case after an absence of 25 years or more. WINTER VISITORS Ireland’s importance as a wintering resort is forcibly illustrated by such exceptional figures as 21,800 Tufted Duck Aythya fuligula and 2,800 Goldeneye Encephala clan gala counted at Lough Neagh on 17th January i960. Total counts of about 12,000 Pale-breasted Brent Geese Branta bernicla hrota in November i960 and November 1961 are over twice as great as the figure suggested by a survey made in 1956 ( Bird Study, 5 : 31). Such a direct comparison may be rather misleading, as the 1956 survey was based on information collected over a period of years, but it does seem likely that this race is recovering its numbers much more rapidly than is the case with its European counterpart — the Dark-breasted B. b. bernicla wintering on the east coast of Britain. The wintering population of Barnacle Geese B. leucopsis was estimated at 4,150 in March 1961. Evidence that Black-tailed Godwits Limosa limosa are both increasing on passage (corresponding, no doubt, with the current increase in the Icelandic population) and staying on, or at least attempting to stay on, to winter in larger numbers is provided by such counts as 1,500 in Wexford on 29th November i960, although it seems to be doubtful whether such numbers do in fact remain all winter. These Reports contain a number of unusual wintering records. Two Spoonbills Platalea leucorodia wintered at Ballymacoda, Cork, in 1961/62 and again in 1962/63. A brood of Quail Coturnix coturnix, reared in Kildare in 1962, was still present in February 1963. In each of the three years a flock of Avocets Recurvirostra avosetta has wintered in Cork Harbour — three in 1960/61, five in 1961/62 and seven (initially eight) in 1962/63. A Swallow Hirundo rustica was recorded in Cork on 3rd December i960, and a Sand Martin Riparia riparia in Dublin on 26th November 1961. There have been a number of records of wintering Chiffchaffs Phylloscopus collybita and Blackcaps Sylvia atri- 3 BRITISH BIRDS capilla — especially the latter which seem to be positively common in the cold season in the gardens of Dublin — but a Garden Warbler S. borin in Dublin on 18th February i960 provided Ireland with its first wintering record for that species. Two similar instances of wintering in England have recently been recorded {Brit. Birds, 54: 123). SEA-BIRD MOVEMENTS The strategic situation of the bird observatories at the four corners of Ireland has revealed some big sea-bird movements which were not even suspected when The Birds of Ireland was written. There has, for instance, proved to be a regular and heavy passage of Sooty Shear- waters Procellaria grisea in August and September, moving west or south-west off Cape Clear, Erris Head in Mayo and Tory Island (see also Brit. Birds, 56: 197-203), while the scale of the enormous double passage of Manx Shearwaters P. puffinus puffinus that has been shown to take place up and down the west coast of Ireland from mid-March to end-April and again in August and September is illustrated by such counts as 11,430 passing north off Iniskea, Mayo, between 20th March and 22nd April 1961, and 3,250 passing south-west off Cape Clear in only 63 minutes of watching on 10th August 1962. The records of Balearic and Cory’s Shearwaters P. puffinus mauretanicus and P. diomedea are summarised in the list of rarities below. Ireland had its share of the big invasion of phalaropes Phalaropus spp. in September/October i960 (see Brit. Birds, 53: 529-531). The largest concentrations were recorded at Cape Clear (320+ on 20th September) with fair numbers on the east coast but relatively few on the west. In 1961 there was again heavy passage off Cape Clear (150+ on 27th August), but the only other place where substantial movement was recorded was Erris Head, Mayo (55 on 15th September). 1962 brought no similar movements. In the words of the i960 Report, ‘No evidence could be obtained as to proportions of the two species present, but certainly most were probably Grey Phalaropes.’ This has the ring of real authenticity! One species whose status has had to be drastically re-estimated as a result of the past three years’ observations is the Great Skua Catharacta skua. Only 30 records were known to the authors of The Birds of Ireland, as compared with a minimum of 134 seen passing off Cape Clear in the autumn of 1962 and the even more impressive total of 237 counted off Erris Head, Mayo, between 24th August and 24th Septem- ber 1961. In this context it should be borne in mind that the North Atlantic population of the Great Skua has increased by at least a factor of ten during the present century. In Ireland the species is now revealed as a bird of double passage in considerable numbers, passing northwards up the west coast from mid-March to end-April 4 BIRDS IN IRELAND DURING 1960-62 and returning southwards along the same route in August, September and the first half of October. It is, however, puzzling that the observed direction of movement at Cape Clear is westward in both autumn and spring. The numbers of Great Skuas recorded by the bird observatories off the east coast of Ireland are still very small and this appears to deny the possibility of there being any substantial movement through the Irish Sea — which would at first sight seem the most likely explanation for the autumn movements at Cape Clear. In marked contrast Arctic Skuas Stercorarius parasiticus , formerly regarded as by far the commonest skua in Irish waters, have been recorded in much smaller numbers than the larger birds, and the evidence of these three years rather suggests that the only regular movement of any intensity is southwards down the Irish Sea in autumn, with moderate numbers reaching Cape Clear in some years but not in others. It will be interesting to see how far these patterns are confirmed by subse- quent observations. PASSAGE MIGRANTS The scarcer Scandinavian waders provide several instances of birds proving to be much more regular than had been supposed ten years ago. For example, The Birds of Ireland gave only eight occurrences of the Wood Sandpiper Tritiga glareola, whereas 40 different birds were recorded in these three years. Spotted Redshanks T. erythropus used to be noted rather more frequently in the past, but even so a flock of 20 in Kerry on 20th September 1962 represents about a third of all records before 1954, while the Ruff Philo machus pugnax, described ten years ago as ‘uncommon and irregular’, is now both common and regular over most of the country: even in the west it appears every year, though in small numbers. The 1 5 Little Gulls Tarns minutus recorded in 1960-62 compare very favourably with the pre-1954 total of 20, and the Black Tern Cblidonias niger is another bird that is proving to be much more regular than was suggested by the 70-odd records in The Birds of Ireland. The big spring passage in i960 (see Brit. Birds, 53: 316) just touched the east coast of Ireland where over 35 were seen in Dublin Bay on 5th May, and the autumn passage of 1958 had been just as heavy and much more widespread. Amongst passerine and other land-bird migrants, such species as the Reed Warbler Acrocephalus scirpaceus. Lesser Whitethroat Sylvia curruca and Tree Pipit Anthus tririalis, for which 20 records or less were given in The Birds of Ireland, have now proved to be regular on passage, while Wrynecks Jynx torquilla , though less regular, were observed on eight occasions in 1961. Saltee alone in one autumn has recorded as many Pied Flycatchers Mnscicapa hypoleuca as the pre-1954 total. The increasing frequency with which Carrion Crows Corvus 5 BRITISH BIRDS corone corone have been noted (about 30 records during the past three years) probably falls into a different category and reflects the north- wards and westwards expansion into the range of the Hooded Crow C. corone cornix that seems to be currently taking place in Scotland. As one would expect, the bird observatories oft' the south coast have been most prolific in producing rarities of easterly and southerly origin, while the north coast ones have made their most important contribution in throwing some light on the arrival of birds from Ice- land and Greenland. There have, however, also been large-scale arrivals on the north coast of some more unlikely species which cannot have come from so far afield. One does not, for instance, think of the Wren Troglodytes troglodytes as a typical migratory species, yet at Inishtrahull, Donegal, there were big arrivals of Wrens on several days between 8th October and 20th November 1962, and they were des- cribed as ‘swarming all over the place’. At Malin Head, also in Donegal, a heavy movement of Mistle Thrushes T urdus viscivorus from the north-west was recorded between 18th and 22nd October 1961, with the result that about 600 were present on the 22nd, and a similar movement was observed between 26th September and 6th October 1962. Malin Head has likewise produced some big movements of Linnets Carduelis cannabina — about 200 off the sea between 13th and 22nd October 1961 and several big arrivals off the sea between 26th September and 6th October 1962, including 600 on the 3rd and 700 on the 6th. Malin Head also figured in an interesting movement of Blue Tits Parus caeruleus on 19th October 1961, when over 750 were counted along seven miles of hedgerow. The close correlation be- tween the Linnet and Mistle Thrush arrivals suggests that the move- ments of the two species had a common origin, and one cannot help suspecting that this must have been Scotland in spite of the suggestion {Bird Migration, 2: 231) that the prevailing weather conditions pointed rather to the movements being due to a dispersion of Irish birds. INVASION SPECIES The summer and autumn of 1962 saw invasions of these islands by two irruptive species from the Continent— the Crossbill Loxia curvirostra and Great Spotted Woodpecker Dendrocopos major (see Bird Migration, 2: 252 and 226). Ireland had a generous share of the Crossbill in- vasion, with flocks of up to 120 birds. A feature of the 1962 invasion was that it ended up with the arrival of fair numbers of Parrot Cross- bills L. pytyopsittacus in the northern isles of Scotland, and five cross- bills at Tory Island on 15th October were suspected of belonging to this species. By contrast, only one Great Spotted Woodpecker (a saecies which is not normally found in Ireland) was recorded— in Wexford on 2nd November. 6 BIRDS IN IRELAND DURING 1960-62 RARITIES The more unusual occurrences are summarised in the following list which includes all ‘rare birds’ within the original terms of the Rarities ‘ Committee (see Bril. Birds, 54: 197-198) plus a few other species which are of comparable rarity in Ireland. Although these records have not been considered by the Committee, individual members have often been consulted in the cases of the most uncommon species. The Reports give substantiating details (sometimes at considerable length) for a majority of the records listed below, and it is clear that a very high standard of critical assessment has been applied. In this list the four bird observatories — on the islands of Saltee (Wexford), Cape Clear (Cork), Tory (Donegal) and Copeland (Down) — -are referred to by name alone. Unless otherwise stated, the records refer to observa- tions of single birds. Balearic Shearwater Procel/aria puffinus mauretanicus. Small passage noted off Cape Clear in company with Manx Shearwaters P. p. puffinus-. six between 30th March and 1st April and three between 7th and xoth October 1961 ; seven between 2nd and 24th April and three between 3rd and 25th September 1962. One off Saltee, 27th September 1962. Cory’s Shearwater Procellaria diomedea. Single birds off Saltee, 23rd August 1961 and 2nd and 7th September 1962. There was a remarkable passage off Cape Clear on 10th August 1962 when, in the space of 140 minutes, 157 wTere counted flying past to the south-west, and odd birds continued to be recorded down to 4th October (sec Brit. Birds, 36: 189). Little Egret Egret ta garget ta. Cape Clear, 26th September i960. Harbour View, Courtmacshcrry Bay, Cork, 25 th March 1961. Blennerville, Kerry, 29th May to 6th June 1962. Carlingford Lough, Down, 28th June 1962. Tacumshin Lake, Wexford, 6th July to 2nd September 1962. Durrus, Dunmanus Bay, Cork, 10th July to 2nd August 1962. Night Heron Nycticorax nycticorax. Saltee, 10th to 12th September i960. Ken- mare River, Kerry, 10th and 13th June 1961. Two, Castlecove, Kerry, 8th August 1961. Black Duck Anas rubripes. North Slob, Wexford, 18th to 21st February 1961 (Brit. Birds, 34: 324). Green-winged Teal Anas crecca carolinensis. Kilcoole marsh, Wicklow, 14th April 1962. Blue-winged Teal Anas discors. One shot. Lough Derg, near Portumna, Galway, 17th October 1962. One shot, Ballylogue, Kilkenny, 20th October 1962. Red-crested Pochard Nefta rufina. One shot, Tacumshane Lake, Wexford, 8th October 1961. Ring-necked Duck Ay thy a co/laris. Lurgan Park, Armagh, 20th March to 1st May i960, returned 25th September and stayed in the area until at least mid-March 1961 (Brit. Birds, 54: 72). Ferruginous Duck Aytbya nyroca. One shot, South Slob, Wexford, nth February i960. Snow Goose Anser caerulescens. Bethlehem, Lough Ree, Westmeath, 26th to 30th December 1961. Two, Blennerville, Kerry, 26th October to 18th November 1962. An adult blue-phase Lesser Snow Goose A. c. caerulescens wintered, North 7 BRITISH BIRDS Slob, Wexford, 1960/61 and again (thought to be the same bird) 1961/62. Some doubt is now felt about the identity of seven geese that wintered on the North Slob, 1960/61: originally recorded as hybrid Snow x White-fronts, it is now thought more likely that they were simply aberrant White-fronted Geese A. albifrons. Canada Goose Brau/a canadensis. ‘Small’ Canada Geese (and so probably genuine immigrants) were recorded in each year on the North and/or South Slobs, Wexford: two wintered 1960/61, thought to be B. c. parvipes or t averni ; three, considered to be parvipes , and two even smaller birds wintered 1961/62; one small goose wintered with a flock of seven B. c. canadensis, 1962/63. Marsh Harrier Circus aeruginosas. Kilmore Quay, Wexford, 5 th March 1961. In Wicklow one at Newcastle from 13th January to 3rd February 1962 was almost certainly the same bird as that seen at Buckroney marsh from 19th February' to 5th March, and there was a different bird at Newcastle on 9th and 10th June 1962. Cape Clear, 18th August 1962. Osprey Pandion haliaetus. Fota, Cork, 5 th September 1961. Luska Bay, Lough Derg, Tipperary, 13th to 23rd May 1962. Crane Megalornis grus. Newtown Cunningham, Donegal, mid- June to mid- September 1961. Kentish Plover Cbaradrius alexandrinus. Duncrue Street marsh, Belfast, 2nd August i960. Kinnegar, Down, 16th August i960. Long-billed Dowitcher L imnodromns scolopaceus. Akeagh Lough, Kerry, 18th to 28th September i960. Tory Island, 5th May 1962. Short-billed or Long-billed Dowitcher L imnodromns griseus or scolopaceus. Akeagh Lough, Kerry (a different bird from the one specifically identified as L. scolopaceus'), nth October to 26th November i960. Lough Beg, Derry', 28th October 1961, the same bird being seen later at Brockish Bay, Lough Neagh, Antrim, on 8th November. Greater Yellowlegs Tringa melanoleuca. Three Islets, Lough Neagh, Antrim, 2nd September 1962; probably the same bird seen at Lough Beg, Derry, on 22nd September. Lesser Yellowlegs Tringa f/avipes. Blenncrville, Kerry, 28th and 29th September i960. Swords estuary, Dublin, 8th April 1961. Temminck’s Stint Calidris temminckii. Akeagh Lough, Kerry, 7th October i960. Baird’s Sandpiper Calidris bairdii. Akeagh Lough, Kerry, 2nd to 6th October 1962. White-rumped Sandpiper Calidris fuscicollis. Blenncrville, Kerry, 16th September i960. A different bird at Akeagh Lough, Kerry, 1st to 15th October i960. Pectoral Sandpiper Calidris mclanotos. Only one spring record — Duncruc Street marsh, Belfast, 9th to 13th April 1961 ; recorded regularly in autumn (extreme dates, 3rd September to 15th October) — three in i960, sixteen in 1961 and five in 1962. Western Sandpiper Calidris mauri. Kilcoole, Wicklow, 14th October i960. Buff-breasted Sandpiper Tryngites subruficollis. Cape Clear, 27th August i960. Belfast Lough, Antrim, 9th September i960. Lough Beg, Derry, 13th August to 23rd September 1961. Akeagh Lough, Kerry, 23rd September 1961. Kinnegar, Down, 1st to 5th September 1962. Wilson’s Phalarope Pha/aropus tricolor. Lady’s Island Lake, Wexford, 12th and 13th August 1961 (Brit. Birds, 55 : 186). Stone Curlew Burhinus oedicnemus. Saltec, 15 th April 1962. Sabine’s Gull Xema sabini. Castlcrock, Derry, 3rd August i960. Ards Peninsula, Down, 4th December i960. St. John’s Point, Down, 24th September 1961. Two, 8 BIRDS IN IRELAND DURING 1960-62 Rathlin Island, Antrim, 29th September 1961. Arklow, Wicklow, 21st December 1961. Crosshaven, Cork, 31st August 1962. White-winged Black Tern Chlidonias leucopterus. Lough Derg, Tipperary, 2nd May 1962. Whiskered Tern Chlidonias hybrida. Buckroney marsh, Wicklow, 9th June 1961. Bee-eater Merops apiaster. Howth Head, Dublin, 15 th May 1961. Short-toed Lark Calandrelta cinerea. North Slob, Wexford, 26th September i960. Kilmorc Quay, Wexford, 18th August 1961. Cape Clear, 14th September 1962. Woodlark Cullula arborea. Swords, Dublin, 3rd April i960. Golden Oriole Orio/us oriolus. Cape Clear, 7th to 14th May 1962. Nightingale Cuscinia megarhynebos. Saltee, 15th May i960. Bluethroat Cyanosylvia svecica. Cape Clear, 28th August and 23rd October i960. Saltee, 30th August 1961. Marsh Warbler Acrocephalus palustris. One trapped, Cape Clear, 10th September 1962. Aquatic Warbler Acrocephalus paludicola. Saltee, 28th August 1961. Cape Clear, 3 1st August 1961. Melodious Warbler Hippolais polyglotta. Occurs regularly in autumn at the two southern observatories, where the three years have produced a total of ten records at Cape Clear and at least twelve at Saltee (extreme dates, 13th August and 7th October). Also single birds trapped at Erris Head, Mayo, 8th September 1961, and Copeland, 20th August 1962. Icterine Warbler Hippolais icitrina. Before i960 this species had occurred in Ireland much less frequently than the geographically nearer Melodious Warbler (sec Bri/. Birds, 52: 363-365), but this picture has been completely changed by the results of the past three years during which a total of about 25 Icterine Warblers have been recorded (all in autumn; extreme dates, 16th August and 7th October). Most of the records (about 20) come from Cape Clear and the remainder (five) from Saltee. (See also Bird Migration, 1: 227; 2: 233). Barred Warbler Sylvia nisoria. Saltee, Cape Clear and Tory have each contributed two autumn records over these three years (extreme dates, 23rd August and 6th October). Subalpine Warbler Sylvia cantillans. Cape Clear, 6th and 7th October 1962. Greenish Warbler Phylloscopus trochi/oidss. Cape Clear, 14th October 1961 and 8th to 1 2th October 1962. Wood Warbler Phylloscopus sibilatrix. Singly at Cape Clear, 31st August and 1st, 15th and 29th September 1962. Bonclli’s Warbler Phylloscopus bonelli. One trapped. Cape Clear, 2nd and 3rd September 1961 {Brit. Birds , 55: 92). One trapped, Saltee, 1st to i6rh September 1962. Arctic Warbler Phylloscopus borealis. O ae trapped, Tory Island, 1st September i960. Yellow-browed Warbler Phylloscopus inornatus. Cape Clear, at least seven different birds between 27th September and 5th October i960; singly, 5th and (perhaps the same bird) 14th October 1961. One trapped, Saltee, 28th September i960. Malin Head, Donegal, 13th October 1961. One trapped, Copeland, 13th October 1962. Firecrest Regulus ignicapillus. Cape Clear, 21st October i960; 27th September 1961 ; in 1962 numbers increased from one on 5th October to seven on the 9th, then drop- ped to one on 1 itb. Red-breasted Flycatcher Muscicapa parva. Recorded each autumn at Saltee and 9 BRITISH BIRDS Cape Clear, and also in October 1961 at Tory Island on the 10th and at Malin Head, Donegal, on the 13 th. A most remarkable record is of an adult near Glenealy, Wicklow, on 8th July 1961. Tawny Pipit Ant bus campestris. Cape Clear, 12 th October 1961 and 27 th September 1962. Red-throated Pipit Antbus cervinus. One trapped, Saltee, 28th August 1961. Rock Pipit Antbus spinoletta. One of the Scandinavian race A. s. littoralis, Tory Island, 4th April 1961. Lesser Grey Shrike Lanius minor. Cape Clear, 14th to 26th October 1962. Woodchat Shrike Lanius senator. Saltee, 8th, 22nd and 28 th May and 9th September 1960; 28th August 1961. Red-backed/Red-tailed Shrike Lanius crista/us. Red-backed Shrikes L. c. collurio were recorded singly near Black Head, Antrim, 2nd June i960; at Saltee, 5th June i960; and at Cape Clear, 2nd to nth October 1962. An immature at Cape Clear on 9th and 10th October 1962 was referable to one of the races of the isabellinus group of Red-tailed Shrikes. Rose-coloured Starling Sturnus roseus. Cape Clear, 31st August to 8th September 1961. Rose-breasted Grosbeak Pbeucticus ludovicianus. Cape Clear, 7th and 8th October 1962. Fox Sparrow Passerella iliaca. One trapped, Copeland, 3rd June 1961 {Brit. Birds, 55: 360). Red-headed Bunting Emberi%a bruniceps. Saltee, 5th May 1962. Cape Clear, 26th July 1962. These records are subject to the usual caveat that the birds wTerc probably escapes from captivity. Yellow-breasted Bunting Emberi%a aureola. Cape Clear, nth October 1961. Ortolan Bunting Emberi^a hortulana. At least fourteen different birds recorded in autumn at Saltee and Cape Clear over these three years (extreme dates, 29th August and 6th October), and also recorded singly at Tory Island, 1st September i960; at Duncrue Street marsh, Belfast, 27th September i960; and near Erris Head, Mayo, 4th September 1961. The only spring records are from Saltee in i960, when one on 14th May was joined by a second bird the following day. Little Bunting Emberi^a pusilla. Tory Island, 6th October 1961. Grey Wagtail passage in Britain in 1956-60 By J. T. R. Sharrock INTRODUCTION Following the large movements of Grey Wagtails Motacilla cinerea recorded at various of the coastal bird observatories in Septem- ber 1959 (Williamson 1959), which focused attention on this species, requests for information were published in British Birds (53; 140 and 54: 1 31) and News for Naturalists (2: 15)- These requests produced replies from observers throughout the country. The localities from 10 GREY WAGTAIL PASSAGE IN 1956-60 which reports were received are shown in fig. i. Apart from the records of individual observers, the most valuable information came from the bird observatories and this paper is based mainly on the records from these regularly manned stations. » • Fair Isle Fig. 1. Localities from which reports of Grey Wagtails Motacilla cinerea on passage were received. Stations mentioned in the text are indicated by name Grey Wagtails are mainly diurnal migrants, generally flying at a height of under eighty feet; indeed, Delaveleye (in MS.), working in Belgium, found that most fly at a height of five to thirty feet. They also call frequently in flight, thus facilitating their identification at a distance so that single ones flying over may often be observed where 1 1 BRITISH BIRDS other species are likely to be missed. Records of passage are probably fairly complete, therefore, for stations that are regularly watched. THE VOLUME OF PASSAGE The total number of records received for the years 1956-60 are plotted as histograms in fig. 2 (using seven-day periods and thus eliminating any ‘weekend-bias’). The greater frequency of autumn observations is probably partly due to more watching being done at the time of the autumn peak in the first fortnight in September than at the time of the spring peak at the end of March. However, the autumn total is over eleven times greater than the spring one. S00 -I 750 - 700 0?0 - a 600 i ® 550 o 500 1 FEB. MARCH APRIL MAY Fig. 2. Total numbers of Grey Wagtails Motacilla cinerea reported on passage in the British Isles during 1956-60, plotted as histograms for seven-day periods. The small spring passage, reaching a peak in March, and the much larger autumn passage, reaching a peak in September, arc both evident The spring data are, in fact, too scanty for further analysis, but the autumn figures show an increase from the low level in 1956 to a higher level in 1957 and 1958 and then a very marked increase to a peak in 1959, with only a slight reduction in i960. The first impression, that this increase might be more apparent than actual and due mainly to a rise in the number of observatories and observers, was shown to be incorrect. The effect of the increase in observation points was eliminated by taking only the records of the seven observatories which were manned each autumn during this 1 2 GREY WAGTAIL PASSAGE IN 1956-60 period and which regularly record significant numbers of Grey Wag- tails: Bardsey (Caernarvon), Saltee (Co. Wexford), Skokholm (Pem- brokeshire), Portland Bill (Dorset), Dungeness (Kent), Gibraltar Point (Lincolnshire) and Spurn (Yorkshire). They too showed a similar pattern for 1959 (table 1). To eliminate completely any further bias due to possible changes in manning at these observatories and increased watching elsewhere, the mean number of birds seen per day at each locality was calculated for all the records received and also for the selected observatories (table 2 and fig. 3). Again, in each case, there emerged the same general picture of a genuine increase in 1959, to which the rise in the number of observers made only a relatively small contribution. Table 1. Annual totals of Grey Wagtails Motacilla cinerea reported on passage in the British Isles, 1 956-60 1956 1957 1958 '959 i960 All localities 282 408 407 864 844 Selected observatories 213 258 245 478 392 Table 2. Mean numbers of Grey Wagtails Motacilla cinerea reported on passage on each day in each locality, 1956-60 1956 '957 1958 '959 i960 All localities 0.42 O.5O 0.49 O.9I O.9I Selected observatories 0.37 0.44 0.44 0.83 0.80 TIMING The peak periods of autumn passage, even when plotted in seven-day periods, vary distinctly from year to year (fig. 4). These histograms need little further description, but it is worth drawing attention to the fact that peak passage was almost a fortnight later in 1956 than in subsequent years and that in some years (e.g. 1956 and i960) the movement built up slowly whereas in others (e.g. 1957, 1959 and, especially, 1958) it began abruptly and somewhat spectacularly. At all the coastal observatories, passage is mainly concentrated in late August and September, with little movement in October. The only report of a marked departure from this September peak comes from Nottinghamshire, where passage begins in September and reaches its peak in October-November (A. Dobbs in litt.). The numbers in- volved, however, are very small (a total of only 30 bird-days in October and 33 in November for the five years 1955-59). Total number of birds BRITISH BIRDS DIRECTION OF AUTUMN MOVEMENTS The observed direction of passage on the east coast is notoriously misleading — coasting birds moving south at one point and north at another only a few miles distant — but the general tendency is for a southward movement of Grey Wagtails in autumn. At the Irish Sea observatories there is a very pronounced southerly movement, especially noticeable at Bardsey. The south coast stations at Portland Fig. 3. Passage of Grey Wagtails Motacilla cinerea in British Isles in each year 1956-60. Top graph ( ) shows the total numbers of birds; centre graph ( ) shows the number of birds per locality-day for all tccords received; bottom graph ( — • — • — ) shows the number of birds per locality-day for seven selected observa- tories (see text) 14 GREY WAGTAIL PASSAGE IN 1956-60 Bill, Selsey Bill (Sussex) and Dungeness frequently record birds coast- ing east and west as well as apparently arriving off the sea or leaving out to sea, all on the same day. Other observers on the south Kent, Sussex and Hampshire coasts mainly record coasting movements in «/) Q CD - U_ O cr UJ CD 2 3 z < 22 5 - 2 OC 1 75 150 125 100 75 50 25 Fig. 4. Total numbers of Grey Wagtails Motaci/Ia cinerea reported on passage in the British Isles in autumn, plotted as histograms for seven-day periods for each year 1956-60 BRITISH BIRDS both directions, while in east Kent the birds are all coasting north or south. Grey Wagtails are very infrequent at Fair Isle (Shetland), Isle of May (Fife) and Tory Island (Co. Donegal) and only relatively small numbers are seen at Great Saltee. Numbers comparable to those at Bardsey, Portland Bill and Dungeness are, however, recorded at Cape Clear Island (Co. Cork) and there is evidence from there that many of the birds seen apparently emigrating do in fact turn back. In the autumn of 1959 all birds seen at Cape Clear were coming in off the sea from the south-west and flying north-east up the length of the island. In the two subsequent autumns the birds recorded were coming to the island from the north, across Roaringwater Bay, from the direction of the mainland. There can be little doubt those in the autumn of 1959, coming in from the south-west, had started out over the sea from western Ireland and were turning back. The general picture emerging from a consideration of all the available records (too numerous and detailed to document in full here) is of a southwards movement of a proportion of the British population in autumn, leading to something of a build-up along the eastern half of the south coast of England and in the south-west of Ireland. Many individuals begin a sea-crossing on reaching the south coast, but at least the majority apparently return. However, the presence of single birds at Station ‘Kilo’ (45°N i6°W) on 17th October 1957 (McLean and Williamson 1958) and off Portugal on board a ship bound from Brest to the Canary Islands on 17th and 18th October 1958 (A. J. Tree in lilf.) provides evidence that some do at times get far out to sea. Table 3. Recoveries of British-ringed Grey Wagtails Motacilla cinerea over ten miles from the ringing locality B8807 pull. 14.5.48 Fenwick (Ayrshire) 21. 1 I.48 Lichfield (Staffordshire) 225 miles SF. NT112 pull. X8.6.52 Burnsall (Yorkshire) I5.7.52 Oakworth (Yorkshire) 12 miles SE JC507 ad. c? I.6.54 Fair Isle (Shetland) I9.7.54 Rousay (Orkney) 5 5 miles SW B63019 pull. 7.6.54 Belfast I3.I.56 Brannockstown (Co. Kildare) 108 miles SSW O6^o6 pull. 8.7.56 Warcop (Westmorland) I8.2.57 Hanley (Staffordshire) 102 miles S B57034 pull. I2.7.54 Moorhouse Nature Reserve (Westmorland) 15. II. 56 Pilsley (Derbyshire) 1 10 miles SSE K 3 67 10 pull. 7.7.58 Cuddcsdon (Oxfordshire) 26.9.59 Warding (Sussex) 85 miles SE 46723 f-g. 5.8.59 1 lolwcll (Dorset) 6.I.60 Alrcsford (Hampshire) 33 miles ENE 16 GREY WAGTAIL PASSAGE IN 1956-60 EVIDENCE FROM RINGING RECOVERIES There have, as yet, been no recoveries abroad of British-ringed Grey Wagtails. The eight recoveries over ten miles from the place of ringing are listed in table 3. These indicate a southwards movement in autumn to a more southerly wintering area in Britain. The only recovery with a northern element (46723) may have been a passage bird from further north when ringed in Dorset in August, which, on reaching the Channel coast, turned back to winter in Hampshire, and is thus not necessarily inconsistent with the other records. Although there are too few recoveries on which to base any definite conclusions, it is worth pointing out that whereas all those ringed in England and Scotland (with the exception of the one marked on Fair Isle) show a south-easterly tendency, the Irish-ringed bird moved west of south and thus fits in with the observatory records. Table 4. Recoveries in Britain of foreign-ringed Grey Wagtails Motacilla cinerea Brussels pull. 6.5.52 Brussels, Belgium 18704 13-3-53 Long Stratton (Norfolk) Port. fig- 27.10.54 Mindclo, Portugal 1895 12.4.57 near Sheffield (Yorkshire) There have been two recoveries in Britain of foreign-ringed Grey Wagtails (Leach 1956 and 1961). These are detailed in table 4. The recovery date of the Belgian bird would make any explanation highly conjectural. The one ringed in Portugal in October and recovered in Yorkshire in April, however, was probably a British bird wintering in Iberia and this suggests that a proportion of those seen flying out to sea from the south coasts of England and Ireland may in fact cross to the Continent to winter. METEOROLOGICAL SITUATION AT THE TIMES OF SOME LARGE MOVEMENTS From the records of Grey Wagtails at the observatories during 1956- 60, four periods stand out when large arrivals or movements were recorded: 6th and 8th September 1957, 8th and 9th September 1958, 4th*9th September 1959 and 7th and 8th September i960. Numbers recorded at the observatories during these periods are shown in table 5 and the relevant weather charts are reproduced as figs. 5-10. The Portland movement of 6th September 1957 (fig. 5) began as a warm front passed up-Channel and the resurgence on 8th September (fig. 6) came as a ridge of high pressure moved into Britain from the west. 17 BRITISH BIRDS Table 5. Records of Grey Wagtails Motacilla cinerea during selected peak periods at the observatories where this species is seen A dash indicates that the observatory was unmanned on the day in question, while a blank shows that no Grey Wagtails were recorded 1 95 7 195 8 1959 !96° So;c mber 5 6 7 8 9 7 8 9 10 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 6 7 8 Capa Clear I sland - I 2 4 I IO 15 3 30 I Great Siitee 2 I 2 I I I I B lrdsey I 4 51 40 35 18 I I 4 3 I S iokhol aa I I IO I 25 Laid/ ‘1- 5 almost daily’ St. Agies I I 2 Portland 3i 11 I I 43 3i I l6 13 2 I I I 2 IO Seise/ Bill I 3 Da nge ness 2 3 2 2 I 2 I 5 2 I 2 Sandwich Ba y I I 2 Gibraltar Poi nt I I I 2 Spam 2 I 24 I *, up to 5 daily’ 2 Re dear I 4 2 2 5 9 Isle of vl ay I 3 The Spurn movement of 8th September 1958 (fig. 7) came with light south-westerly winch under the influence of a weak depression in the N orth Se.a, to be followed by movements at Portland on the 9th and 10th, when anticyclonic influence increased. The large movements at Bardsey during 4th-yth September 1959 (fig. 8) started as a ridge of high pressure extended westwards over Britain, the Cape Clear movements increasing as the Bardsey ones deelinei (fig. 9), with Skokholm coming into the picture on the 9th. The Cape Clear Island movements in i960 (fig. 10) came as a high press are system eatered Britain from the west, passage at Skokholm, Portland and Redear (Yorkshire) following a day later, as the anti- cyclonic influence extended. Tne majority of Grey Wagtail movements occur with the extensicon of anticyclonic conditions or, more rarely, when weak low pressure system; produce rather similar conditions of light winds and fairly clear skies. Both these situations are recognised to stimulate local move neat and t o initiate autumn emigration. For instance, work at Cape Clear Island has shown that Rooks Corvus frugilegus. Jackdaws C. mmi'th and hirundines are other typical birds of such situations. Tne situations in early September 1959 and i960 were typical of those in which m ost Grey W ag tail movements take place, the extension of anticyclonic conditions into an area initiating passage on a large scale. Tnis phenomenon is particularly well illustrated by the move- ment; of 7th and 8th Septenber i960. 18 Fig. 5. 06.00 hours, 6th Septem- ber 1957. Peak (43) at Portland, Dorset Fig. 7. 06.00 hours, 8th Septem- ber 1958. 24 at Spurn, Yorkshire (followed by 16 at Portland on the 9th and 13 on the 10th) Fig. 9. 06.00 hours, 8th Septem- ber 1959. Peak passage (1 5) at Cape Clear Island, Co. Cork (followed next day by smaller movements at Skokholm, Pembrokeshire) Fig. 6. 06.00 hours, 8th Septem- ber 1957. Renewed passage (31) at Portland Fig. 8. 06.00 hours, 4m Septem- ber 1959. Peak of southerly passage (51) noted at Bardsey Island, Caernarvonshire Fig. 10. 06.00 hours, 7th Septem- ber i960. Peak passage (30) at Cape Clear Island (followed by movements at Skokholm, Portland and Rcdcar, Yorkshire, on the 8 th) Weather charts relevant to the four periods of greatest passage of Grey Wagtails Motacilla cinerea recorded at bird observatories in the British Isles during 1956-60 BRITISH BIRDS DISCUSSION Southerly movements of Grey Wagtails within Britain are noted every year though the records before 1956 are too scanty for detailed analysis and it was not until the autumn of 1959, when Grey Wagtail passage in the Irish Sea was particularly marked, that attention was drawn to this species. The autumn passage in 1959 and, to a lesser degree, that in 1957 were each of a much greater volume than the preceding one and in each case the increase was maintained in the following year. The meteorological conditions in early September 1959 and i960 were particularly favourable for local movements and emigration of British breeding birds, but this was probably not the only factor pro- ducing passage of Grey Wagtails in these two years. The marked rise in 1959 and also the smaller increase in 1957 are possibly reflections of either a higher breeding population or more successful nesting in those summers. Table 6. Numbers of B.T.O. Nest Record Cards for all species and for the Grey Wagtail Motacilla cinerea, 1956-60, to show the significance of the increases in 1957 and 1959 Total Grey Wagtail % Grey Wagtail cards cards cards %2 Approx. P 1956 10,358 1957 11,218 1958 9,218 1959 7,881 i960 10,805 14 o-M% 28 o-2 5% 17 0.18% 38 0.48% 45 0.42% 3.0671 0.7052 11.8581 1.0006 < 0.08 < 0.8 < 0.001 <0.3 Norris (i960) showed the breeding distribution of Grey Wagtails in Britain in 1952, but for the period under review there are no pub- lished data regarding the level of the British population. Evidence corroborating the hypothesis that the breeding levels were high in 1957 and 1959 was, nevertheless, obtained from the B.T.O. Nest Record Scheme (H. Mayer-Gross in litt.). The number of cards received for Grey Wagtails and the total intake of cards for all species in the years under review are shown in table 6. As pointed out by Mr. Maver- Gross, a large contribution by one observer in one year could invali- date any apparent increase, but this did not occur with the records of this species. It will be seen from the percentage of Grey Wagtail cards that increases are in fact suggested in 1957 and 1959, with the respective levels being virtually maintained in 1958 and i960. These data are plotted in fig. 11, which should be compared with fig. 3. The samples are so small, however, that it was deemed necessary to test the significance of the increases. As will be seen in table 6, the 20 GREY WAGTAIL PASSAGE IN 1956-60 Fig. 11. Numbers of B.T.O. Nest Record Cards for the Grey Wagtail Motacilla cinere « in each year 1956-60, expressed as percentages of the totals of cards for all species (cf. fig. 3) probability* that the apparent increase in 1957 was due to sampling error is less than 0.08 and, though this is rather higher than 0.05 probability which is normally accepted as being significant, in this case the small sample size may justify raising the level slightly to accom- modate this value; the increase in 1959, on the other hand, has a probability of only one in a thousand of being due to such error. The slight decreases in 1958 and i960, with probabilities of 0.8 and 0.3, are quite likely to be due to sampling error. It may not be unconnected with these increases that there was a tit irruption in 1957 (Cramp, Pettet and Sharrock i960), while Goldfinches *X2 calculated from 2X2 contingency tabic with Yates’s correction for continuity and entered in tables of x2 with one degree of freedom. 21 BRITISH BIRDS Carduelis carduelis and Linnets C. cannabina, as well as other species, were in exceptional numbers in the autumn of 1959 and produced an unusual quantity of foreign ringing recoveries (Williamson and Spencer i960). Cramp et al. suggested that the mild winter of 195 6- 57, leading to a high breeding population in 1957, initiated the tit irruption, while Cornwallis (1961) associated the finch movements out of Britain in the autumn of 1959 with the unusually fine and dry summer of that year. It may be that the increased numbers of Grey Wagtails seen on passage in these two years were linked with similar population increases resulting from the same weather factors. There are insufficient data available to indicate whether the Grey Wagtails seen on passage in autumn are mainly birds of the year or not. Similarly, we have seen that evidence for any substantial emigration out of Britain is almost non-existent, although small numbers of British-bred Grey Wagtails probably do regularly winter on the Continent. The very small spring passage compared with the large autumn movements recorded from the observatories may indicate that the majority of Grey Wagtails wintering in the south of Britain return north inland, but even if a substantial proportion of the autumn passage birds did winter on the Continent the return spring move- ments might go unrecorded by the coastal observatories, as appears to happen with other diurnal migrants such as Sand Martins Riparia riparia (Williamson 1961). ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am most grateful to Kenneth Williamson, then Migration Research Officer of the British Trust for Ornithology, for allowing me to extract the bird observatory records from the B.T.O. microfilm copies, and to the secretaries, wardens and other officials of the respective observa- tory committees for supplying additional details. R. K. Cornwallis very kindly read the original typescript of this paper and made many helpful suggestions. The revised typescript was also read by Robert Spencer, B.T.O. Ringing Officer, and I am grateful to him for allowing me to include details of Grey Wagtail ringing recoveries. H. Mayer- Gross kindly supplied details extracted from the B.T.O. Nest Record Scheme, Miss J. K. Lee translated R. Dclaveleye’s unpublished paper for me, and all the graphs, histograms and maps were drawn by K. Ford of the Botany Department, University of Southampton. The weather maps are Crown Copyright and are reproduced by permission of IT. M. Stationery Office. The following observers supplied details of Grey Wagtails or helped in other ways, and without their co-operation this paper would have been less complete: A. F. Airey, Dr. J. S. Ash, A. W. Bartlett, G. R. 22 GREY WAGTAIL PASSAGE IN 1956-60 Bennett, J. K. Bowers, W. G. Breed, C. Bruce, the late A. J. Bull, D. A. J. Buxton, D. Cabot, M. J. Carter, H. A. R. Cawkell, R. Chislett, A. E. Clark, D. H. Clarke, K. W. Clements, J. Coleman-Cooke, L. Cornwallis, R. K. Cornwallis, D. H. Coggins, Stanley Cramp, M. B. Dale, P. Davis, R. Delaveleye, B. H. B. Dickinson, A. Dobbs, H. M. Dobinson, G. Dunkling, R. Eades, Dr. W. J. Eggeling, P. W. C. Ellicott, F. P. Errington, Dr. P. R. Evans, Robert Gillmor, J. Gittins, D. F. Harle, N. L. Hodson, E. G. Holt, R. Hudson, M. A. Jennings, Miss E. P. Leach, H. A. Lillev, B. A. E. Mart, H. Mayer- Gross, Lt.-Col. H. R. McConnel, P. Morgan, P. Mountford, B. Neath, Miss L. D. Oakden, J. R. Palmer, J. L. F. Parslow, R. G. Pettitt, Major W. W. A. Phillips, C. D. Rabv, M. P. M. Richards, R. A. Richardson, Dr. K. B. Rooke, R. Rusten, Major R. F. Ruttledge, D. R. Saunders, R. E. Scott, D. R. Seaward, M. F. Seddon, A. B. Sheldon, J. Shorten, P. L. Simmonds, F. R. Smith, K. Smith, Captain P. J. S. Smith, Robert Spencer, Dr. C. Suffern, G. Tonks, A. D. Townsend, A. J. Tree, J. Websper, Kenneth Williamson, Professor W. T. Williams and R. J. Wilmshurst. SUMMARY (1) The spring and autumn movements of Grey Wagtails Mo/acilla cinerea in the British Isles are shown to reach peaks in late March and early September, the volume of autumn passage being much greater than that in the spring. (2) It is shown that there was an increase in die numbers seen on autumn passage in 1957 and an even greater increase in 1959, these increases being maintained in 1958 and i960 respectively. (3) The trend of autumn passage is southerly, with much coasting taking place in south-eastern England, but with larger numbers in south-west than south-east Ireland. Ringing recoveries support this picture. Grey Wagtails are seen leaving south out to sea from the south coast, but a large proportion apparentlv turn back and there is little evidence for any substantial emigration. (7) The meteorological situations at four periods of peak passage are documen- ted. Peak movements occur mainly at the onset of anticyclonic conditions. This is consistent with the conclusion that the Grey Wagtails concerned are mainly of British origin. (5) The possibility that the larger passage movements recorded in 1957 and 1959 were reflections of high breeding numbers or more successful breeding seasons in these years is discussed. REFERENCES Corn w a li. is, R. K. (1961): ‘Four invasions of Waxwings during 1936-60’. Brit. Birds, 34: 1-30. Cramp, S., Pettet, A., and Sharrock, J. T. R. (i960): ‘The irruption of tits in autumn 1937’. Brit. Birds, 53: 49-77, 99-117, 176-192. Delaveleye, R. (in MS.): ‘Comportcmcnt migratcur de la Bergcronnctte dcs Ruisscaux ( Motacilla cinerea)'. Leach, E. P. (1956): ‘British recoveries of birds ringed abroad’. Brit. Birds, 49: 438-452. (1961): ‘Recoveries in Great Britain and Ireland of birds ringed abroad’. Brit. Birds, 54: 493-508. 23 BRITISH BIRDS McLean, I., and Williamson, K. (1958): ‘Migrant land-birds in the Western Approaches’. Brit. Birds, 51: 351-353. Norris, C. A. (i960): ‘The breeding distribution of thirty bird species in 1952’. Bird Study, 7: 129-184. Williamson, K. (1959): ‘Aspects of autumn migration in 1959’. Bird Migration, 1: 147-152- — (i960): ‘Aspects of autumn migration, 1960’. Bird Migration, 1: 218-234. — (1961): ‘Aspects of spring migration, 1961’. Bird Migration, 2: 1-33. and Spencer, R. (i960): ‘Ringing recoveries and the interpretation of bird-movements’. Bird Migration, 1: 176-181. [The above paper has been adapted from a typescript which the author originally submitted in April 1961 and we regret that its pub- lication has been so long delayed. — Eds.] British bird-photographers 1. Seton Gordon (Plates 1-7) With this issue we start a new series of plates devoted to the work of individual bird-photographers. At irregular intervals, three or four times a year, we propose to publish a selection of the best photo- graphs by the well known and the not so well known, the older generation and the younger, with no attempt at any special order. There is no doubt that Great Britain has led the world in this field. A steady succession of outstanding photographers has followed the lead given in the 1890’s by the pioneer work of Richard and Cherry Kearton, R. B. Lodge and Oliver Pike. Each generation has pro- duced its stalwarts, but our aim is not to produce an historical survey and we shall confine ourselves in this series to the work of the living. We felt that the first selection should be by one of the older genera- tion and so we asked Seton Gordon to let us have some of what he considered to be his finest results. But we might equally well have begun with Ralph Chislett, Tom Fowler, Ian Thomson, Elugh Wag- staff or any of the several others who have been taking bird photo- graphs for fifty or more years, and we hope to include examples of their work later in the series. Seton Gordon was born on Deeside in 1886 and, soon after gradua- ting at Oxford, published his first book. The Charm of the Hills, in 1912. He has been a prolific writer of articles and books on natural history ever since, often illustrating them with photographs taken by himself and his late wife, Audrey Gordon, who was for many years his constant 24 Plate 2. Golden Eagles Aquila chrysaetos, Sutherland, 1932 and 1933. Below, the female is rubbing the head of the downy youngster with her bill ( Se/on Gordon) Plate 3. Golden Eagle Aquita cbrysai/os dropping in with a young Red Grouse in each foot, Cairngorms, 1925. Note the cloud of flics (page 25) {Senyi (Gordon) f t" V* Plate 4 Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetos Sutherland 1932 {Seton Gordon) Plates j^rid 6. Above, Ptarmigan Lagopits mat ns nearing nest, Cairngorms, 1923. Below, BlaciCthroatcd Diver Gavia arc/ica. North Uist, 1925. Upper right, Whooper Swan Cygnets tygnus, Argyll, 1921 (page 25). Lower right, pair of Greenshanks Tringa ^nebular} a changing over on the eggs, Rothiemurchus, 1923 (page 25) {Sc ton Gordon) • .• Plate 7. Above, Puffins Fratercida arctica and Razorbills A lea torda , Skye, 1923. Below, Dotterel Cbaradrius morinellus brooding young. Cairngorms, 1921 {S eton Gordon) BIRD-PHOTOGRAPHERS : SETON GORDON companion and helper in the field and who was jointly responsible for several of the pictures now reproduced. Me accompanied the Oxford University Expedition to Spitsbergen in 1921 and took many photo- graphs there, but the birds of the Scottish mountains and glens have always been his real passion, and from his former home at Avie- more, in the shadow of the Cairngorms, he used for many years to make regular forays into the wilds. Of all the Scottish birds, the Golden Eagle Aqnila chrysaetos has long been his favourite, but each and every one attracts him and he is believed to have been the first to photograph both the Snow Bunting P/ectropbenax nivalis and the ’WhocJper Swan Cygnus cygnus (plate 6a) at nests in Scotland. His ■services to natural history were recognised by the award of the C.B.E. in 1939. He now lives in the Isle of Skye and is still writing on Scottish subjects, his latest book Highland Days having been published as recently as October 1963. He was a member of the Zoological I Photographic Club for a number of years. The Golden Eagle rightly takes pride of place in the selection on plates 1-7. Many photographers aim to take one perfect picture of a species and are then content, but Seton Gordon tried to obtain a series, at various nests both on crags and in trees, which would illus- trate the whole breeding biology — behaviour, growth of young, prey : taken and so on. His eagle pictures on plates 1-4 catch admirably the strength and majesty of the adult birds, but they also reveal other interesting details: witness, for example, plate 3 where, as the parent drops to the nest with the double burden of a young Red Grouse Lagopus lagopus in each foot, a cloud of flies rises up from the remains of earlier prey. We can give here only a small sample of Seton Gordon’s fine photographs of this species, but many more, together with his observations and adventures, can be found in his two books on this subject. Days with the Golden Eagle (1927) and The Golden Eagle (1956). The remaining pictures, on plates 5-7, provide a representa- tive selection of the other birds of his beloved highlands and islands. ,In particular, the study of nesting Greenshanks Tringa nebularia on plate 6b shows an interesting incident, in which the relieving bird is gentlv but firmly pushing its mate off the nest. In these days, when so many bird-photographers are taking 3 5 mm. miniatures, it is perhaps worth stressing that Seton Gordon used a Una half-plate camera with a Ross telecentric lens and that he had to struggle with his heavy load of camera, plate-holders, lenses and tripod over some of the toughest country in Britain to get his pictures. Eric Hosking Herd composition and dispersion in the Whooper Swan By Raymond Hew son INTRODUCTION From a local study of the Whooper Swan Cygnus cygnus at Loch Park, Banffshire, it became apparent that, within the herd that gathered during the autumn passage, swans in family parties (i.e. adults accom- panied by young birds) were less wary and fed more widely spread out along the narrow part of the loch than swans without young — a category which probably includes failed breeders as well as pre- breeders. These birds tended to form large compact flocks at the widest part of the loch and when the herd was disturbed readily flew there from other parts of the loch, the family parties remaining behind. To discover whether this behaviour affected the pattern of dispersion in winter herds, a request for information on herd size and composition was published in Bird Study, 3 : 226. At the same time detailed records of herd composition at Lough Beg, in Northern Ireland, were kept by A. J. Tree during the winters of 1956/57 and 1957/58. These data have now been examined. WHOOPER SWANS AT LOCH PARK Lcch Park is a long narrow loch in a steep valley at an altitude of 600 feet in upper Banffshire. It is about 1,630 yards long but only 70 to no yards wide over more than four-fifths of its length. At the south-west end, beyond a small island, the loch widens to about 150 yards and is somewhat deeper, with an area relatively free from aquatic vegetation in the middle. Up to 200 Whooper Swans gather in October and depart in November. When undisturbed they feed over the whole area of the loch, except the deep part just mentioned, grazing on broad-leaved pondweed Po/amogetou natans , Canadian pondweed Elodea canadensis and stonewort Chara spp. These swans have been regularly counted since October 1955 as part of a local population study, an account of which is to appear in a forthcoming issue of Bird Study. On 14 occasions between October 1957 and October 1962 when the birds were not disturbed during counting, a record was kept of the location of the various groups (table 1). Because the swans fly down to the south-west end, where the whole herd gathers if thoroughly alarmed, it was not easy to make this sort of count regularly, and in many cases time was too short to do so. Other causes of disturbance 26 HERD COMPOSITION IN THE WHOOPER SWAN Aggregate of 14 counts of Whooper Swans Cygnus cygnus on Loch Park, Banffshire, 1957-62 ITable 1. At SW end Adults Young Broods 681 185 62 SW — middle Adults Young Broods 118 10 4 Middle — NE end Adults Young Broods 529 224 74 ..Iso made it difficult to get an unbiased picture of the grouping of wans on the loch. The difference in geographical distribution between swans with i 'oung, occurring chiefly in the narrow part of the loch (middle to worth-east end) and other swans which keep together at or near the uvider south-west end is statistically significant at the 0.01% level. It • hould perhaps be mentioned that, of the swans in the south-west to middle section, groups of 21 and 47 adults without voung in fact >ccurred at the fringe of the south-west end of the loch. NUMBERS OF FIRST WINTER SWANS IN THE HERDS Airey (1955) pointed out that larger herds of Whooper Swans contain datively few young birds, but he gave too few data to substantiate : his. Boyd and Eltringham (1962) have shown that Whooper Swan nerds in Britain are mostly small, containing fewer than 10 birds, although a large proportion of the wintering population is gathered nto comparatively few big herds. For the purpose of comparing he proportion of first-winter swans in herds of different sizes I have ixed the upper limit of a small herd arbitrarily at 20 swans. A total >f 1 1 5 small herds of a mean size of 8.2 contained 26.4% of first- vinter birds, while 57 herds of a mean size of 40.6 contained only 5.1% (table 2). This pattern of dispersion in Whooper herds, which .gain is statistically significant at the 0.01% level, may be due to (1) disturbance causing adults without young to gather on more open water (as at Loch Park) or Table 2. Proportion of first-winter Whooper Swans Cygnus cygnus in small and arge herds, south-west Scotland, north England and Northern Ireland, 1955/56-1957 58 Small herds (up to 20 swans) Herds Total Adult Young I arge herds (21 swans and over) Herds Total Adult Young 955/56 36 327 235 92 20 1050 902 148 956/57 39 281 209 72 l6 518 432 86 957/58 6 45 34 I I 5 173 145 28 Others 34 O O ir\ 223 77 l6 576 487 89 ”5 953 701 252 (26.4% ) 57 23x7 1966 351 (X5.I%) 27 BRITISH BIRDS (2) non-breeders remaining in the large groups in which they spent the summer. Miss E. A. Garden (in litt.) saw herds of 30-75 Whoopers in Iceland in July 195 8, as well as many small groups. The data used to determine the proportion of first-winter birds in small and large herds are drawn largely from south-west Scotland, north England and Northern Ireland. In all, 1,377 swans were counted in 1955/56 and 799 in 1956/57, compared with the totals of 1,042 and 423 respectively used by Boyd and Eltringham (1962) in calculating the proportion of first-winter swans in the British wintering population in those years. Some duplication may occur in respect of English records, but as much of the data are drawn from different sources they provide an effective comparison. They show that among the swans counted the proportion of hist-winter birds closely resembles that found by Boyd and Eltringham in the same years in their com- prehensive survey (table 3). Table 3. Proportion of first-winter Whooper Swans Cygrns cygrns in 1955/56 and 1956/57 The percentages in the last column are taken from Boyd and Eltringham (1962) Total Boyd and counted Adult Young Percentage Eltringham 1955/56 IJ77 1137 240 17.4% 18.5% 1956/57 799 641 15S 19-8% 17-4% COMPARISON OF THE HERDS IN BANFFSHIRE AND NORTHERN IRELAND Lough Beg, which lies along the borders of Co. Antrim and Co. Londonderry, has probably been colonised by Whooper Swans only during the last twenty or so years, although at peak numbers the herd is one of the largest in Britain. Similarly, Major R. F. Ruttledge (in litt.) has no records for Co. Mayo and Co. Galway before 1942. At Loch Park the swans arrive in October, reach peak numbers in early November and leave about the middle of the same month (fig. 1). At Lough Beg the peak is later, in January or February, although in 1956 a large number of swans was present in October (fig. 2). Loch Park is clearly no more than a staging post, while Lough Beg is a wintering place. But peak numbers at Lough Beg are late com- pared with peak numbers in Scotland generally, which occur in November (Boyd and Eltringham 1962). Although there is no firm evidence, certain facts suggest that there may be a south-westerly movement through Scotland to Northern Ireland and a return to Iceland direct from there. These are, firstly, that in south-west Scotland peak numbers occur in January and February, and in the 28 HERD COMPOSITION IN THE WHOOPER SWAN c. 2. VC hooper Swans Cygnus cygnus at Lough Beg, Northern Ireland, 1955-58 ^ 'brides in March (Boyd and Eltringham 1962) (although the many iall lochs in the islands make swan counts doubtfully reliable), and, 1 ;ondly, that there is no spring passage through such important tumn stations as Loch Park and the Loch of Strathbeg in north-east otland. Alternatively, the Whooper Swans which winter at Lough Beg mav 29 BRITISH BIRDS be of different origin from the Scottish birds. The evidence that British wintering swans are of Icelandic stock rests on three ringing recoveries (one from the Hebrides, one from Stirling and one from Co. Down) and the absence of young birds in the population at Loch Spiggie, Shetland, after a summer which was unusually bad in Iceland but normal in Scandinavia (Venables and Venables 1950). Hilprecht (1956) referred to large concentrations of Whoopers on the west coast of Denmark but said that they are also generally distributed along the south west coasts of Norway and Sweden, as well as the German portion of both North and Baltic Seas. These were con- sidered to be of the Scandinavian and not the Icelandic race (though the latter is not very certainly distinguishable) and the only two ringing recoveries relate to birds ringed on the south Swedish coast and recovered from north Russia. There is a marked difference in the proportion of first-winter swans at Loch Park and Lough Beg. In 1955/56 there were 7.7% of first- winter birds (all counts during the season) and in 1956/57 6.0% at Lough Beg, compared with 15.2% and 24.2% at Loch Park. Mean brood size is similar at the two places (table 4) so that the difference is due to fewer, not smaller, broods. Table 4. Brood size in Whooper Swans Cygnus cygnus at Loch Park, Banffshire, and Lough Beg, Northern Ireland, 1955/56 and 1956/57 Loch Park Lough Beg Broods counted Mean size Broods counted Mean size 1955/56 75 2.27 24 2.63 1956/57 70 3.03 38 2.53 While the proportion of first-winter swans at Loch Park resembles that in the wintering population as a whole (Hewson unpublished), as might be expected from a migration staging point, the much smaller proportion at Lough Beg illustrates the tendency for large herds to contain relatively fewer first-winter swans. Small Whooper herds in Ireland have a larger proportion of first-winter birds, as elsewhere. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am very grateful to all those who sent information, often detailed, particularly A. F. Airey, Professor M. F. M. Meiklejohn, Major R. F. Ruttledge and A. J. Tree. Dr. R. M. Cormack, Dr. G. M. Dunnet and Dr. R. Richter gave advice during the preparation of this paper. SUMMARY (1) Whooper Swans Cygnus cygnus on autumn passage at Loch Park, Banffshire, form larger groups and are more wary when not accompanied by first-winter birds. Family groups disperse more widely to feed. 3° NOTES (2) 57 large Whoopcr Swan herds of a mean size of 40.6 contained 15.1 °-0 of •rst-wintcr birds, while 115 small herds of a mean size of 8.2 contained 26.4% 'he difference is due to fewer, not smaller, broods. (3) The proportion of first-winter swans in the sample examined resembled in 955/56 and 1956/57 that found by Boyd and Eltringham (1962). (4) At Loch Park, where Whoopers pass through in autumn but do not winter, t ie proportion of first-winter swans resembles that in the wintering population as a i 'hole. At Lough Beg in Northern Ireland, a wintering place, the proportion of rst-wintcr birds was only 7.7% in 1955/56 and 6.0% in 1956/57, compared with 5.2% and 24.2% respectively at Loch Park, illustrating the tendency for large it erds to contain relatively few first-winter birds. (5) The late peak at Lough Beg may be due to continuing south-westerly lovement of swans during the winter, with a direct return northward to Iceland. REFERENCES Uirey, A. F. (1955): ‘Whoopcr Swans in southern Lakeland’. Bird Study, 2: 145-150. S >oyd, H., and Eltringham, S. K. (1962): ‘The Whoopcr Swan in Great Britain’. Bird Study . 9: 2 17- 241. Iilprecht, A. (1956): Hockersc/jwan , Singschwan, Zmrgschivan. Wittenberg- Lutherstadt. 7enables, L. S. V., and Venables, U. M. (1950): ‘The Whoopcr Swans of Loch Spiggie, Shetland’. Scot. Nat., 62: 142-15 2. Notes nilmar incubating eggs of Herring Gull with its own. — On 27th 1 vlay 1963 I was walking along a cliff top four miles south of Ballantrae, Ayrshire, when I surprised a Fulmar F ulniartts g/acialis off its nest. As tt flew, a brown egg rolled out and smashed on the rocks below. I hen found that two eggs still remained in the nest, one the Fulmar’s nd the other that of a Herring Gull Farits argentatus , and evidently the >ird had been covering all three. Two similar observations have been recorded by Dr. J. Morton loyd and P. B. Brown (Brit. Birds, 52: 163 ; and 53:1 27). However, in hose cases the Fulmars were sitting on clutches consisting solely of ggs of the Great Black-backed Gull F. marinus and Herring Gull espectively. G. A. Richards Jnusual behaviour of non-breeding Shelduck. — The picking up nd dropping of objects by gulls Farits spp. and the chasing and catch- ng of feathers by Swallows Hi rut: do rusiica can often be observed in the Aid. In captivity the Greater Flamingo P/joenieopterus ruber antiquorum tas the habit of picking up and dropping feathers or, occasionally, wigs. Such behaviour is rarely to be seen in the Anatidae, however, hough I have watched Greater Snow Geese Anser caerttlescens atlanticus usually singly, but once a small party) and an Asiatic Comb Duck 'arkidiorrtis melanotos plaving with twigs and feathers. Therefore, a 3 1 BRITISH BIRDS prolonged period of such ‘play’ by Shelducks Tadorna tadorna seems worth recording, particularly as it occurred in the wild. On 1 8th June 1963 I was watching at high tide on the flat, grassy area known as the Dumbles, near Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, when I noticed a female Shelduck running quickly for about twenty feet after one of a number of tufts of sheep’s wool which were being blown along by strong southerly winds. As I scanned the gathering of some 98 Shelduck, I could see that four other females were behaving in a similar way. Often they would pick up the wool and shake a piece off, then chase away after that. All these birds seemed to be paired and frequently the drake would follow the duck as she ran after a piece of wool, causing her to take flight, and would then chase her right out over the River Severn. Although the duck might be holding a tuft of wool when she flew off, she would return without it and shortly continue running after another piece. Apart from the five pairs involved, the remaining Shelduck were unaffected by these activities and continued to preen or sleep. Occasionally, when a duck lost interest in a piece of wool and dropped it to run after another, one of the other four would either chase after or pick up the same piece and shake it. Only once did I observe one of the drakes chase, pick up and shake a piece of wool, but, instead, they frequently picked up sheep’s droppings for short periods. Rarely did any of the females indulge in this variation. One drake also picked up and dropped a piece of stick several times. In all, I watched this unusual behaviour for an hour until, immediately the tide dropped to expose the feeding grounds, all the birds dispersed and the chasing stopped. Observations on other days revealed nothing similar, though with less strong winds the wool littering the area was stationary Although all the Shelduck on the Dumbles at this period were paired, I believe that for various reasons they were not breeding and probably most were second-year birds. An exception was a lone female brooding young near the water’s edge. L. P. Alder Coot caught by a swan mussel. — J. Hori’s note on waders being caught by cockles and mussels (Brit. Birds, 5 5 : 443-444) prompts me to record a similar incident. On 16th September 1963 I was walking at the edge of a flooded gravel-pit at Attenborough, Nottinghamshire, when I noticed a Coot Fulica atra squatting on the bank. At first 1 took no special note of it, but as I got closer I saw what appeared to be a gross deformity of its bill. Inspection with binoculars revealed that, in fact, its upper mandible was firmly grasped between the valves of a swan mussel Anodontct. It occasionally tossed its head, rather feebly, in an attempt to rid itself of the encumbrance. I was able to get to within three feet of the bird before it slid into the water and 32 NOTES ■ swam, still shaking its head, to an island near-by, where it disappeared. The ease with which I was able to approach the bird, and the feebleness of its reaction, both to me and to the swan mussel, suggested that it had been trapped in this way for some time and, since the mussel was considerably bigger than its head, probably prevented from feeding. Swan mussels are very common in this particular gravel pit and empty shells are frequently seen round its margins. It seems likely that it is the local Coot population which feeds on them. They are not mentioned as a food of the Coot in The Handbook, though a number of marine lamellibranchs of about the same size are listed. A. K. Kent 1 Curlews displaying in autumn. — At about 12.30 p.m. on 28th August 1963 at the Montrose Basin, Angus, D. Emlyn Evans drew my attention to the behaviour of two Curlews Numenius arquata close together on a mussel bed about 80 yards from us. We were able to watch them in good visibility through 7X 50 binoculars and a 30 x telescope for the next twenty minutes or so. One (? a male) seemed to be taking the initiative and appeared the larger, probably as a result of fluffing out its feathers, particularly those on its nape; its wing-tips were also lowered well below the line of its tail. The other (? a female) remained sleeker-looking, but both held their necks almost straight and slightly forward, their bills inclining at about 6o° to the ground. What first caught Evans’s eye was their curiously stiff walk as they proceeded in parallel and some two to three feet apart for perhaps two or three yards before stopping. This walk was repeated at intervals and then one of two things would happen. The ‘male’ might approach the ‘female’ and suddenly swing his body through a right angle but without touching her; or she, when they were several feet apart, would make a quick run towards him, again without making contact. Periodically both would bend in apparent feeding movements; at least twice the ‘male’ picked up a small cockle shell between his mandibles and then dropped it, while once he did swallow a very small shell. At times his posture became more exaggerated, emphasising the wing-droop, but gradually both birds relaxed and spent more time on feeding. This behaviour does not agree closely with any of the displays summarised in The Handbook (vol. 4, pp. 168-169), but those evidently refer to the breeding season. Of course, we had no proof that our identification of the sexes was correct, or that we were not witnessing a purely hostile display. On the other hand, the apparent difference in the behaviour of each bird allows the possibility of there being a sexual element, admittedly at a low intensity. Bruce Campbell 33 BRITISH BIRDS Unusual nesting site of House Martin. — Mr. Johnny Morris in- formed me that a pair of House Martins Delichon urbica was nesting right inside his attic and on nth August 1963 I visited his house near Newbury, Berkshire. There were two normal nests on the south wall, one of which had been taken over by House Sparrows Passer domes thus \ on the north wall was another House Martin’s nest, also taken over by House Sparrows, and 1 5 feet away he showed me a circular hole in the eaves. From the garden I saw an adult House Martin disappear through this hole. Inside the attic I watched two adults feeding three young in a rudimentary nest on the floor of the rafters. This nest was z\ inches deep, made apparently of mud and feathers; the back was formed by a cross rafter and the circular front rim was placed directly above the hole in the eaves. The adults were seen to enter and leave both by the hole and by a gap under the tiles two feet away. A week later, from the garden, I watched the young leaning over the front rim of the nest; the adults were flying up to the eaves and feeding them without entering the hole (which was esti- mated to be ii to 2 inches wide). Winwood Reade Yellowhammer taking Great Green Grasshopper. — On the after- noon of 24th August 1963, at St. Ishmael’s, Pembrokeshire, I saw a male Yellowhammer Emberi^a citrinella fly up from some long grass and settle about thirty yards away in the road. It was carrying something large and green in its bill and with binoculars I identified this as a Great Green Grasshopper Tettigonia viridissima. The Yellowhammer hammered its prey on the ground and pecked at it for several minutes. Twice it flew a short distance and then resumed hammering and pecking, on one occasion standing up with the grasshopper in its bill for about a minute. The bird did not seem to be able to make much impression on the large insect for the first ten minutes, but thereafter it pecked bits off and swallowed them quite quickly. After another ten minutes it flew towards a hedge about a hundred yards awav, carrying the still bulky remains. No insect prey of comparable size is recorded in The Handbook. T. A. W. Davis Letters Disturbance of breeding and resting birds by bird-watchers Sirs, — Changes in land use involving reclamation for agriculture and forestry, together with other factors consequent upon an expanding economy, have, within the last two or three decades, considerably reduced the area of semi-natural vegetation in Britain. The erection of 34 LETTERS ’ ower stations and refineries, and urban and industrial development, ontinue to erode those stretches of coast suitable for supporting ubstantial numbers of waders and wildfowl. In the lowland zone of ingland pressure on marginal land has been especially acute. The area f chalk grassland, for example, has been reduced to little more than series of isolated fragments. It seems likely that in another decade similar situation will exist among the heathlands of Dorset, Ilamp- hire and Surrey. Such processes of reduction and fragmentation, taken with the growth of leisure time and the freedom of movement provided by the motor vehicle, inevitably give rise to increases in human usage of the urviving fragments. These fragments at the same time become reser- oirs for species which are rare or local in distribution as a result of he reduction of their characteristic habitats. Public use for amenity and recreation is rapidly becoming a major actor affecting the survival of the remaining areas of semi-natural labitat in their characteristic state and with their characteristic flora i nd fauna. The problems of conservation of these areas today arise ^ lot only from a more or less uninformed general public but also from he increasing numbers of informed naturalists, particularly ornitholo- : ;ists. In cases of species prone to desert a nest, or at an especially low bb — as, for example, the Dartford Warbler Sylvia undata after the ast two winters — constant disturbance from this source may tip the cales against their survival. The disappearance of the Montagu’s Carrier Circus pjgargus from at least two of its former Hampshire seeding sites was entirely attributable to disturbance by visiting bird- watchers in the vicinity of the nests during the incubation period, esulting in frequent desertions. The Report of the Nature C.onser- aticy for the year ending 30th September 1961 drew attention to imilar happenings at Newborough Warren National Nature Reserve, Vnglesey, where at least seven clutches of the Montagu’s Harrier were lost between 1956 and 1961 owing to visitors in the neighbour- lood of the nests keeping the adult birds away and allowing Carrion Irows Corvus corone to take the eggs. These are examples of situa- ions which arise annually — especially in the cases of birds of prey. Disturbance of a different nature is that of waders at their high-water esting sites on the coast. Persistent interference over long periods, o often the case in well-known localities, frequently results in deser- ion by the birds. Thorney Island in Sussex may be cited as one of nnumerable examples. The usual plea is that only when the birds are n the air can they be counted or estimated satisfactorily. Such lumerical details may be of value, but the question whether the infor- nation gained justifies the disturbance caused should be considered, t rarely is. 35 BRITISH BIRDS An example of quite unjustified disturbance which came to the notice of the writer during the winter of 1961-62 involved White-fronted Geese Anser albifrons on the Hampshire Avon. Here, the attempts of the landowner and his keepers to ensure that the meadows received the absolute minimum of disturbance were constantly frustrated by bird-watchers, who chased the geese from one field to another, when in fact they could have seen them quite clearly at moderate range from a road near-by. It will never be possible to give more than an extremely small percentage of the various habitats in Britain the benefit of protection as nature reserves — and, in any case, as the experience at Newborough Warren demonstrates, such protection is not necessarily foolproof. The fate of our wild life and its habitats must lie ultimately in a national understanding of the need for nature conservation, and a public consciousness and appreciation of its problems. Naturalists in general tend to divorce themselves from the main body of the general public, but it should be appreciated that they are as much part of the impact of human pressure on a given area as the average picnicker or holiday- maker out for a day in the country. Further, in that they have a specialised knowledge in their own field — in this case ornithology — they should possess an awareness of its conservation problems and take them into account in their activities. Neglect of such awareness is an abuse of the responsibilities which attach to the possession of special knowledge. It is to be urged that ornithologists, whether indulging in more or less casual bird- watching or engaged in specific projects, should con- sider the possible adverse effects, particularly to rarer breeding species, before pursuing activities likely to result in disturbance. C. R. Tubbs The need for definitive English names of birds Sirs, — While there may be a real need for qualifying adjectives before a few English names of birds, as suggested by O. M. Ashford (Brit. Birds, 56: 383-384), confusion can be avoided quite easily in print bv the additional inclusion of the scientific name. In conversation only the trivial name need normally be used to define, beyond doubt, the species under discussion. The learning of scientific names seems preferable to the learning of new English ones which, after all, are only of much value in English-speaking countries, while the scientific names are more or less intelligible throughout the world although pronunciation may vary widely. May I also use this letter to make a request? I should like to see scientific names used (at least after the first mention of each species) 36 LETTERS all ornithological publications. Recently, in a German-language irnal where no scientific names were given in one paper, I found that ne of the German names were different from those quoted in A Id Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe , with the result that the aning was not clear to me without consulting other books. Scien- c names are also omitted from many local bird reports in Britain 1 I am sure that the certainty given by their inclusion would offset :: small extra printing cost. G. C. Backhurst s, — By all means let us revise the vernacular nomenclature for our ds from a European (or wider, if necessary) point of view, but I hope nt it will be possible to avoid clumsy and unattractive names even >ugh they may be descriptive. I am afraid that O. M. Ashford’s rgestions of ‘Broad-tailed Buzzard’ and ‘White-browed Redstart’ not appeal to me. A step in the right direction is the use of ‘Pied’ A ‘Barred’ for the Great Spotted and Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers. mv opinion the adoption of local and dialect names should be con- : ered for this purpose. M. Biggs vs, — O. M. Ashford advocates the introduction of cumbrous and lg-winded English names for various birds, apparently to prevent nfusion among English-speaking foreigners. For what purpose do : scientific names exist ? A. A. Wright i interpretation of variation in the dark-headed forms of the Yellow Wagtail s, — We were most interested in Lasse Sammalisto’s paper on the rk-headed forms of the Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava (Brit. Birds, : 54-69), particularly in his conclusion that the populations could be oarated into three groups. The populations he dealt with were as ; lows: South-west Europe: iberiae Central Europe: jiava Central Mediterranean Europe: ci'iereocapilla Egypt: pygmtea I South-east Europe: feldegg South Russia: dombrowskii The middle of European Russia: flava South Finland : flava y tbmbergi North Fenno-Scandia: tbmbergi North Russia: tb/mbergi (K) The Kalmuck Steppes and the Transcaspian region: sftperciliaris (L) Kazakstan, Dzungaria and Russian Turkestan : gaissanensis (M) North-west Siberia: tbmbergi % p/exa (N) The middle of Siberia: p/exa (O) Yakutia : p/exa ^ simillima (P) Ussuria: tbmbergi (Q) North-cast Siberia: simi/lima and tsebutsebensis 37 BRITISH BIRDS FACTOR I r *10 FACTOR G -To Tii o TT5 TTo Fig. i . The relative positions of the listed seventeen dark-headed populations of the Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava on Factors I and II of the factor analysis ( drawn by K. Ford) FACTOR I ♦ 10 • H V G x V, B x° F Li, ,'.K "pT. - *0 6 FACTOR m r — i 1 1 .1 0 -0 5 0 40 5 ♦l-O Fig. 2. The relative positions of the listed seventeen dark-headed populations of the Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava on Factors I and III of the factor analysis (drawn by K. Ford ) 3» LETTERS FACTOR n • - *1-0 *A / Q# b* / • G S V .'•N 0 » 1 FACTOR m ' 0 H i . •/ ♦ 10 / °*' / / / * / S ✓ p \ /j \ \ \M. \ ~ ■*K\ < \ J \ \ E '■ . -10 : ig. 3. The relative positions of the listed seventeen dark-headed populations ' f the Yellow Wagtail Motacilla (lava on Factors II and III of the factor analysis (drawn by K. Ford ) In order to find out to what extent the three groups into which ' iammalisto divided these populations are distinct, we carried out a actor analysis of his published data. This form of analysis is designed o enable the relative positions of the populations to be determined. ,Ve found that a three-dimensional system was sufficient to account or all the variation, and the loadirgs of the seventeen populations on hese three factors are plotted in figs. 1-3. The high positive loadirgs on Factor I (which extracted 69. 7% of he variation) suggests that, whatever the differences, all the popula- ions have a great deal in common and, from the data available, there an be no justification for any split at the specific level. Sammalisto designated his three groups as ‘supercilium’, ‘black- 39 BRITISH BIRDS headed’ and ‘intermediary’, but, although these are similarly aligned on Factor II, they are by no means distinct. From a consideration of the three-dimensional model, it would seem better to distinguish six groups and their geographical distribution is shown in fig. 4. The populations extending from central Europe to Lake Balkash form a very discrete group, corresponding to Sammalisto’s ‘supercilium group’ except that the Iberian population, placed by him with these others, appears to be quite distinct. The populations of central Siberia, Yakutia and south Finland comprise a central group with virtually zero loadings on both Factors II and III, but the central Mediterranean and Egyptian populations, included with them by Sammalisto, are distinct. The populations of south-east Europe and Transcaspia are completely distinct from the other black-headed ones which extend from north Fenno-Scandia to north-west Siberia and Ussuria. Finally, it must be stressed that this analysis, based entirely on Sammalisto’s data, merely supplies an objective method of grouping the populations, which were formerly grouped subjectively. J. T. R. Sharrock and M. B. Dale Fig. 4. The geographical distribution of the six groups of dark-headed popu- lations of the Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flora obtained by factor analysis, the letters referring to the list on page 37 ( drawn l>y I\. Ford) 40 News and comment Edited by Raymond Cordero A unique conference on the countryside. — The growing pressure of population in Britain is frightening to all who wish to see the countryside saved from spoilation, ! but at least as this pressure grows so does a determination to do something positive ibout control and conservation. A unique two-day conference, with the title ‘The Countryside in 1970’, was held in London in November under the presidency of H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh. It was sponsored by the Council for Nature and the Nature Conservancy, the latter’s Director-General, E. M. Nicholson, being the ^conference secretary. In plenary sessions and in three working parties (conserva- tion under Lord Strang, research under Sir Christopher Hinton and organisation . under Dr. Richard Beeching) the diversity of the problems and the clash of interests were clearly brought out, and many valuable recommendations put forward. The research working party, for example, supported the recommendation (contained in the recent Trend Report) for a Natural Resources Research Council which would have all the functions now exercised by the Nature Conservancy, including the management of nature reserves, but added that its responsibilities should be broad- ened and deepened to include, inter alia, land use in all its aspects. The proceedings of the conference w'ill be published later. In his closing speech, the Duke of Edinburgh said that the meeting had shown that 'there is at last a determination that we arc going to be in control of our own habitat’ and he went on to express the hope that there would be follow-up conferences on similar lines. Meanwhile, the National Trust, wrhich has preserved so much of Britain’s country- side from irresponsible development and which now7 has 127,000 members, is in 1964 launching an appeal for the coastline. Of the 2,750 miles of coast in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, 1,900 miles are already affected and the urgency of the problem is acute. As the Trust points out, the Severn Bridge and the South Wales Motorway will lead direct to the shores of Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire, which at the moment make up our ‘Empty Quarter’. R.S.P.B. Secretary. — The new7 Secretary of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is P. J. Condcr who, as one of the Assistant Secretaries, has been in charge of reserves and outside activities since 1954. In recent years he has been particularly- concerned with research into the effects of toxic chemicals on birds and his new duties include provision for him to continue this side of his w7ork. Closure of Cley Bird Observatory. — R. A. Richardson retired from his post as honorary warden cf Cley Bird Observatory in Norfolk at the end of 1963, after fourteen years of continuous service, and this unfortunately means the dissolution of the observatory. In a written statement the chairman of the committee con- cerned has pointed out that to maintain it with a full-time paid warden w-ould entail a considerable yearly income which is not available. The observatory also suffers from the fact that it owns neither land nor buildings for the accommodation of students, nor is there any possibility of its doing so. In addition, the wrork in- volved in systematic daily recording, as expected of an accredited observatory, has assumed such proportions at Cley now that it cannot be satisfactorily done w’ithout a full-time warden. Bird-watchers arc urged to send any future observations they make in the Cley area to the editor of the Norfolk Bird Report - — Michael J. Seago, 33 Acacia Road, Thorpe, Norwich. 41 BRITISH BIRDS Now that Mr. Richardson has retired from Cley, where the help he gave so many people is gratefully remembered, may we hope that we shall see more examples of his work as an artist and share in the lecture hall his outstanding knowledge? New warden for Fair Isle. — The new warden of Fair Isle Bird Observatory is Roy Dennis, who has worked on the island as assistant warden and for the past two summers has been with the R.S.P.B. on the Osprey watch. He replaces Peter Davis, who left in September to join the staff' of the British Trust for Ornithology at Tring. B.T.O. plans new publication. — At the annual dinner of the British Trust for Ornithology in October, the President, C. A. Norris, said that the stage had surely been reached where every serious bird-watcher should be a member of the Trust. He admitted, however, that Bird Study was ‘pretty solid going’, and he expressed his hopes for a proposed new publication which is to carry news of what the Trust is doing and help correct its ‘somewhat blurred image’. At the time of writing, the final shape of this ‘newsletter’ has not been decided, but it seems likely that there will be eight issues a year, the first appearing in mid- January 1964. Attempted control of Bullfinches in Herefordshire. — The paying of bounties for the corpses of ‘pests’ has unfortunately often had unlooked-for results, and it is thus a dubious and usually undesirable method of control. A recent example is reported by the Herefordshire and Radnorshire Nature Trust, who say that fruit growers have been paying boys to shoot Bullfinches in and around orchards in that part of the country. As a result, a wholesale slaughter of small birds has in some cases taken place. At one fruit farm a member of the Trust examined a heap of corpses brought in by the boys and paid for as Bullfinches. Most of the bodies were those of tits and Chaffinches and he could not find a single Bullfinch among them. The Trust has been campaigning for treatment of bushes and trees with deterrent substances, unpalatable yet not poisonous, but the severe weather last winter reduced Bullfinch numbers so much in that area that it was not possible to evaluate this season’s trials. Towards a new British List. — The Ibis for October announces that preparations have been going ahead for what it terms ‘the new classified review of the British avifauna’. The British Ornithologists’ Union is obviously not entirely happy with the older nomenclature — last January it referred somewhat coldly to the ‘so-called “British List” ’ — and in the revised and expanded form that is proposed one can agree that ‘list’ might not be a strictly accurate description. However, ‘British List’ has the merits of being understood by all bird-watchers and of being short and simple, and it should not, one feels, be lightly discarded for any purely pedantic reasons. Whatever the new publication is finally called, the B.O.U. hopes that it will be ready in 1965. Effects of the severe winter of 1962-63 Several journals have recently publicised the proposed analysis of the effects on birds of last winter’s severe weather. Despite the final reminder in the November issue, therefore, we make this further appeal for any outstanding questionnaires to be sent immediately to H. M. Dobinson, The Old Barn, Sonning Common, Nr. Reading, Berkshire, or to A. j. Richards, 120a Hamilton Road, Reading, Berkshire. 42 Recent reports By I. J. Ferguson-Lees (These are largely unchecked reports, not authenticated records) his summary covers the five weeks from nth October to 15th November, with ic addition of a few earlier observations. It thus follows the one in the November ...sue {Brit. Birds, 56: 427-432). Highlights of the period were the arrivals of winter isitors, an irruption of Waxwings, several rather interesting stragglers including ome from Siberia and, above all, a remarkable influx of Cranes which had no ' rccedent within living memory. CRANES GALORE vlthough the Crane A legalornis grns used to nest in East Anglia until about 1600 nd was a regular winter-visitor for the next two hundred years, it has become ex- remely scarce and irregular during the last century. So much so that at the time be Handbook was written the odd examples recorded in the previous two or three lccades were regarded as ‘open to the suspicion of having escaped from captivity . n the last ten years, on the other hand, the species has been reported rather more >ftcn and during 1958-62 a total of about 50 were recorded in various parts of the ountry, with peaks of ten or more in 1958, 1961 and 1962. In 1961 there were >arties of four in Lancashire, Devon and Cornwall, in 1958 five in Suffolk and in 957 six in Yorkshire, but the last mentioned w7as the biggest group of Cranes ccorded in Britain this century — until 30th October 1963. On that day and the lext four the southern counties of Sussex, Hampshire, Dorset and Somerset and, o a much lesser extent, Devon, Essex and Cambridge w*ere positively invaded by Zranes in ones and twos and gatherings of up to a hundred. The highest numbers were reported from Sussex, from Beachy Head westwards, n this area at least 300 (perhaps 400) Cranes in about fifteen parties were seen in hose five days. The biggest flock consisted of about 100 flying north near Mid- turst on 30th October and the next largest about 62 circling and then making off out o sea near Sclsev on 3rd November, on which day a total of 84 was seen in that irea. Other parts of Sussex which reported concentrations of 20 or more included he Cuckmere valley, Hcnfield/Steyning, Friston/Jevington, Midhurst, Sidlesham ind East Hatting, and there were 19 at Beachy Head and 16 at Pulborough. Many locks were seen only in flight, heading in the direction of the sea or along the coast, md, when they did settle, most stayed only a short while. However, those between Icnficld and Steyning remained for at least four davs and those at Pulborough ibout four days, while some wrere present in the Sidlesham area throughout the period. A feature which was particularly commented on was the extremely small lumber of juveniles: some parties included none and others three or four at most. Reports from Hampshire are as yet incomplete and the continual repetition of he figure 25 at Bishop’s Dyke, Ottcrbourne, Hurst Castle, St. Catherine’s Point and n mid-Solent betw'een Cowes and The Needles makes one wonder how much duplication is involved. Nevertheless, there were also about 50 in flight off Milford- on-Sca and 17 at Farlington and it seems likely that at least 100 and possibly 150-200 appeared in that county. Dorset had only three or four reports and the largest group was 14 flying in over Chcsil Beach at Bcxington on 31st October. In Somerset there were 40 in flight over Stcart Point on 30th October and smaller numbers on the ground near Bridgwater the next day. In Devon about ten were seen and heard over the Kingsbridge estuary in moonlight on the evening of 2nd November, and on the 3rd seven wrcre counted in marshy fields on the eastern side 43 BRITISH BIRDS of the estuary. The only other counties which seem to have had any Cranes at all were Essex, with a little flock of four at The Naze on 3rd November, and Cambridge- shire, with one at Fulbourn on 3 1st October. None was reported in Kent, Glouces- tershire or Wiltshire, three counties adjacent to the main influx. The grand total is difficult to estimate at this stage but it does seem likely that about 500 birds were involved at the very least and that a figure of 700 might be nearer the mark. We do not know yet why this remarkable influx took place and at the time of writing we have not got the full picture from the Continent. Nevertheless, in the Channel Islands there were three parties on Guernsey (including about 40 on 3rd November), one or two (each of 25) on Alderney, and one of 17 on Jersey (which may have been the same 17 as were seen earlier in the day on Guernsey). We also hear of a great movement of Cranes at the end of October and early November down the valley of the Oise in north-east France. In Denmark, on the other hand, fewer than usual were seen. One’s immediate assumption is that some flocks from Fenno-Scandia, where most of the Cranes in Europe breed, came further west than usual, but their arrival coincided with large-scale irruptions of Waxwings from east of Finland and with a number of Siberian warblers (see next two sections). WAXWINGS Following the scries of invasions of Waxwings Bombycilla garrulus in the four succes- sive winters from 1956/37 to 1959/60 (54: 1-30), these birds have been rather less in evidence during the past three years and an irruption which began on the east coast about 28th October and attained sizeable proportions from 2nd November onwards produced more than at any time since i960. The first ones were reported in Shetland, Orkney, Norfolk and Kent on the 28th and in the next wreek increasing numbers appeared in these counties and in Aberdeen, Angus, Fife, Midlothian, East Lothian, Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Suffolk, all on the east coast, as well as in Ross and Inverness. Between 6th and 1 2th November they appeared in the Outer Hebrides, in Ayr and Dunbarton in south-west Scotland and in Westmorland, and there were also odd birds in inland counties of England. Some of the flocks were quite sizeable: at Ballater (Aberdeen) there were as many as 120 on 1st November and at Weybournc (Norfolk) about 100 from the nth. On the west side a flock at Arnsidc Knott (Westmorland) reached a peak of 40 + from the 10th and there were 30 at Troon (Ayr) on the 6th. Other areas with flocks of around 20 or more included the Isle of May (Fife), Fair Isle (Shetland) where the total reached 50, Unst (Shetland), Spurn and Ribblcsdalc (Yorkshire), and Muckleburgh Hill near Clcy (Norfolk) where there were at one time as many as 70. Generally speaking, however, the berry crop appears to have been rather poor this autumn and most flocks tended to move on within a day or two. However, we understand that the numbers of Waxwings in southern Finland and other parts of Fenno-Scandia are larger than ever they were during the 1956/60 invasions and it will be interesting to see what the next few weeks bring. SIBERIAN AND OTHER VAGRANTS Most remarkable among several Siberian vagrants was a total of no less than five Pallas’s Warblers Phylloscopus proregulus — at Holme (Norfolk) and St. Catherine’s Point (Isle of Wight) on 27th October (the former staying until the 29th), at Dungencss (Kent) and St. Agnes (Isles of Scilly) on the 31st and at Walbcrswick (Suffolk) on 16th November. This tiny species, which breeds no nearer than Altai and the Yenisei and which winters in south-east Asia, has been found in Britain on only six previous occasions and, although all but one of the records have been since 1950, the unprecedented total of four in live days further emphasises the unusual nature of this period. Another Siberian warbler, the equally small Yellow- 44 RECENT REPORTS owed Pb. inornalus, is of annual occurrence, of course, but the fifteen reported iring the autumn included the surprising total of four in early November. Apart am one in the Isles of Scilly already mentioned (56:431), the Yellow-browed arblers were confined to the east coast, in Shetland, Fife, Co. Durham, Yorkshire, ncolnshire, Norfolk and Kent. Among other eastern species were an Arctic Warbler Pb. borealis at Cley (Norfolk) 1 20th October and single Rustic and Little Buntings Emberi^a rustica and E. silla at Fair Isle (Shetland) from the 24th to the 26th and from 2nd to 4th November spectivcly. More Richard’s Pipits An/bus novaeseelandiae ( cj '. 56: 431) included lother at Fair Isle on 17th October when there was also one on St. Agnes (Isles of :illy) which stayed until the 19th; then there was one near-by on St. Mary’s on the : :nd, one at Spurn (Yorkshire) on 10th November and four at Malltracth (Anglesey) om 13 th November. Belated Barred Warblers Sylvia nisoria included single les at Bardsey (Caernarvonshire) on 1 5 th and 16th October, at Hauxley (Northum- irland) on the 26th and at Blakeney (Norfolk) on 2nd November. The Devon aciable Plover Cbettusia gregaria (56: 430) was still present on 10th November. The period also produced several unexpected southern species, particularly . etween 19th October and the beginning of November. The first was a male esser Kestrel Fa/co tiaumanni at Hauxley on 1 9th October and the same place rovided an adult male Subalpine Warbler Sylvia cantillans on 2nd November, hen there were Bee-eaters A lerops apiaster at Ottery St. Mary (Devon) on 20th and 1 st October, and at Falmouth (Cornwall) from 10th November into December; and, istly, a first-winter Cattle Egret Ardeola ibis at Portbury, near Portishead (Somer- 1 ;t), from 29th October to at least 15th November. The Woodchat Shrike Lanins ■na/or at Spurn (56: 432) stayed until 13th October; and three belated reports from ortland (Dorset) which might be mentioned here were a Melodious Warbler Uppolais polyglot ta from 4th to 10th September, an Aquatic Warbler Acrocepbalus aludicola on the 12th and a Tawny Pipit Antbus campestris on the 14th. On 20th )ctober Portland had two Gull-billed Terns Gelocbelidon nilotica, a species which has cen rather scarce this autumn. Another belated report involved a Black-winged tilt Flimantopus biman/opus at Chapel Point, near Skegness (Lincolnshire), on 6th eptember, and there was a Nutcracker N/icifraga caryocatactes near Winchcombe ' Gloucestershire) on the 28th. Ferruginous Ducks Aythya nyroca were seen at Luxley (Kent) and Stanton Harcourt (Oxfordshire) on 27th October and from 9th d 13th November respectively. A few more American waders included a Short-billed Dowitcher Limnodrcm ts riseus at Havcrgate (Suffolk) from 14th to at least 21st October; a fifth White- umped Sandpiper Calidris fuscicollis, this time at Titchfield Haven (Hampshire) >n 17th October; and two more Wilson’s Phalaropes Pbalaropus tricolor, on 'rcsco (Isles of Scilly) on 8th October and at Peppermill Dam (Fife) from the 19th o the 25th. It is interesting to bear in mind that this species had never been ecorded in Britain or Europe until 1954, yet there have been no less than fourteen n the six years from 1958. A Wilson’s Phalarope and another Pectoral Sandpiper lalidris melanotos {cf. 56: 430) also occurred on the coast of Morocco at the very beginning of October. Almost coinciding with the occurrence of the Baltimore )riole Icterus galbula on the Calf of Man on 10th October (56: 430) was a Scarlet Tanager Piranga olivacea on Copeland Island (Co. Down) on the 12th. To the list >f earlier Americans should be added a Lesser Yellowlegs Tringa flavipes -which taved at Lodmoor, near Weymouth (Dorset), from 26th September for nearly three veeks. SEA-BIRDS fet another albatross Diomedea sp. {cf. 56 : 429) was seen off Spurn Point (Y orkshirc) >n 10th November. The only Sabine’s Gull Xema sabini reported during the 45 BRITISH BIRDS period proper was an immature at Dungeness (Kent) from 19th to 24th October (during the course of which time it was trapped and ringed), but there were others in Flintshire and Kent on 5th October and three earlier observations which have only just reached us involved ones in Cornwall on 24th August, in Lancashire next day and in Co. Donegal on 29th September. Dungeness continued to provide the bulk of the Mediterranean Black-headed Gulls Larin melanocepbalus with three single birds from 6th to 19th October, from 27th to 28th October and from 2nd to 5th November; others were seen at St. Ives (Cornwall) and Hartlepool (Co. Durham) in October. Numbers of Little Gulls L. minutus continued to be quite spectacular on the east coast. Apart from the concentration in east Scotland already referred to (56: 388), there seem to have been more parties of ten to twenty in England than usual : for example, to select a few reports from those received, there were 21 at Teesmouth (Co. Durham) on 1st September and 27 there on the 8th, eight at Spurn (Yorkshire) on 2nd November, 22 at Cley (Norfolk) on 1st Novem- ber, 14 at Minsmere (Suffolk) on 31st October and 17+ at Shellness (Kent) on 31st October. Ones and twos also appeared during the period at various places on the south coast as far west as Portland (Dorset). Now that it is possible to look at the figures for the whole of the autumn, one can see which species were up on the average and which were down. Passage of Sooty Shearwaters Procdlaria grisea was generally above normal : for instance, the total of all the observations at Cape Clear Island (Co. Cork) between mid- June and mid-October was 2,336 — over 2 J times the previous highest — while 1 1 8 off Portland (Dorset) on 29th September was quite unprecedented. On the other hand, the peak of Balearic Shearwaters P. puffinus mauretanicus at Portland, the area which has long produced the most regular observations of this Mediterranean form, was only 57 on 5 th October and there were very few other days on which more than one or two odd birds were noted; similarly, there were less than usual off St. Ives (Corn- wall), though these included one as late as 8th November. Incidentally, Cape Clear also had a total of 494 Great Skuas Catbaracta skua between 13th June and 23rd October — 3 \ times the previous highest — and this reflects the generally heavy and prolonged passage of this species in many parts of the country this autumn. There were also unusual numbers of Arctic Skuas Stercorarius parasiticus and, to a lesser extent, of Pomarine Skuas S. pomarinus on all coasts, including Wales and other parts of the west, in late September and early October, with smaller numbers right through to the very end of November. A Pomarine Skua stayed at Ellesmere (Shropshire) for several days from the end of September and another interesting record of this species involved a freshly dead immature picked up on the Severn estuary near Clevedon (Somerset) on 17 th November. Among the records of Long- tailed Skuas S. longicaudus during the period were two more on the west side of Britain — another at St. Agnes (Isles of Scilly) on 20th October and a juvenile found dead on Prestwick Beach (Ayrshire) on the 21st — and odd ones were still being seen on the east coast as late as 10th November. Another inland Manx Shearwater P. puffinus in September {cf. 56: 388 and 429) was one picked up dead at Eckington (Derbyshire) on the 7th after being ringed only the previous day on Copeland Island (Co. Down). There was no further suggestion of a wreck of Leach’s Petrels Occanodroma teucorrboa, but following the earlier occurrences (56: 428-429) single ones were picked up dead or dying at Stonchousc (Gloucestershire) and Blandford Forum (Dorset) on nth and 19th November. Reports of Little Auks Plautus alle have been few, but three more early ones were seen off Malin Head (Co. Donegal) on 27th September {cf. 56: 429) and others as far south and west as Portland on 19th October and 3rd November. Portland also produced several observations of single Black Guillemots Ceppbus gry/le between 28th September and 26th October, 46 RECENT REPORTS lcluding two on 29th September; this species is rare so far from the breeding areas. 1 halaropes Phalaropus spp. continued to be scarcer than in some recent years, with mall numbers most regularly noted in western Ireland : at Cape Clear Island, for : tstance, there was a total of 36 in the first three weeks of October with a peak of 16 n the 1 8th. Lastly, an immature drake Velvet Scoter Melanitta fusca on Ladybowcr Reservoir 1 Derbyshire) on 6th October seems worthy of mention as this marine species is so eldom seen inland. Common Scoters M. nigra were reported from several inland ounties and in Leicestershire there was a total of 15 at three reservoirs in late October and early November. WINTER VISITORS n many areas it was a poor autumn for visible migration of thrushes because con- 1 litions were seldom right to bring the birds low enough. However, big move- nents of Redwings Tardus iliacus were widely commented on 14th, i9th-2oth, 2nd-23rd and especially 25th-28rh October when there were peak passage movc- nents and arrivals all the way from Shetland to the south coast and the species iegan to reach the extreme south-west of Britain, and when large numbers were een streaming south on a front of at least 70 miles in several counties in i western Ireland. This last period also produced many Fieldfares T. pilaris, R31ackbirds T. merula and Song Thrushes T. philomelos. There was also evidently . 1 more moderate passage of Fieldfares and Blackbirds on 23rd October when movc- nent was reported in various places in Scotland down to the Irish Sea; and another ■ icavy influx, especially of Blackbirds, took place in the first part of November, particularly about the 9th. With the thrushes were big numbers of Starlings Stumus vulgaris and much smaller l alls of Robins Eritbacus rubecula, Goldcrests Regains regains and Woodcock Scolopax r ■ usticola . The biggest numbers of Robins seem to have been on the south coast 1 rom Kent to the Isles of Scilly, peaks of 100 being recorded at Dungeness and St. \gnes on 26th and 27th October respectively, for example. The Robins were iccompanied by a few Black Redstarts Phoenicurus oebruros : these were fairly l generally scattered on the south and east coasts, but a peak of 36 at St. Agnes on he 27th seems worth mentioning. At this time, too, Firecrests R. ignicapillus were quite widespread. They uTere regular at Dungeness from 15 th October onwards up to two almost daily) and from the 26th onwards they also appeared at Sandwich 3ay (Kent) and Minsmere (Suffolk). From the 30th to 4th November there were :wo or three at Portland (Dorset) and during this period others appeared at Gibraltar Point (Lincolnshire), Spurn (Yorkshire) and Hauxley (Northumberland). The numbers cf Long-eared and Short-eared Owls A sio otus and A. flammeus in the north and east seem to have been rather unusual. At Fair Isle they built up rapidly from 21st October, when the first ones appeared, to a total of 31+ (Long- eared in the majority) on 7th November. Long-eared Owls were also commented on in other parts of Shetland, Aberdeen, Fife, Northumberland, Co. Dui ham, Yorkshire and Norfolk, and as many as seven w7ere ringed on the Isle of May. There were more Rough-legged Buzzards Bu/eo lagopus and Great Grey Shrikes L anius excubitor at this time and odd reports of Northern Great Spotted Wood- peckers Dendrocopos major, Treecreepers Certhia fami Haris and Bullfinches Pyrrbula pyrrbula. Numbers of Redpolls Carduelis flammea continued to be high md many etst coast districts aid iilaod co 1 ities reported more titan usual; at Dungeness there w as a maximum of 250 on 29th October. With regard to the early Brent Geese Bran/a bernida in Co. Kerry (56: 390), it might be added that there wrere seventeen at Minsmere on 1st September and six at Malin Head (Co. Donegal) on the 3rd. 47 BRITISH BIRDS MISCELLANEOUS Apart from the Waxwings, two other species which have been showing eruptive behaviour are the Jay Garrulus glandarius and the Bearded Tit Panurus biarmicus. After the considerable drop in numbers of Bearded Tits during the severe weather in the early part of 1963, it might have been expected that the eruptive movements which had been such a feature of the previous five years of high population would stop. But at Minsmere (Suffolk) eruptive activity was noted from 16th September, up to twenty birds flying up to three-quarters of a mile down the coast in the early mornings and then returning, and on 27th October two male and two female Bearded Tits appeared in a Lincolnshire reed-bed and two were trapped at Sandwich Bay (Kent); some were also seen at Fulbourn (Cambridgeshire) and in November there were six as far inland as Branston (Staffordshire). The Jay picture is not yet clear, but unusual numbers of these birds were reported in East Anglia and Kent as well as in inland counties from Oxford to Derby, while odd ones appeared on islands such as Bardsey (Caernarvonshire). Some of the birds were in unusually open habitats, and moving flocks of up to 47 were noted in Kent. A few more reports of Bluethroats Cynnosylvia svecica have come in for September and October {cf. 56: 431). The latest at Fair Isle were two on 3rd October, but much later birds were noted on St. Agnes (Isles of Scilly) where there were two on the 27th; in September there were additional ones at Portland and Weymouth (Dorset) and near Skegness (Lincolnshire). The last was identified as of the White- spotted form C. s. cyanecula and it will be noted that the majority of the others were on the south coast. To the Ortolan Buntings E mberiga hortulana mentioned in the November summary (56: 431) should be added several at Portland in September (maximum of three at the beginning of the month) and one at Fair Isle on 10th October. A further six Red-breasted Flycatchers Muscicapa parva in Norfolk, Kent and the Isles of Scilly between 10th and 26th October, with the addition of one in Lincolnshire at the beginning of November, brought the autumn total to just over thirty. Reports of summer visitors staying later than usual are still coming in and it may be possible to attempt a summary in a future issue. However, in recent years it has become increasingly clear that we do not really know what constitute normal and late dates for stragglers and there has also been a growing tendency for some summer visitors to linger longer in northern Europe. Analysis is therefore some- thing of a problem, but we might perhaps mention here a Red-backed Shrike Ennius cristatus at Dungeness as late as 17th to 19th October, and Swifts Apus apus at Minsmere (Suffolk) on 2nd and 6 th November and at Spurn (Yorkshire) on the nth. Three more Temminck’s Stints Calidris temminckii — in Northumberland on 15 th September, in Lancashire from 1 2th to 20th October and in Kent on 1 9th October — brought the autumn total to a miserable ten {cf. 56: 387 and 430) and this species is now much scarcer on passage than, for example, the Pectoral Sandpiper. An immature Golden Eagle Aquila ebrysaetos was seen passing to the south-west off Tory Island (Co. Donegal) on 13 th September. It is remarkable how few authenticated records of this species there have been in recent years outside the breeding areas. Finally, to clear up two errors which have been pointed out, we add here that there were actually two Purple Herons Arden purpurea at Minsmere (Suffolk) — an adult which stayed until 31st August was replaced by an immature from 29th August to 7th September {cf. 56: 388) — and the Black Tern Cblidonias niger move- ment of late August and early September which, incidentally, included flocks of as many as 60 and 100 in Lancashire and Cheshire, resulted in only 011c bird in Co! Kerry and not nine {cf. 36: 388). October and November Black Terns included three as far north as St. Andrews (Fife) on 17th October and two or three single birds in Cornwall and Anglesey as late as 2ist-25th November. 48 ^ r ;^ 3 7 DEC 1963 ' _ .A ^ SEND From the current Japanese quota, we can offer a high quality 10 X 50 glass at £18 10s. and an excellent 8 X 30 at £12 10s. Both models are centre focus- ing and complete with case and straps. Approval facilities available. TELESCOPES. The Charles Frank PANCRATIC 30 x to 55 x. £7 . 17 . 6 The Charles Frank 22x OG 50mm. PRISMATIC with tripod, £22 . 10.0 NICKELSUPRA I5x to 60x OG 60mm., £36 .12.0 llfor the bird watcher p)esigned with the bird watcher in mind, he new 10 x 40 ROSS SOLAROSS p mbodies all the features which the bird h/atcher requires: Adequate magnification (10 x) 40 mm. object glass and fully coated optics to ensure maximum brightness Brilliant performance Centre focusing for speedier adjustment Streamlined design Lightweight — only 28 oz Compact with sensibly designed camera-type leather case and straps FiRITISH MADE BY WORLD AMOUS ROSS OF LONDON 19 gns THE PICi\ \jr inc. rr KjnuLJ -J GREAT INSTRUMENTS ON 14 DAYS’ FREE TRIAL A WONDERFUL NEW BINOCULAR FOR NEW ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE An excellent general purpose binocular of good performance, which will stand up to a great deal of rough usage. Cost approximately £20. £7 . 15.0 ilHARLES FRANK LTD. P-75 Saltmarket Glasgow C.1. Phone. BELL 2106/7 Est. 1907 (tain’s greatest stocks of New, Used and Ex-Govt, oocuiars. Telescopes and Navigational Equipment. The wildfowler who requires maxi- mum brightness in all conditions will do well to consider the Canadian Naval 7 X 50 day and night glass: com- plete in waterproof rubber case, an amazing glass which will stand up to an inordinate amount of rough usage, £24. Incidentally, current value of a glass of this quality would be about £60. accredited agents for ROSS, BARR & STROUD, VRAY and ZEISS (both East and West Zones) CHARLES FRANK Large Mounted TELESCOPE 3" £57 Tripod aperture. . 10 . 0 SMALL ADVERTISEMENTS Have you affixed your NESTBOXES for the coming season? ‘Theydon’ Observa- tion l4/9d. Standard (B.T.O.) non-obser- vation type l3/6d. Large Rustic Obser- vation 21 /9d. NEW: ‘Snack-bar* 8/9d. ■- Our popular glllllS^- BUILDER’S YARD BUILDER’S YARD has four compartments (for moss, wool, hair, etc.) and can also be used for food; invaluable for watching and photographing birds gathering nest- ing material, l8/6d. Send 6d. for new 'Bird Sanctuary’ Catalogue of Nestboxes and Feeding Devices, No. BS/71 Giant Peanut Feeder (see below) l9/9d. Obtainable only from DEPT. II BIRDCRAFT PRODUCTS GREENRIGG WORKS WOODFORD GREEN ESSEX 72/- for 3 lines (minimum) ; 4/- for each extra line or part thereof. For the use of a Box Number there is an extra charge of If. Ornithologist photographers. Do you have the same trouble I had when I first started photographing birds? You can’t get the subject large enough on the film? This need no longer bother you if you have a reflex camera; we can supply lenses up to 1000 mm. focus, all less than £40, to fit all ! 35 mm. reflex models and Bolex reflex j 16 mm. except Kodak Reflex, Contaflex I and Bessamatic. Send SAE for details j to the ornithologist’s camera shop : Charles I W. Bruce, 5 & 7 West Road, W estclilT-on- Sea, Essex. Kyle & Glen Minicoaches. Luxury travel I anywhere N of the Great Glen and Cairn- I gornis. Stop when you wish to visit I reserves, watch birds, take photographs. ] Direct transport to Handa. Day rate £12 party up to eleven. Send 4d. stamp for brochure to D. C. Hulme, Muir of Ord, Ross & Cromarty. ZOOM ON Kim Catalogue on request WHELDON & WESLEY LTD Lytton Lodge Codicote, Hitchin, Herts Wanted. Male companion for bird photo- grapher visiting Norwegian Lapland, June j 1964. Apply J. Reynolds, P.O. Box 374, Tabora, Tanganyika. — — Operation Osprey, 1964. Two assistant wardens (paid) wanted in Speyside between 1st April and 31st August; and cook- caterers (paid) engaged for month at time for same period. Volunteer wardens and cooks also required. Full particulars to George Waterston, Scottish Office | R.S.P.B., 21 Regent Terrace. Edinburgh 7. Fair Isle Bird Observatory. Assistant warden wanted from 1st April to 31st October. Write to Roy H. Dennis, Bird Observatory, Fair Isle, Shetland, with full particulars. Wanted. British Birds , vols. 36, 37 & 38. Price and condition to S. Towers, 12 Yew Tree Crescent, Bradford 8. Notice to Contributors - -itish Birds publishes material dealing with original observations on the birds of ritain and western Europe, or, where appropriate, on birds of this area as observed other parts of their range. Except for records of rarities, papers and notes are < ormally accepted only on condition that the material is not being offered to any t :her journal. Photographs (glossy prints showing good contrast) and sketches are elcomed. Proofs of all contributions are sent to authors before publication. After publication, 25 separates of papers are sent free to authors (two or more ithors of one paper receive 15 copies each); additional copies, for which a charge made, can be provided if ordered when the proofs are returned. Papers should be typewritten with double spacing, and on one side of the sheet aaly. Shorter contributions, if not typed, must be clearly written and well spaced. Notes should be worded as concisely as possible, and drawn up in the form in hich they will be printed, with signature in block capitals and the writer’s address early written on the same sheet. If more than one note is submitted, each should c : on a separate sheet, widt signature and address repeated. Certain conventions of style and layout are essential to preserve the uniformity r f any publication. Authors of papers in particular, especially of those containing /stematic lists, reference lists, tables, etc., should consult the ones in this issue as a uide to general presentation. English names of species should have capital litials for each word, except after a hyphen (e.g. Willow Warbler, Black-tailed odwit), but group terms should not (e.g. warblers, godwits). English names arc rose used in The Handbook of British Birds, with the exception of the changes listed in ri/isb Birds in January 1953 (46: 2-3). The scientific name of each species should t : underlined (but not put in brackets) immediately after the first mention of the nglish name. Subspecific names should not be used except where they are devant to the discussion. It is sometimes more convenient to list scientific ames in an appendix. Dates should take the form Tst January 1964’ and no cher, except in tables where they may be abbreviated to Tst Jan.’, ‘Jan. 1st’, ot ven ‘Jan. 1’, whichever most suits the layout of the table concerned. It is particu- rly requested that authors should pay attention to reference lists, which otherwise iusc much unnecessary work. These should take the following form: ucker, B. W. (1949): ‘Species and subspecies: a review for general ornitholo- gists’. Brit. Birds, 42: 1 29-1 34. /itherby, H. F. (1894): Forest Birds: Their Haunts and Habits. London, p. 34. arious other conventions concerning references, including their use in the text, lould be noted by consulting examples in this issue. Tables should be numbered with arabic numerals, and the title typed above in ic style used in this issue. They must either fit into the width of a page, or be esigned to fit a whole page lengthways. All tables should be self-explanatory. Figures should be numbered with arabic numerals, and the captions typed on a : ;parate sheet. All line-drawings should be in indian ink on good quality drawing aper (not of an absorbent nature) or, where necessary, on graph paper, but this mst be light blue or very pale grey. It is always most important to consider how ich drawing will fit into the page. The neat insertion of lettering, numbers, rrows, etc., is perhaps the most difficult part of indian ink drawing and, unless he as had considerable experience of this kind of work, an author should seek the d of a skilled draughtsman. Recently published books available from WITHERBY’S BOOKSHOP Quest under Capricorn by David Attenborough. An account of the author’s journey through the fascinating northern territory of Australia. 38 photographs including 5 in colour. 21s. Animal Ways and Means by Eric Roberts. A book for the younger reader concerning the more unusual behaviour of animals, including birds and insects. Illustrated. 1 5s. The Rocks Remain by Gavin Maxwell. A sequel to the author’s famous Ring of Bright Water. 24 plates of photo- graphs. 30s. Wildfowl in Great Britain edited by G. L. Atkinson-Willes. A complete survey of distribution and habitats. 14-page colour section from paintings by Peter Scott. 28 half-tones, 60 line-drawings and 364 pages. 45s. The Birds of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight by Edwin Cohen, M.B.O.U. 16 plates of photographs, and line maps and drawings in the 270 pages of text. 30s. Pictorial Encyclopaedia of the Animal Kingdom by V. J. Stanek. 16 colour plates and over 1,000 remarkable photo- graphs. Magnificent value. 25s. King Todd by Norah Burke. The true story of a badger. Illustrated by D. J. Watkins-Pitchford. 21s. Bird Migration by Robert Spencer. A comprehensive intro- duction to the subject. 9 plates of photographs and 13 figures. 12s. 6d. The Birds of the British Isles, Vol. XII, by D. A. Bannerman and G. E. Lodge. 63s. Birds of the Atlantic Islands, Vol. I, by D. A. Bannerman. 84s. The Wonders of Wildlife in Europe by Roedelberger and Phillips. Successor to The Wonderful World of Nature. 42s. Birdwatching by E. A. R. Ennion. 13s. 6d. A Million Years of Man by Richard Carrington. A unique account of man’s biological and cultural development. 36s. Collins Guide to Mushrooms and Toadstools by Morten Lange and F. Bayard Hora. 96 colour plates. 30s. Atlanta My Seal by H. G. Hurrell. The fascinating story of a young Atlantic seal. 24 plates. 25s. Please address all enquiries to The Manager, Witherby’s Bookshop 61/62 VVatling Street, London, F..C.4 or telephone City 5f05 ALL BOOKS SENT POST FREE Printed in England by Diemer & Reynolds Ltd., Eastcotts Road, Bedford Published by H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Wading Street, E.C.4 British Birds . I Principal Contents Observations on the St. Kilda Wren Estlin Waters (with one plate) Oystercatchers and mussels N. Tinbergen and M. Norton-Griffiths (with four plates) Measurements and weights of Great Black-backed Gulls M. P. Harris Notes Review Letters News and comment Recent reports Vol. 57 No. 2 February THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE British Birds AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY JOURNAL Editors Stanley Cramp, I. J. Ferguson-Lees, P. A. D. Hollom, E. M. Nicholson Editorial Address 30 St. Leonard’s Avenue, Bedford Photographic Editor Eiic Hosking 20 Crouch Hall Road London, N.8 'News and Comment ’ Rarities Committee Raymond Cordero D. D. Harber Rohan Lodge, Wadhurst Park 1 Gorringe Road Wadhurst, Sussex Eastbourne, Sussex Contents of Volume 57, Number 2, February 1964 Page Observations on the St. Kilda Wren. By Dr. Estlin Waters (plate 8) . . 49 Oystercatchers and mussels. By Dr. N. Tinbergen and M. Norton-Griffiths (plates 9-12) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 64 Measurements and weights of Great Black-backed Gulls. By M. P. Harris 71 Notes : — Unusual numbers of sea-birds at Teesmouth in August 1962 (P. J. Stead) 76 Shelduck hiding with young (John Hori) . . . . . . . . . . 78 Oystercatcher caught by mussel (Peter Bennett) . . . . . . . . 79 Herring Gulls breeding in Inner London (D. I. M. Wallace) . . . . 80 A second Slender-billed Gull in Sussex (R. H. Charlwood) .. .. 81 House Martins nesting on new bridge over motorway (T. C. E. Link) .. 82 Linnets and House Sparrows feeding on birch seed (Derek Goodwin) . . 82 Review : — A Study of Bird Song. By Edward A. Armstrong. Reviewed by Dr. Peter Marler .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 83 Letters: — ‘Industrial’ discoloration of House Sparrows (C. J. O. Harrison) . . . . 83 Photography and sound-recording to reinforce sight records of unusual birds (Myles E. W. North) 83 News and comment. Edited by Raymond Cordero . . . . . . 86 Request for information: — Crossbills in 1 963 (Peter Davis) .. .. .. .. ,, 87 Recent reports. By I. J. Ferguson-Lccs 88 Annual subscription £2 6s. (including postage and despatch) payable to H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Watling Street, London, E.C.4 ■ For full details 'Write to Dept. B.3 ICELAND TOURIST (INFORMATION BUREAU Offers outstanding attractions for all naturalists and nature lovers. Special visits prepared with the co-operation of the Council for Nature. Departures from London and Glasgow on Fridays 5th and 19th June. Each visit lasts two weeks and will be led by an Icelandic ornithologist 161 Piccadil I / , London, W. I . Telephone: HYDe Park 766 I /2 tours for naturalists YUGOSLAVIA (Metkovic) RUMANIA (Danube Delta) POLAND (Mazurian Lakes) HOLLAND (Texel Island) FRANCE (Cama.-gue) Academy Travel Ltd 26 BLOOMSBURY WAY, W.C.I Telephone: HOLborn 2417 Hard weather lies ahead Have your Feeders ready New ‘Bird Sanctuary’ Catalogue No. BS/71 sent on receipt of 6d. A Snack-Bar is now available at 8/9d. for fixing to windowsills and food trays (place apple, fat, cheese, etc., on prongs) Food House l7/6d. -rf Peanut Feeder l4/9d. /X Tit Bell IO/9d. Food House Nestbox (BTO type) l3/6d. Giant Peanut Feeder (see below) l9/9d. Bird Ringing Equipment Catalogue 6d. DEPT. II, BIRDCRAFT GREENRIGG WORKS WOODFORD GREEN ESSEX THE PICK OF THE WORLD’S GREAT INSTRUMENTS ON 14 DAYS’ FREE TRIAL SEND FOR NEW ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE CHARLES FRANK LTD. 67-75 Saltmarket Glasgow C.l. Phone. BELL 2106/7 Est. 1907 Britain’s greatest stocks of New, Used and Ex-Govt. Binoculars, Telescopes and Navigational Equipment. Accredited agents for ROSS, BARR & STROUD, WRAY and ZEISS (both East and West Zones) TELESCOPES. The Charles Frank PANCRATIC 30 x to 55 x. £7 . 17. 6 The Charles Frank 22 X OG 50mm. PRISMATIC with tripod. £22 .10.0 NICKELSUPRA I5x to 60 x OG 60mm., £36 .12.0 From the current Japanese quota, we can offer a high quality 10 X 50 glass at £18 1 0s. and an excellent 8 x 30 at £12 10s. Both models are centre focus- ing and complete with case and straps. Approval facilities available. 6 x 30 ARMY BINOCULARS An excellent general purpose binocular of good performance, which will stand up to a great deal of rough usage Cost approximately £20. £7 • 15.0 The wildfowler who requires maxi mum brightness in all conditions wil do well to consider the Canadiai Naval 7 x 50 day and night glass: com plete in waterproof rubber case, ai amazing glass which will stand up t< an inordinate amount of rough usage £24. Incidentally, current value of ; glass of this quality would be about £60 CHARLES FRANK Large Tripod Mounted TELESCOPE 3" aperture. £57 .10.0 A WONDERFUL NEW BINOCULAR for the bird watcher Designed with the bird watcher in mind, the new 10 x 40 ROSS SOLAROSS embodies all the features which the bird watcher requires: Adequate magnification (lOx) 40 mm. object glass and fully coated optics to ensure maximum brightness Brilliant performance Centre focusing for speedier adjustment Streamlined design Lightweight — only 28 oz Compact with sensibly designed camera-type leather case and straps BRITISH MADE BY WORLD ,Q FAMOUS ROSS OF LONDON gns Plate 8. St. Kilda Wrens Troglodytes 1. hir/ensis and their habitat. Above, part of territories nos. 3, 4 and 5 in Village Glen (page 50), showing the cleits (dry-stone storage chambers) in which they nest. Below, note the pronounced bars on the flanks and the large-entranced nest (pages 49-64) ( photos : Estlin Waters) British Birds Vol. 57 No. 2 February 1964 Observations on the St. Kilda Wren By Estlin Waters (Plate 8) INTRODUCTION St. Kilda’ s distinctive race of the Wren Troglodytes troglodytes birtensis (plate 8b) has long excited the interest of naturalists. It was Martin (1698) who first mentioned Wrens on this lonely archipelago almost forty miles beyond the Outer Hebrides. The many subsequent accounts have been summarised by Armstrong (1953) and Williamson (1958). I was Medical Officer on St. Kilda between May 1961 and September 1962, and, except during short absences from 20th October to 1st December 1961 and from 20th February to 19th March 1962, I was able to make observations on the Wrens there at all times of the year. I was confined to the main island, Hirta, and as with all previous observers my studies were chiefly concentrated on the population inhabiting the Village Glen. TOTAL POPULATION OF HIRTA Williamson (1958) made a thorough study of past observations on the numbers of St. Kilda Wrens and showed that the only reliable method of estimating the population is by a dawn chorus census before the onset of nesting. Using this method in 1957, Williamson located 116 pairs on Hirta between 21st and 31st May. I repeated the census between 27th May and 4th June 1962, counting the singing Wrens between 03.45 and 05.30 hours* on all days when the weather was suitable. Winds were the main difficulty experienced, since accuracy tended to fall off rapidly as they increased, and counting was abandoned if they were above Beaufort force 4. To reduce further the effects of wind, the coastline was not always covered systematically on successive days, the route being varied to enable counting to be done on the *A11 times given in this paper are GMT. 49 BRITISH BIRDS Fig. i. Plan of Village area, Hirta, showing the approximate boundaries of the territories of St. Kilda Wrens Troglodytes troglodytes hirtensis in 1962. No Wrens were seen at the western end of the Village street in territory no. 2 {cf. fig. 2) ( drawn by Robert Gillmor) sheltered side of the island. My total for 1962 was 92 singing males on Hirta and this probably represents a real though slight decrease in the population from the figure of 1 16 obtained by Williamson in 1957. The general pattern of distribution was similar to that in 1957, with the main concentrations occurring on Carn Mor, the Mullach Bi coast and Oiseval. Bleak stretches, such as Na h’Eagan and most of the island away from the cliffs, were again sparsely populated. The survival rates of island Wrens are likely to depend on climate. Williamson (1958) suggested that the St. Kilda Wren was well able to survive severe storms but might suffer more in a cold spell. Winters on St. Kilda are extremely stormy and the island has been described as one of the windiest places in the British Isles (Green 1959). The winter of 1961-62 was no exception there and gusts of over 130 m.p.h. were recorded on an anemograph (Waters 1962). That the St. Kilda Wren survives in such conditions is due to its extremely close associa- tion at that time of year with shelter among rocks, as I have described elsewhere (Waters 1962). Storms are so frequent that it exists for most of the winter sheltering under and between rocks and crags; it does not even have to leave its rocky labyrinth to obtain food. It therefore seems unlikely that more frequent or more severe storms would greatly effect the population in winter. 5° OBSERVATIONS ON THE ST. KILDA WREN Fig. 2. Plan of Village area, Hirta, showing the approximate boundaries of the territories of St. Kiida Wrens Troglodytes troglodytes hirtensis in 1957 ( reproduced from Williamson ipfS) Winters on St. Kiida are usually a few degrees warmer than on Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides (Green 1959). Severe cold is uncommon; thus during the winter of 1961-62 air frost was recorded on only eight days, the minimum temperature recorded was 26° F. and the daily maximum was always above 320 F. Temperatures lower than this, if they do occur, are extremelv uncommon. Snow probably lies on the ground for up to 14 days each winter, and did so in 1961-62, but unless it is particularly deep, or accompanied by hard frost, it probably affects the St. Kiida Wren less than the European Wren T. /. troglodytes on the mainland, where the species has to forage more in the open. The troglodyte existence of the St. Kiida Wren is a good protection against both wind and snow. TERRITORY The size of the territory of the St. Kiida Wren varies considerably in different areas. The population is densest on Carn Mor, where in 100,000 square yards Williamson estimated nine or ten pairs in 1957 and I estimated eight pairs in 1962. It is less dense in Village Glen, where my territory observations were made. The extent of neutral zones in Village Glen has aroused some lively controversy in letters in this journal (Armstrong 1959, Williamson 1959). It was therefore 5i BRITISH BIRDS with particular interest that I studied this area in 1962. The boun- daries of territories, plotted from the positions of Wrens singing from March to June, are shown in fig. 1. This is compared with William- son’s results in 1957, reproduced as fig. 2. The size of the territories on the whole did not appear to have in- creased since 1957, despite there being one pair less in 1962. William- son (1958), after a review of past literature, said that it was clear that the situation of some territories remained much the same from year to year. This is strikingly demonstrated by figs. 1 and 2. As will be shown below, a similar constancy from year to year appears to apply also to the site chosen for the nest. It is unlikely that many of the 1:95 7 Wrens were alive in 1962 as, according to Armstrong (1955), the greatest age to which a Wren has been known to live is only five years. There is a large amount of neutral ground in Village Glen which is not defended by song; nor is it much used for obtaining food for the nestlings. After establishing the extent of the territories by observing singing Wrens, I confined my studies mainly to territories nos. 4, 5 and 6. Except for a small area of about 200 square yards among the boulders at the base of Oiseval and immediately above the enclosures at the south-east corner of territory no. 5, all Wrens seen during the breeding season were within the limits defined by the positions of singing males. It was only after the young had flown, when family parties moved indiscriminately around the Village Glen, that these territories broke down. Then family parties were seen unmolested in the neutral areas and in the territories of other pairs. I do not know at what stage the territories are again of importance, but it is certainly well before the following spring. In January and early February, when there was no song, a definite and consistent boundary had been established between the Wrens which later held the territories plotted as nos. 5 and 6. This remained constant at least from January until July. During January and February I could not drive a Wren along the stone walls from one territory into another. The Wren would become agitated as it neared the dividing line, start a noisy rattle, and finally break back past me, flying in an arc to the cover of the wall behind me. This flight in itself was unusual in the winter when the attachment of Wrens to rocky cover is so extremely strong. In the winter, as in the spring, territories nos. 5 and 6 were separated by a neutral zone about 75 feet across at the narrowest point. Armstrong (1955) suggested that a reduction in song implied a reduc- tion in territorialism. It would appear, however, that with the St. Kilda Wren territorialism occurs even during the complete absence of song. Even inside the territories shown in fig. 1 there were large areas of 52 OBSERVATIONS ON THE ST. KILDA WREN unsuitable habitat rarely or never visited by the Wrens. They were seldom seen on the arable grassland, for example. Harrisson and Buchan (1934) estimated that 85% of the food for the nestlings came from 1% of the area of the territory. This was certainly true in 1961 and 1962 in any short period of time (up to a couple of days), but the Wrens would then discover another area with a rewarding food supply and make repeated visits there instead. It was frequent, or even usual, for the male and female of any pair to work different areas, but these were not constant from day to day. (The sexes could often be differentiated in the field as one or the other was frequently a partic- ularly dark or light bird, though true dimorphism does not occur as there are many intermediates; in territory no. 3, where both birds were of similar coloration, the female was caught and ringed.) During the winter months the Wrens of Village Glen were even more restricted to certain parts of their territories, mainly along the dry-stone walls or, in the cases of those in territories nos. 1 and 7, among the boulders of the storm-beach. Even on the few calm days during the winter, they were rarely seen more than a few inches from the shelter of stones. While this protection may be essential for the survival of such weak fliers on such a stormy island, it severely res- tricts their foraging areas. During the winter they were seldom observed foraging around the cleits in territories nos. 3, 4 and 5 (plate 8a) except the ones built into the main stone walls. The other cleits are often separated by fifty feet or more of open grassland, a distance apparently sufficient to discourage Wrens from flying regularly from one to another. These Village Wrens had territories of over 10,000 square yards, yet in winter each was almost confined to a length of less than a quarter of a mile of dry-stone wall, with its incorporated cleits. SONG Conflicting opinions about the loudness of the songs of St. Kilda Wrens compared with those of mainland Wrens have been given in the past. So much depends on the acoustics of the surroundings, however, that further subjective impressions are of little value. Nevertheless, the song of the St. Kilda Wren is distinctly different from that of the mainland race: it is sweeter, has more trills, and lacks the ‘throaty’ quality of T. /. troglodytes. The seasonal incidence of song, as observed in 1961 and 1962, is given in fig. 3. This differs from that of the mainland race, which sings all the year round (Witherby et al. 1938), but is similar to that of the Shetland Wren T. t. ^etlandicus (Venables and Venables 195 5). My only December record involved a single song phrase, lasting about three or four seconds, on the afternoon of the 12th. No further song was 53 BRITISH BIRDS SONG OUTPUT 5 ■ 4- 3 2 ■ 1 ■ JAN MAY JUN JUL ???? T — ' ' T OCT NOV — r FEB MAR _l DEC T Fig. 3. The song output of the St. Kilda Wren Troglodytes troglodytes hirtensis, based on observations made chiefly between 08.00 and 10.00 hours in the Village area, Hirta. The figures indicate the number of twelve-minute periods per hour in which song was heard, calculated as weekly averages. The question marks show periods when no observing was done ( drawn by Robert Gillmor) noted until 20th February when short bursts we re heard at 07.30 hours and 10.30 hours. A complete record was kept of Wren song heard in each 12-minute period from 19th March to 14th June 1962, as well as occasionally at other times of the year. Fig. 3 is based on these observations. The amount of song at the end of March and during the first two weeks in April showed daily fluctuations and none at all was heard on 22nd, 25th and 26th March, nor from 30th March to 4th April. This may be related to the exceptionally cold spell about this period, as shown in fig. 4. From 5 th April song was heard daily until the third week in July, reaching a maximum during the last two weeks of May and the first week of June. The dawn censuses in both 1957 and 1962 were carried out during this peak period. From the end of the first week in April to the end of June there were well marked dawn and less prominent evening choruses. Occasional songs were heard during every hour of the day, with the fewest between 12.00 and 15.00. Wrens with nestlings up to a week old continued to join in the dawn chorus, but were then quiet for the remainder of the day. The evening chorus had ceased to exist by the end of June, when only an occasional song was heard after 11.00 hours. By early July the dawn chorus had become desultory and there was then less than a tenth of the amount of song heard on mornings in late May. By the middle of July there was no true chorus at dawn, but song was now spasmodic at all times of the day, even if rather less frequent in the afternoon; this pattern continued at least until well into October. My data show considerable differences from those of Harrisson and Buchan (1936) in late July and early August of 1931. During this period in 1961 and 1962 there was no evening chorus, nor did I note a second peak of song in mid- August. Harrisson and Buchan correlated the resurgence of singing which they recorded then with the young leaving the nest. In 1961 and 1962 all the young in Village Glen, 54 OBSERVATIONS ON THE ST. KILDA WREN 25th 1st 7th 14th 21st MAR APRIL Fig. 4. The relationship between song output of St. Kilda Wrens Troglodytes troglodytes birtensis and temperature in the Village area, Hirta, between 25th March and 23rd April 1962. As in fig. 3, the output is given as the number of twelve- minute periods per hour in which song was heard between 08.00 and 10.00 hours. The temperatures shown are the daily maximum and minimum screen temperatures. After 23 rd April both temperature and song remained fairly constant ( drawh by Robert Gillmor) where most of my song observations were made, had left the nest by the last week of July. Even then, however, there had not been an appreciable increase in song, the males still being fully occupied in carrying food for the young. This may indicate a poorer food supply than in 1931 and is perhaps evidence in support of Williamson’s (1958) view that the Village area is becoming less suitable as a Wren habitat. My observations elsewhere on Hirta, although not extensive enough for detailed comparison, suggest that song may have been more frequent than in Village Glen during July and August. The dawn chorus used to begin well before local sunrise (calculated from the Astronomical Epbemeris H.M.S.O. for a position 5 8°N, 8°3o'W). The first song of 1962 was 24 minutes before sunrise on 20th February. Table 1 gives the times of the first song compared with local sunrise on several other dates. St. Kilda Wrens were never heard to sing after sunset. The time 55 BRITISH BIRDS Table i. Time of first song of St. Kilda Wren Troglodytes troglodytes birtensis compared with time of local sunrise (all GMT) MAY JUNE JULY 13 th 26th 27 th 2nd 10th 12 th 15 th 23rd 5th First song 03.05 02.45 02.50 02.40 02.20 02.25 02.25 02.35 02.45 Local sunrise 04.16 03.49 03.49 °3-37 O3.32 O3.32 °3-3T 03.32 03.41 Minutes before 7i 64 59 57 72 67 66 57 56 of the last song varied only slightly during the main song period from about 18.35 hours in the third week of March (when it was only 14 minutes before local sunset) to 19.55 hours on 4th May (31 minutes before local sunset). It then became somewhat earlier and the latest song in June was at 19.42 hours on the 10th (112 minutes before local sunset). The usual territorial song of the St. Kilda Wren lasts from five to seven seconds, but is shorter than this early and late in the season. A longer and more subdued sub-song was heard on several occasions between 28th April and 10th June, when uninterrupted phrases of about 20 seconds frequently followed one another with only a second’s pause in between; the longest such phrase I timed lasted 31 seconds. These longer bursts were probably courtship songs, although a second Wren was not always apparent. On 28th April, when no mate was present, one Wren uttered two long sub-songs each of over 20 seconds, then gave a double chirp note and immediately moved along the storm- beach collecting nesting material. Armstrong (1955) has recorded that European Wrens occasionally sing courtship songs ‘absent- mindedly’ while engaged in building; from this observation it appears that St. Kilda Wrens may do the same. In the normal singing position the tail of the St. Kilda Wren is not raised, though it is cocked when the bird is excited or anxious. Only rarely did I hear counter-singing between two Wrens in the Village Glen, doubtless due to the small number now inhabiting this area; counter-singing was frequent on Carn Mor. Singing in flight was very common and was observed on most days in May and early June. The open terrain of St. Kilda makes this habit easily observed. Arm- strong (1955) regarded flight-song as playing a more important part in the insular races than it does among European Wrens. Feeding and singing often alternated, especially about the middle of the morning in May. I watched one Wren thus occupied on 20th May 1962: after several songs from a stance on the top of a dry-stone wall he stopped, darted five feet up into the air, caught an insect and flew on to another stone further along the wall, where he continued to sing. This was, 56 OBSERVATIONS ON THE ST. KILDA WREN incidentally, the only time I saw a Wren taking prey in flycatcher fashion. It is known that Wrens sing from progressively higher perches as the season advances. That this is particularly marked in the St. Kilda race is perhaps surprising in view of its general habitat. The Wrens of the Village Glen use man-made objects to obtain more prominent perches. Early in the year the song is delivered from walls and stones on the sides of cleits. By the end of April the highest stones on a length of wall or on the top of a cleit are selected as song- perches. A Wren on the storm-beach sang from the top of a rusty 40-gallon oil-drum which gave it a commanding view over the boulders. Early in May the Wren from territory no. 5 started singing from the top of the chimney-pot on the Factor’s House, and on 3rd June sang from an electric cable twenty feet above the ground. Strong winds at this time had little or no effect on the amount of song, but did drive the Wrens from the higher perches. By July the higher perches were no longer used. BREEDING The greater spread of nesting that occurs in the northern insular Wrens applies to the St. Kilda race, as has been shown by Williamson (1958). In 1962 none of the six pairs within the perimeter wall of Village Glen was double-brooded, but there was a considerable spread of nesting. I was able to record the dates when five of these broods left the nest: they were 24th June, 26th June, 5th July, 21st July and 22nd July. Ei none of these territories was the loss of a first brood suspected. Thus the spread of nesting in the Village area was four weeks. I found a nest with young on Carn Mor on 3rd June 1962 and these young had left by the 18th June, at least six days earlier than any in the Village area. My 1961 observations were less complete, but no second broods were suspected in the Village area where all the young had fledged by the end of July. Nest-building was observed between 19th April and mid- June; an isolated instance of nest-building in January 1959 has been published by Williamson and Boyd (i960). The nests were constructed mainly of dried grass with occasional green or dried moss, bracken and mud. As has been noted previously, the junction of roof and side wall inside a cleit is a frequent nest-site in the Village area. During late May and early June 1962 I carefully inspected all the cleits enclosed by the perimeter wall and east of Amhuinn Mhor, and also the group of cleits around Tobar Childa and the mediaeval village at the foot of Conachair. In this area there were 150 cleits that appeared suitable for Wrens’ nests. Thirteen Wrens’ nests were found inside these cleits, and at least seven were obviously recently built. Two remained 57 BRITISH BIRDS in sites where I had found them in 1961, while some others were probably two years old. In addition to these thirteen nests, there were the remnants of several much older ones. Only three of the seven or more recent nests were subsequently lined and used for breeding. The lining was of feathers, but some nests had wool as well (the island’s Soay sheep are sloughing their fleeces at this season). All thirteen nests were built at the highest convenient point inside the cleit. Their height, which thus depended on the height of the cleit, varied from 3 feet 6 inches to 6 feet 8 inches above the ground. All except one were situated in the half of the cleit nearest the doorway, sometimes immediately above the lintel stone over it. In the case of the only nest found well away from the doorway, the cleit was an especially well-lit one with several large gaps in the side walls. The siting of the nest near the doorway is probably related to the better illumination there, for, as described below, a Wren foraging late in the evening may have difficulty in entering a nest in the darkness of a cleit. The doorway is, however, little used as an entrance by the Wrens; they usually enter and leave through a series of chinks in the sides and far end. Twelve of the nests had the large side-entrances typical of this race (plate 8c). The remaining one was the only unroofed St. Kilda Wren’s nest I ever saw. Three recent nests were found in the Village area in sites other than in cleits, but only one of them was actually laid in. This, and the fact that only three of the seven or eight recent nests in cleits were used for breeding, suggests a rather larger number of cock’s nests than was indicated for the St. Kilda Wren by Armstrong (1953, 1955). In 1962 in the Village area there was an average of over one and a half cock’s nests to every nest used. In territory no. 6 three cock’s nests were completed before the pair finally built in a fourth site. The typical race in Britain, however, averages many more cock’s nests than this. The nest-sites used for breeding by the six pairs within the perimeter wall in 1962 showed a remarkable similarity to those recorded by Williamson (1958) in 1957 . The Wrens of territories nos. 4 and 5 nested in cleits. The pair in no. 3 reared their young in a little pocket under the collapsed turf roof of an old black-house (this nest was pointed out to me by Dr. J. Morton Boyd who had found others in the same building in several previous years). The Manse bird built a cock’s nest in the turf covering the roof of a cleit but later nested in the erosion scarp, as did the pair in territory no. 7. While the nests inside cleits had nothing to guard their entrances, those built outside these structures in the Village area and on the erosion scarp had their entrances sheltered and camouflaged by tufts of vegetation or turf. There was no evidence of polygamy among the Wrens in the Village area in 1962, nor did I suspect it during 1961. There was, however, 58 OBSERVATIONS ON THE ST. KILDA WREN an apparently unattached male in 1962. This Wren was colour-ringed when caught in a mist-net on the storm-beach on 28th April. His song output became gradually less during May while that of the other male in the territory increased. Both patrolled territory no. 7 and, although the colour-ringed bird usually kept more to the western end, there was a large area of overlap. By the end of May the colour- ringed bird was no longer to be seen on the beach. I saw him again early on the morning of 3rd June when he flew on to a cleit immedi- ately after the male of territory no. 4 had alighted there. The occupier of the territory sang loudly twice and then the colour-ringed bird flew off" in the direction of the Dry Burn without making a noise of any sort. During the time both were on the cleit they were cm opposite sides and not in each other’s view. My interpretation of this event was that the unattached male saw the other fly on to the cleit and, unsure of its sex, followed it. The loud ‘territorial’ song told him that the other was a male in possession of the territory, whereupon he left without a challenge. I never saw this colour-ringed Wren again. Incubation There are no previous data on the lengths of the incubation and fledging periods of the St. Kilda Wren, except that Williamson (1958) recorded that the combined period at one nest was 40 days. Table 2 summarises my observations at three nests in 1962. Table 2. Incubation and fledging periods at three nests of the St. Kilda Wren Troglodytes troglodytes birtensis in 1962 Territory Clutch completed Eggs hatched Incubation (days) Young left nest Fledging (days) Tobar Childa 2 1 st May 10th June 20 26th June 16 No. 3 — 19th June — 5 th July 16 No. 4 19th May 7th June 19+ 24th June 17 or earlier In all three cases the completed clutch was of six eggs. At the Tobar Childa site only one nestling eventually flew and two eggs remained in the nest for at least two days after it was deserted; the fate of the other three eggs is not known as disturbance was kept to an absolute minimum (the nests were visited once or twice each day and inspected while the adult Wrens were away foraging). The eggs in territory no. 4 were cold when felt on the first three days and, although the clutch had been completed on or before 19th May, they were probably not brooded regularly until the 22nd. The observations on incubation given in table 3 are the first for the St. Kilda Wren. All incubation was by the female as is the case with 59 BRITISH BIRDS Table 3. Incubation rhythm at two nests of St. Kilda Wren Troglodytes troglodytes hirtensis in Village area on various days in June 1962 Time (GMT) Screen temperature (° F) Days before hatching Average duration of brooding (minutes) Average duration of absences (minutes) IO.OO-II.OO 5i° I 15.6 5.0 12.00-13.00 5i° I 7.6 3-9 13.00-14.00 52° 1 7.0 3-5 14.00-15.00 55° 5 9-3 5.0 15.00-16.00 55° 3 9.0 6.8 17.00-18.00 5i° I 11. 6 6.0 17.00-18.00 543 O 12.0 3-3 18.00-19.00 50° I 13-3 6.3 18.00-19.00 5i° 5 Remained on nest 18.00-19.00 50° 2 Remained on nest 19.00-20.00 50° I 13.6 3-7 20.00-21.00 53° O 12.4 3.0 the other races of this species. The male patrolled the territory, sang and occasionally visited the area of the nest which, however, he never entered. The longest brooding session I observed was 25 minutes, the shortest six minutes. The extremes of foraging times were twelve minutes and one minute. At the time of the last observation in table 3 at least one, but not all, of the eggs had hatched. At this nest the parent continued to make sorties, returning from the last one at 21.27 hours — only about eight minutes before local sunset. On this return she appeared to have some difficulty in finding the entrance to the nest in the fading light inside the cleit. I do not think she was bringing food. These observations may not be typical because they occurred close to hatching, but they do suggest that incubating St. Kilda Wrens sometimes have a longer active day than other races (see Armstrong 195 5). This could be related to a poorer food supply. Nestlings Except in the case of the Tobar Childa nest all the eggs of a clutch hatched within a period of twenty-four hours. All egg-shells were removed and carried well away from the nest within the following twenty-four hours. The visits of the male became more frequent about the time of hatching, and from the first few days he took a roughly equal share in the bringing of food at all three nests watched. This was so even at the Tobar Childa site where only one nestling was hedged. During the first few days brooding continued both by day and by night. On one occasion both adults were together in the nest for seven minutes ; the young were then three days old. 60 OBSERVATIONS ON THE ST. KILDA WREN Observations on the feeding of nestling St. Kilda Wrens have been made by other observers. Harrisson and Buchan (1936) recorded 10 to 13 visits per hour with both parents active. Bagenal (1958) observed a much higher rate with 20 to 30 feeds per hour for the greater part of the day. Bagenal remarked that his results were more comparable to those obtained for other races and particularly the mainland form. My own observations at the nest in territory no. 4, though covering only three hours, are given in detail in table 4 as they support the findings of Harrisson and Buchan both in the rate of feed- ing and in the periods of ‘rest’ away from the nest which Bagenal found extremely rare. Such intermissions are not prominent in mainland Wrens feeding young, but have been observed in the Hebridean Wren T.'t. hebridensis (Armstrong 1955) and the Shetland Wren (Yeates 1948). Table 4. Number of visits to nest in territory no. 4 of St. Kilda Wrens Troglodytes troglodytes hirtensis on 9th June 1962 when the six young were two days old Time (GMT) Visits 6 per $ hour .001). Unfortunately the number of immature birds was too small for any comparisons to be made among them. The range of weights — 1,140 gm. to 2,i5ogm. — was exaggerated by the extremes of males which had just eaten and of females with empty stomachs. It is not unusual for a Great Black-backed Gull to take in as much as 300 gm. of food in a meal, so that the true range of weights was probably in the region of 700 gm. The weights were analysed by months, but, although the lowest monthly average occurred in June when the birds would have been feeding young, the variations were not significant. During i960 it was noticed that male gulls tended to have longer and deeper bills than females and so the relevant measurements were then obtained from as many individuals as possible. Drost (1938) showed that 19 Herring Gulls L. argentatus examined by him could be sexed by the product of the bill length and the maximum and minimum bill depths and, though his sample was too small to be conclusive, Dunnet and Anderson (1961) have recently outlined a similar method 71 Table i. Measurements of Great Black-backed Gulls barns marinus killed on Skokholm and Skomer Islands, Pembrokeshire -o S % .9 -a « c -g 2 5 C/3 u W ►J < S U4 U< O bO cS O z I I I OO I I I r-~ o vo a oo o \o ^ C<~\ o m NO r^* ^ r-~ r- Tt- -t oo O I I I 1 I I I V bD G oo NO OO o o CN O M M I | M | | T i i N | | C3 o OO M eT\ Ph r^~ NO NO M M Nt* M I I I ^ On On | co r- r- M M M N | | | OO r~~ I NO CN r- I erv r-» r- r- M M "0 g ™ 2 -8 3 2 g c n -a w ►j ■< S o bO C d c2 u too d Vo < O Z oo VO I I I N A CN N I I NO o ON I | I CN N VO I I I >-* o o ON oo M o N o o t-4 o N *S~\ | tr> I 1 lev | N N CO N ■ I o NO ^ 1 A N r- OO o r- Cn NO xt- Tt* Kr-\ h-< e<-\ NO VO M CN . r~- i oo cn r- CN CN vf rf I r* ^ -O T3 ^ VH C » >v S. 3 >* -a y y < * c • • *-4 C/> «» of jj *5 2 *c3 r— C/3 N o •s do a 'D CJ ,U T3 a ol a o ^3 TJ a £ o cj ■fl a 03 -CJ 0 01 cj .3 01 'TD CJ -CJ J3 60 3 o ■3~ U-i if ° C/3 *_• « 5 8 § J2 M 01 C « .s ^ > o 6 -G -G ol -O O u a, CJ o 03 JG .2P £ U4 CJ C/3 -Q O O 3J *n > 03 — « > ^3 CJ H 03 C/3 CJ o *C CJ ~a a« o ^ C jc cj tj CU ol CJ CJ n *•< § •" r^- u ►H W4 C/0 1 o Sg o S5 — t/} — CJ o -G ■S s - "3 -G o T* « U.SG " J3 O O o VO «*n V CJ C/0 - a ^<2 -o CO o o vo vo* CJ V <-2 o ^ Z o o m CO CO T3 -Q fcfitw V cj c .S ° o y ~ •- > a o 2 a o o O Cm i 03 ^ £ **^ £ , u CJ CO o o -Cj *_» *-« 1/5 s ^ C/3 VJ -4-» CO N • C M CJ P s 3 c« [-J in c CQ — G3 , ««. *-< vj 2 ^ 2 % d 03 £ *3 »h Q ol CJ b J3 co ^ v* « ? r* « O, 03 CJ ^ aS^ *2 o o o o o r- I o o o o o o ir\ N o o c o N o o T ■5, 1 o 00 o ”'3* o o VO o vrs o o On O N o oo 0 C- GS It O 3 ^ CO U-i J 8*1 o N I VO erv I ’'3* I I S/ercorarius pomarinus BRITISH BIRDS shoals of fish and at times the birds formed an almost solid raft on the sea. Whilst it was impossible to determine the species of fish on which they were feeding it is most likely that these, too, were Sprats. Few Manx Shearwaters P. p:tffinus were recorded during this period ; indeed, as will be seen from the table, they were outnumbered by the Sooty Shearwaters. This is difficult to explain. Possibly the fish were rather too large for Manx Shearwaters to swallow comfortably, as most of the Sprats killed in the estuary appeared to be full grown and four to five inches long. Auks were also unusually scarce, only three being recorded — an unidentified one on 22nd August and two Puffins Fratercula arctica on the 27th. Large flights of Kittiwakes and skuas are not unusual in the Tees bay region and elsewhere on the north-east coast of England, but these usually take place during on-shore gales and are the result of the birds being swept against a lee shore. Quite obviously this concen- tration had little or nothing to do with the wind force or direction which was off-shore throughout the whole period. I wish to thank the following, whose observations and counts, at times rather tedious, enabled the above summary to be written: J. A. Bailey, C. Bielby, D. Devonport, the late G. W. Coates, Miss E. R. Forster, E. C. Gatenby, R. J. Lightfoot and R. T. McAndrew. P. J. Stead Shelduck hiding with young. — At 6.15 a.m. BST on 2nd July 1961 I visited a derelict house on some grazing marshes in north Kent where I had the nest of a pair of Shelducks Tadorna tadorna under observation. The nest was in a room where straw bales covered the floor to a depth of two feet or more, but the eggs had been laid in an open site in the fireplace. As I approached, the drake flew away from the spot where he normally loafed about twenty yards from the house. On looking into the building, I found that the eggs had hatched and the female was standing with her brood of six on one of the straw bales. She greeted my sudden appearance by lowering her head and hissing loudly; almost simultaneously, she spread her wings protectively over the ducklings. After a moment’s hesitation, she then scampered towards the nest and vanished down an adjacent hole in the straw, all the while uttering a subdued ak-ak-ak. The ducklings followed her, running in a line and piping loudly. Because of the risk of crushing the birds, I went away and allowed them to depart before examining the hole which, facing the nest and two feet six inches from it, was in the edge of the straw on the peri- meter of the hearth. It was about two feet deep and had no other exit, but between it and the nest was a well-trodden track and, although I had never noticed her doing so, the female Shelduck had clearly 78 NOTES been in the habit of using it as a hiding place, presumably during incubation. I have recently described hiding behaviour by females incubating in trees and burrows ( Wildfowl Trust Fourteenth Annual Report 1961-62, pp. 168-169). The above observation supports the idea that it may be general and suggests that Shelducks nesting in open sites may prefer ones which have adjacent hiding places. John Hori Oystercatcher caught by mussel. — On 28th August 1963, at Fresh- field, near Southport, Lancashire, I saw an Oystercatcher Haematopus ostralegus standing in a shallow pool and picking at some object in the water. Suddenly it began to splash vigorously, beating the water with both wings, before walking out of the pool with a mussel Mytilus edulis apparently in its beak. It then stopped and stood with its head down and the mussel pressed against the sand. I approached and it remained motionless until I was within about 15 yards. It then attempted to fly, but could not raise itself more than a few inches before it tumbled head first into the sand. I gave chase and, though it was ab'e to run, caught it without difficulty to find that the mussel had closed over the tip of its beak. Measuring about 2| inches in length and weighing approximately half an ounce, the mussel was clearly of sufficient size to unbalance the Oystercatcher, making flight impossible and even running rather difficult. I had to use considerable force to remove it. The bird could never have freed itself wffiile the mussel w^as alive and it seemed likely that it would have died first. Afterwards the Oystercatcher remained quietly on my hand, but flew- off quite normally when throwm in the air. Peter Bennett [This note is of particular interest in connection with the paper on ‘Oystercatchers and mussels’ by Dr. N. Tinbergen and M. Norton- Griffiths which appears elsewffiere in this issue, on pages 64-70. Dr. Tinbergen has commented: ‘As showm in our paper, we have strong indications that large mussels are expertly stabbed under wTater (wffien they are open slightly) so that the adductor muscle is cut clean through. If this first stab misses, however, the Oystercatcher is likely to get its bill caught.’ Two earlier observations of Oystercatchers with mussels on their bills were recorded by John Hori in his note on ‘Waders being caught by cockles and mussels’ (Brit. Birds , 5 5 : 445-444), but the birds concerned were both able to fly normally. In addition, Derek Goodwin has drawn our attention to an old Chinese fable about an Oystercatcher trapped by a mussel in this wav. In the fable the Oystercatcher gets out on to the bank and says to the mussel, ‘Well, so long as it does not rain today or tomorrow, you will 79 BRITISH BIRDS die’ and the mussel replies, ‘Yet if it does rain, you will be the one to die’ — but just then a man comes along, catches them both and takes them home for a two-course meal. Mr. Goodwin adds that when he first read the fable he thought that the originator had picked too large a wader to be rendered flightless by a mussel, but Mr. Bennett’s observation proves him wrong.— Eds.] Herring Gulls breeding in Inner London. — One of the two large sea-bird aviaries in the Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park, London, lies adjacent to the southern boundary and faces a wide area of grass. It abuts immediately on to the sea-lion pool and is close to some penguin and large mammal enclosures. Between the aviary and the pool is a large, artificially stratified mound of rocks, across the top of which the eastern side of the aviary runs. The aviary itself contains several species of European sea-birds, particularly the larger gulls. These clearly act as decoys for wild gulls, not only numerous Black- headed Gulls Laras ridibundus but also Common Gulls E. carats. Herring Gulls E. argentatus , Lesser Black-backed Gulls L.fuscus and even Great Black-backed Gulls E. marinas. In autumn and winter particularly, as many as fifty of the larger species can be seen over the aviary, often coming down to take the fish-scraps and other food left uneaten by the sea-lions, penguins, bears and other animals. The regularity of such occurrences has increased markedly over the last five years. In i960 a few Herring Gulls started to linger on in spring and one was seen on the aviary roof as late as 7th May that year. In 1961 the presence of a pair was confirmed on 16th April and a week later, on the 23rd, a long period of display ended in copulation. Mating was again noted on the 24th, and on the 30th one of the pair was discovered on a nest on top of the rock mound. Laying was evidently in progress, and the bird was seen to turn at least one egg. On 2nd May egg-turning was noted again. It is not clear what happened eventually, for, although one bird was still sitting and apparently turning eggs on 3rd June, the extended length of the incubation period suggested an infertile clutch. Whatever the cause, the nest was deserted during the next week and the two Herring Gulls themselves left soon afterwards. In 1962, the presence of a pair was noted even earlier, by 28th March, and they were settled on the nest rocks by 15 th April. Unfortunately the nest-site chosen was hidden and what exactly happened is not known. Eggs were laid but they disappeared and the pair left at the end of May. In 1963 the spring and summer population of Herring Gulls rose to five adults, and occasionally an immature was seen as well. Two pairs were formed, but only one nested. Again, the nest-site was well 80 NOTES hidden, being amongst much more plant cover than in previous years. In fact, the adults were so secretive that the first evidence of breeding was the sighting of a two-thirds fledged chick on i ith July. A second juvenile was first seen on the 16th and there were three together on the 2 1 st. The young left the nest rocks on 2nd August and the family was not seen after the 9th. This is the first breeding record for the Herring Gull in Inner London and, indeed, the London area in general. Clearly the presence of a captive gull flock, the fairly ready supplies of food and the tiny but well simulated breeding habitat were the major factors in the birds becoming established. Behaviour seen on many occasions suggested that the breeding pair regarded themselves as part of the aviary colony, where young are also reared. The observers on whose notes the above account is based included John J. Yealland, R. C. Green, H. Fossey, D. Wood and myself. D. I. M. Wallace A second Slender-billed Gull in Sussex. — Having had the good fortune to be one of those who saw the Slender-billed Gull Laras genei at Langney Point, Sussex, in the summer of i960 (Brit. Birds, 55: 169-171), I have since been on the watch in case I should encounter this species again, though I never really expected to do so. However, on 28th April 1963, when my wife and I were visiting the gravel pits at Rye Harbour, Sussex, I noticed amongst some Black-headed Gulls L. ridibundus a gull which at once suggested a Slender-billed by its much longer bill and different silhouette. W e watched it there and at a neighbouring pit for the next hour, at close ranges both in flight and on the water, and we were able to compare it with Black-headed Gulls under ideal light conditions. It was clearly a Slender-billed Gull in first-summer plumage. Its most striking feature was its bill, which was nearly half as long again as that of a Black-headed Gull and curved down towards the tip, ending in a more pronounced point; it was dark at the tip and reddish towards the base. In flight the bird’s neck was longer and more slender than that of a Black-headed Gull and on the water it held its head higher. There was a small dark smudge behind the eye and another on the nape, much paler and less extensive than the dark markings on the head of a first-summer Black-headed Gull. Its tail was longer than a Black-headed Gull’s and in flight the distance between the feet and the end of the tail was greater. Apart from the head, its plumage was very similar to that of the corresponding stage of the Black-headed Gull, except that the browns were lighter. Its legs were dark and the under-sides of its feet yellowish. The bird was perhaps somewhat larger than a Black-headed Gull 81 BRITISH BIRDS and the longer neck and tail gave it an entirely different silhouette, so that it was comparatively easy to pick out, even with the naked eye. Only the second to be recorded in the British Isles, it was identical in structure and plumage to the first one, at Langney Point, except that the dark smudges on the head were even less marked. On several occasions it opened its bill and apparently called, but unfortunately the sound could not be heard above the din made by the other gulls. It eventually disappeared towards the River Rother and was not seen again. R. H. Charlwood House Martins nesting on new bridge over motorway — At Upper Strensham, Worcestershire, there is a bridge over the M.5 Bristol to Birmingham motorway. It was one of the last to be com- pleted in April 1962 before the motorway was opened to the public on 20th July 1962. On 24th October 1963 I noted that House Martins Delicbon urbica had built a nest on a ledge at the top of one of the pillars and against the underside of the bridge. The bridge at this point is about 19 feet 6 inches above the road surface and the nest was almost over the fast lane of the motorway. From the amount of droppings on the side of the bridge pillar directly below the nest, it seemed likely that a brood had been successfully reared. T. C. E. Link [Apart from illustrating the House Martin’s ability to put up with noise and disturbance in its nesting area, this note is of interest in showing the speed with which newly constructed sites may be taken over by the species, in this case in the year after completion. In Spain, too, the provision of new bridges in the last decade or two has apparently increased the numbers of House Martins and also of Red- rumped Swallows Hirundo daurica (Brit. Birds, 56: 417). — Eds.] Linnets and House Sparrows feeding on birch seed. — On three occasions in November 1962 I watched from two to four Linnets Carduelis cannabina feeding on seeds of birch Betula sp. from trees growing in a wooded depression at Flampstead Heath, London. Usually the feeding Linnet would draw the catkin towards itself with its bill ?nd then hold it with its left foot while removing the seeds, in the same manner as a Redpoll C. flammea or Goldfinch C. carduelis does. Sometimes, however, if a catkin was near enough, a Linnet would peck seeds from it without attempting to hold it steady as the Goldfinches and Redpolls, which were on each occasion feeding near-by in the same tree, appeared invariably to do. At Hampstead Heath and Richmond Park, where birch trees grow among or near bushes in which House Sparrows Passer domesticus roost, and in those parts of south-east London where weeping birches have been planted along the roads, blouse Sparrows also regularly feed in 82 REVIEWS numbers on birch seeds taken direct from catkins in the trees. In doing so they show considerable agility in spite of their apparent clumsiness and they do not, so far as I have seen, attempt to hold catkins with their feet. Derek Goodwin [Dr. J. S. Ash, who has now joined the small team of experts to whom notes are shown before acceptance, has commented: ‘I have several times seen small numbers of Linnets with Siskins C. spinus. Redpolls and Goldfinches feeding on birch and alder Aims glutinosa. This has been in an area where very large flocks of Linnets have been feeding near-by on other food.’ — Eds.] Review A Study of Bird Song. By Edward A. Armstrong. Oxford University Press, London, 1963. xiv+335 pages; 17 plates; 43 figures and 14 tables. 45s. Far more work has been done on the vocal behaviour of birds than of all other animals combined. Much of it is of excellent quality and it is illuminating for investigators of other groups to refer to bird studies in the interpretation of their results. Until now this has been difficult for anyone unfamiliar with the copious and widely scattered publica- tions of ornithology. E. A. Armstrong’s new book, with its exhaus- tive review of the English and German literature, thus fulfils a need felt by general zoologists and ornithologists alike. Within the frame- work of a ‘natural history of bird songs and calls’ the author contrives to cover all the major aspects of the subject, the only obvious lack being a review of the physical methods of sound analysis which have provided many of the data he discusses, and which can be less easy to interpret than is sometimes assumed. He begins with a discussion of the size of the vocal repertoire, hampered somewhat by variation in the judgement of different investigators about whether sounds which grade into each other should be labelled as one call or divided into several. Nevertheless, some realistic comparisons are made, Blackbirds for example having a relatively small repertoire (9 sound signals, with the song representing only one of these) and Chaffinches a larger one (21 signals). The function of these sounds is approached from a discussion of the various types of information that they convey to other birds, and he concludes that there is ‘ample justification for speaking of bird utterances as language’. A survey of the physical properties of bird sound begins with pitch, loudness and quality, considering such phenomena as the range of sound frequencies represented in songs of different species and the occurrence of transposition from one key to another. The relation- 83 BRITISH BIRDS ship between these might be explored still further. For example, the boom of the Bittern is heard at far greater distances than the song of the Goldcrest not only because the booming is much louder when it is produced, but also because it is lower pitched and therefore fades out less rapidly with distance. In a review of the temporal aspects of song and subsong, the author shows a healthy reluctance to commit himself to any fixed set of terms by which the different parts of songs can be classified. This would surely be premature until more different types of songs have been analysed, particularly some of the more complex ones. The deve- lopmental basis of song is dealt with concisely in summaries of recent work, including W. H. Thorpe’s Chaffinch studies and the contribu- tions from Germany by E. and I. Messmer and H. and G. Thielcke on the complex role of learning in the development of Blackbird song. Mrs. Joan Hall-Craggs’s fine study of tiffs species (Ibis, 104: 277-300) appeared too late to be included. Mimicry of other species is an important and fascinating subject and yet it has received little special study. The author’s review serves well to give a tantalising foretaste of the rich yield in behavioural and ecological material that would accrue from a thorough study of the processes and functions of natural mimicry in one of the more talented common species such as the Jay or the Starling. Later chapters of the book become more concerned with functional questions. What is the significance of song dialects as signs of incipient species formation? What are the relative demands of defence, mate selection and other factors in the evolution of territorial song ? The multiplicity of functions that is brought out under such headings as song flights, pair-formation song, courtship and nuptial song, nest- invitation and incubation songs, roosting and migration songs, and the relationship between song structure and habitat, is a timely re- minder for those of us who sometimes use a simple view of song function as a point of departure for theoretical discussions. The factors which determine the seasonal and daily times of singing, or the singing of females as well as males, are shown to be equally complex. The excellent survey of the effects of light, temperature and weather demonstrates how external factors can affect the behaviour. It is a challenge for physiologists interested in behaviour to give us the complementary picture of the hormonal and neural mechanisms res- ponsible for the patterns that characterise each species and sex. Perhaps the most original chapter in the book is the last, on bird song as art and play. Zoologists are often concerned that the empathy with animals which can bring them into the subject may in turn be damaged by the analytical approach that science requires. The conflict is peculiarly strong in studies of bird song, and has led some to 84 LETTERS adopt rather anti-scientific positions. Maybe birds just sing because they enjoy it ? The implication is that those who seek for the biological function of song are missing the main point. The author shows clearly and elegantly that this is a false position. The aesthetic properties of song can be explored in parallel with the analysis of function without any necessary conflict between the two. The book thus serves to quell the doubts that amateurs may have about a scientific approach to bird song, as well as providing facts and ideas to those already committed to studying animal vocalisations. On both counts A Study of Bird Song serves a valuable function, for which bird-watchers and biologists alike can be grateful. Peter Marler Letters ‘Industrial’ discoloration of House Sparrows Sirs, — I was rather interested in Ian Woodward’s suggestion (Brit. Birds, 56: 470-471), following my note on ‘industrial’ discoloration of House Sparrows Passer domesticus (Brit. Birds, 56: 296-297), that white patches on sparrows near chemical works might be due to the bleaching effect of the chemicals on the feathers. I think that this is improbable. While darkening of a feather may result from a deposit on its surface, bleaching could occur only if the chemical agent invaded the structure of the feather to reach the pigment sealed in it. A member of the British Museum staff, R. Nash, recently made a number of attempts to bleach feathers for use in exhibits and experimented with a large range of apparently suitable chemical agents, but found that none of these reached the melanin pigments of the feathers— -with the result that bleaching was not possible. When a feather has lost pigment through long exposure to sunlight or through the effects of genetic mutation, it has a weak structure and wears away rather rapidly. A feather attacked by chemicals to such an extent that pigment was lost would be likely to fall to pieces and one would expect to see birds with bald patches rather than white feathers. There is thus no evidence at present that feathers can turn white through contact of the outer surface with chemicals, and white patches such as Mr. Woodward described are almost entirely of genetic origin. C. J. O. Harrison Photography and sound-recording to reinforce sight records of unusual birds Sirs, — I fully sympathise with R. E. Scott’s unwillingness to drag round a camera and tape-recorder while trudging over the Dungeness 85 BRITISH BIRDS shingle, merely on the off-chance of encountering a rare bird (Brit. Birds, 56: 384): personally, I should not dream of doing anything so impracticable! It is obvious that such a bird will often be seen when the watcher is devoid of photographic or sound-recording equip- ment, so, in the first place, he will naturally follow the normal sight- recording procedure. However, if the bird obligingly stays put (as is often the case with tired vagrants) and he is then able to return with camera or tape-recorder, the value of his observation should be enhanced (see Brit. Birds, 56: plates 61 and 64 for excellent examples of supporting field and ‘captive’ photographs). Where the apparatus must be carried for any distance on foot, the weight should certainly be reduced to a minimum and need not, in my opinion, exceed the following: Miniature camera with 50 mm. and 300 mm. lenses 5 lb. Light-weight, battery-operated, transistorised tape-recorder 7 lb. Light-weight, 18-inch, aluminium reflector with microphone and headphones lb. No tripod is included in this list, since I normally hold both camera and reflector in the hand. Only for special reasons do I consider carrying the camera and the tape-recorder simultaneously. Where a locality is accessible by car, one can take the equipment in it and in East Africa, where I live, birds are usually more tolerant to a moving car than to a person on foot, so that they can often be photo- graphed or sound-recorded from it. Opportunities for this tech- nique may be more limited in Great Britain, but could perhaps be exploited now and then. Similarly, a boat is frequently useful for approaching water birds. However, the watcher who is prepared to photograph or sound- record must sometimes indeed become one of Mr. Scott’s ‘beasts of burden’ and carry his equipment on foot, though he will do this only when the results are expected to justify the exertion; and helping to clinch a sight-record is surely just the time when such an exertion is abundantly justified? Myles E. W. North News and comment Edited by Raymond Cordero Joint committees on toxic chemicals. — The Association of British Manufacturers of Agricultural Chemicals has joined with five bodies concerned with natural history to set up two working committees, one to study the technical aspects of problems of farm chemicals in relation to wildlife and the second to deal with communication and education in the safe use of chemicals. The bodies concerned are the British Trust for Ornithology, the Council for Nature, the Game Research Association, the Nature Conservancy and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. 86 REQUEST FOR INFORMATION London Zoo’s new aviary. — At the Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park, London, the new Northern Aviary, designed by the Earl of Snowdon in association with Cedric Price, is now taking shape. Its basic skeleton is formed by tubular aluminium tetrahedral pyramids sixty feet high, the idea being ‘to leave the birds in an open air habitat, provide the essential requirements for their well-being and at the same time allow visitors to see them at close quarters in flight or nesting’. There will be a continuous elevated footbridge along a cliff outside to give a comprehensive view of the aviary, across which will run a series of waterfalls feeding a pool below. A tentative list of the occupants of the new aviary includes ibises. Lesser Flamingos, perching ducks, waders, rollers, Demoiselle Cranes, herons and avoccts. British Museum appointment for ornithologist. — Sir Landsborough Thomson, C.B., O.B.E., D.Sc., LL.D., Chairman of the Bird-Ringing Committee and Editor of the British Ornithologists’ Union’s forthcoming A New Dictionary of Birds, has been appointed to the new Board of Trustees of the British Museum (Natural Plistory) set up separately under the 1963 Act of Parliament. Sussex site threatened. — Although the proposal to build a marina at Manhood End, near Birdham, Sussex, has run into a snag, the Sussex Naturalists’ Trust regretfully believes that the scheme must be successful eventually. The loss of Manhood End would be a sad blow to Sussex bird-watchers, for it has been a likely port of cail for uncommon species visiting Chichester Harbour ever since the pool in its present form was first excavated. Little Ringed Plovers nested for a number of years; the first Little Egret for Sussex was recorded there in 1952 and another in 1959; and in 1963 the second Sussex Stilt Sandpiper visited the pool. Recoveries of European hirundines passing through Morocco. — Last year’s expedition to eastern Morocco, organised by Mr. and Mrs. E. D. H. Johnson, who were accompanied by Dr. J. S. Ash, K. D. Smith and Robert Spencer, established a temporary bird observatory at Defilia Oasis, near Figuig, between 1st and 18th April, during which time 2,001 birds of 47 species were ringed, weighed and wing- measured. Of these, 1,485 were Swallows and 104 were Sand Martins. The expedition trapped four Sand Martins -which bad been ringed in England, the Nether- lands, France and Germany, and two Swallows which had been ringed in England and Germany; since then two Sand Martins ringed by the expedition have been recovered in England and one in Germany, and two Swallows in England, one in France and one in Italy. Request for information Crossbills in 1963. — A review of the occurrences of Crossbills Loxia curvirostra in Great Britain and Ireland in 1963 is being prepared by Peter Davis, and readers are asked to let him have, as soon as possible, any records other than those which have already been sent either to this journal or to Kenneth Williamson. It is known that, following the 1962 irruption, Crossbills were present in the early months of 1963 in at least thirty-three counties outside the Scottish breeding-range, and nesting was proved in at least six. Any further records of nesting, and any evidence that Parrot Crossbills L. pytyopsittacus remained in the British Isles, would be particularly welcome. The new irruption of July and August 1963 clearly resulted in large increases inland and many birds were still present late in the year, but much more information is required. At Fair Isle nearly 120 out of 130 trapped in August 1963 were adults, and any counts showing age/sex proportions would be of great interest. All records should be sent to Peter Davis, British Trust for Ornithology, Beech Grove, Tring, Hertfordshire. 87 V ’n JAM964 n r t ii i, f cr: Recent reports By I. J. Ferguson-Lees (These are largely unchecked reports, not authenticated records) This brief summary covers mid-November 1963 to early January 1964 and thus follows on after the one in the January issue {Brit. Birds, 57: 43-48). Numbers of Redwings T urdus iliacus and Fieldfares T. pilaris were well below normal in many parts of Britain at the turn of the year, and in Ireland Redwings were described as ‘desperately scarce’ ; the big movements of Redwings and other thrushes in October (57: 47) presumably invclved populations which winter in France and Iberia. On the other hand, some winter species are here in exceptional numbers. Snow Buntings Plectropbenax nivalis are being widely reported on the east coast in sizeable flocks, and in many places Shore Larks Eremopbila alpes/ris are associated with them. At Cley (Norfolk) the Shore Larks reached the remarkable total of 85 on 2nd January; small parties of four or live were also reported in November and December on the coasts of Lancashire, Cheshire and Flint where this species is seldom seen. Long-tailed Ducks Clangula by emails appeared in unusual numbers on the East coast from Durham to Norfolk in November, concentrations of up to thirty or more being reported, and the scattering of ones and twos further south included three in Jersey (Channel Islands) in December, the first ever recorded there. Bewick’s Swans Cygmts columbianus started to arrive in the region from East Anglia across to Derbyshire and Somerset in late November, but the numbers were low until late December, when, to take one example, there were 5 2 at Eye Brook Reser- voir (Leicestershire). Redpolls Carduelis flammea. Siskins C. .pirns and Bramblings Fringilla tnontijringilla continue to be widely reported, as do Crossbills Loxia curviros/ra (see page 87). The Waxwings Bomby cilia garrulus (5 7 : 44) reached a peak in the middle ten days of November and then numbers started to fall away, pre- sumably because of the poor berry crop. Parties of 30 or 40 on the east coast in December may have been fresh arrivals and it was only odd ones and twos which appeared in such counties as Nottingham, Derby, Stafford, Leicester, Hereford, Gloucester, Wiltshire and Cornwall. Wintering or delayed Blackcaps Sylvia atricapilla and Chiffchaffs Pbylloscopus collybita were fairly widely reported in December and early January, and it is interest- ing to note that there was an arrival of twenty Chiffchaffs on St. Agnes (Isles of Scilly) as late as 28th November. Among other late summer-visitors were a few early December Swallows Hirundo rustica and House Martins Delichon urbica, chiefly south of a line from the Severn to the Wash. More surprising were Ring Ouzels T. torquatus in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire at the end of December and Yellow Wagtails Motacilla j. lava (showing a variety of racial characters) staying for two weeks or more in Derbyshire, Cheshire and Lancashire in late November and early December. Rarities included a Lesser White-fronted Goose A user erytbropus in Norfolk and a Red-breasted Goose Bran/a ruficollis with the White-fronted Geese A. albifrons at Slimbridge (Gloucestershire), both from the end of December; a male Ferruginous Duck Aythya nyroca at Holme Pierrcpont (Nottinghamshire) from 24th November to 13th December and two more (one immature) at Snettisham Norfolk) on 7th December; a male Two-barred Crossbill Loxia curviros/ra near Welwyn (Hertfordshire) on 22nd December; and a sub-adult Sabine’s Gull Xema sabini at Hartlepool (Co. Durham) on 24th November. More remarkable was an American Robin T. migratorius which was trapped on St. Agnes on 20th December after it had been seen on the island for about two weeks, apparently accompanied by a second one at times. St. Agnes also produced a Greenish Warbler Pb. trocbiloides on 26th and 27th November. 88 New. . . Revolutionary Binoculars ZEISS Eric Hosking using his Zeiss binoculars for bird watching Specially designed for spectacle wearers Mr. Eric Hosking, F.R.P.S., M.B.O.U., the celebrated ornithologist, says: 'lam more than pleased and delighted with my 8 x 30 B Zeiss binoculars and have found them invaluable now that I have to wear spectacles all the time'. With these new Zeiss binoculars the user— even when wearing spectacles— has the advantage of a field of view many times larger than that normally obtained when using binoculars with spectacles. This has been achieved by the use of an entirely new eyepiece unit. Like all the latest Carl Zeiss binoculars, the new 8 x 30 B is also fitted with the unique Zeiss tele-objective system which gives improved performance with smaller size. For full details of the unique Zeiss range and the name of your nearest stockist, please write to the sole U.K. importers: Degenhardt & Co. Ltd Carl Zeiss House 20/22 Mortimer Street London, W. I LANgham 6097 (9 lines) The West Wales Naturalists’ Trust Ltd (formerly the West Wales Field Society) Membership of the Trust is open to all who are interested in the study and conservation of wild life in Wales. The annual subscription of £1 Is. Od. (£1 by Bankers’ Order) entitles members to: (a) free issue of Nature in Wales which appears half-yearly; (b) field excursions, lectures and meetings; (c) visit, without landing fee, the island sanctuaries and nature reserves of Skomer, St. Margaret's, Skokholm, Card gan Island and Grassholm (owned by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and wardened by the Trust). The activities of the Trust include the co-operative study of animals, birds and seals and the recording of their distribution and habits. publications (post free): The Birds of Carmarthenshire by G. C. S. Ingram and H. Morrey Salmon, 5s.; A List of Pembrokeshire Plants by F. L. Rees, 3s.; Skokholm Bird Observatory Reports for each year to 1963, 3s. each; Nature in Wales, back numbers, 3s. THE WEST WALES NATURALISTS’ TRUST LTD 4 Victoria Place, Haverfordwest, Pembs SMALL ADVERTISEMENTS / 21- for 3 lines ( minimum ) ; 41- for each extra line or part thereof. For the use of a Box Number there is an extra charge of I/-. Hampshire Bird Report 1962. 6s. 6d. post free from J. H. Taverner, 13 Stockers Avenue, Winchester, Hants. Bardsey Bird Observatory. Assistant war- den required April to June inclusive in return for accommodation and food allowance. Suit student awaiting university entrance. Apply Hon. Sec., The Cottage Farm, Ipsley, Nr. Redditch, Worcs. Bardsey Bird Observatory. Open March to September. Courses of a week each in May/June led by Peter Davis, Eric Ennion and Kenneth Williamson respectively. Apply (S.A.E.) Mrs. Walton, 51 Mount Road, St. Asaph, Flintshire. Kyle & Glen Minicoaches. Luxury travel anywhere N of the Great Glen and Cairn- gorms. Stop when you wish to visit reserves, watch birds, take photographs. Direct transport to Handa. Day rate £12 party up to eleven. Send 4d. stamp for brochure to D. C. Hulme, Muir of Ord, Ross & Cromarty. Yugoslavia. A few places are available in a party leaving by air on 9th May for a two-week trip to the Danube marshes near Belgrade and to southern Macedonia. Inclusive cost about £55. S.A.E. for further details to B. L. Sage, 1 1 Deepdene, Potters Bar, Middlesex. For sale. Private collection of books on ornithology. S.A.E. for lists to W. G. McKendry, 89 Moorhill Crescent, Newton Mearns, Glasgow. For sale. Volumes of British Birds, 1955 (bound) to 1960, all in perfect condition. A. M. Common, 29 Ladbroke Road, London, W. I I . Recently published books available from WITHERBY’S BOOKSHOP The Handbook of British Mammals edited by H. N. Southern. This is the first complete handbook of British mammals to be published in this country. It has been written by members of the Mammal Society of the British Isles, edited by H. N. Southern and illustrated mainly by Robert Gillmor. The last 50 years have seen enormous advances in know- ledge of our native mammals, and an ever-increasing demand for an up to date, definitive handbook. This book is designed for all interested in British mammals — the several thousand professional biologists, the hundred thousand members of national and local natural history societies, and the many thousands more who hear or watch sound and television programmes on natural history. It will be an essential tool for the professional zoologist and amateur naturalist alike. 512 pages, 55 text figures, 60 photographs. 37s. 6d. Quest under Capricorn by David Attenborough. An account of the author’s journey through the fascinating northern territory of Australia. 38 photographs including 5 in colour. 21s. Animal Ways and Means by Eric Roberts. A book for the younger reader concerning the more unusual behaviour of animals, including birds and insects. Illustrated. 15s. Wildfowl in Great Britain edited by G. L. Atkinson-Willes. A complete survey of distribution and habitats. 14-page colour section from paintings by Peter Scott. 28 half-tones, 60 line drawings and 364 pages. 45s. The Birds of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight by Edwin Cohen, M.B.O.U. 16 plates of photographs, and line maps and drawings in the 270 pages of text. 30s. Pictorial Encyclopaedia of the Animal Kingdom by V. J. Stanek. 16 colour plates and over 1,000 remarkable photo- graphs. Magnificent value. 25s. Bird Migration by Robert Spencer. A comprehensive intro- duction to the subject. 9 plates of photographs and 13 figures. 12s. 6d. The Birds of the British Isles, Vol. XII, by D. A. Bannerman and G. E. Lodge. 63s. Birds of the Atlantic Islands, Vol. I, by D. A. Bannerman. 84s. Please address all enquiries to The Manager, Witherby’s Bookshop 61/62 Watling Street, London, E.C.4 or telephone City 5405 ALL BOOKS SENT POST FREE BIRD WATCHING CALLS FOR THESE ATTRIBUTES IN BINOCULARS ★ LIGHTNESS OF ★ WIDE ANGLE WEIGHT OBSERVANCE ★ MAXIMUM LIGHT ★ CLARITY OF TRANSMISSION VISION The WRAY has them all Write for 16-page illustrated brochure on binoculars BINOCULAR MANUFACTURERS FOR SO YEARS WRAY (OPTICAL WORKS) LTD-BROMLEY-KENT Printed in England by Diemer & Reynolds Ltd., Eastcotts Road, Bedford Published by H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Wading Street, E.C.4 British Birds *] v. /.. Principal Contents ' 1 PURCi'L\Cf « Insecticides and Scottish Golden Eagles J. D. Lockie and D. A. Ratcliffe Late nesting in Britain in i960 H. Mayer-Gross Studies of less familiar birds : 126 — Parrot Crossbill Viking Olsson (with four plates) Notes Reviews Letters News and comment Vol. 57 No. 3 March 1964 THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE British Birds AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY JOURNAL Editors Stanley Cramp, I. J. Ferguson-Lees, P. A. D. Hollom, E. M. Nicholson Photographic Editor Eric Hosking Editorial Address 30 St. Leonard’s Avenue, Bedford 'News and Comment ’ Rarities Committee Raymond Cordero D. D. Harber Rohan Lodge, Wadhurst Park 1 Gorringe Road Wadhurst, Sussex Eastbourne, Sussex Contents of Volume 57, Number 3, March 1964 Page Insecticides and Scottish Golden Eagles. By Dr. J. D. Lockie and Dr. D. A. Ratcliffe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Late nesting in Britain in i960. By H. Mayer-Gross .. .. .. 102 Studies of less familiar birds: 126 — Parrot Crossbill. Text and photographs by Dr. Viking Olsson (plates 13-16) .. .. .. .. .. .. 118 Notes : — Juvenile Moorhen brooding eggs (Kevin W. Robertson) .. .. .. 123 Least Sandpiper in the Isles of Scilly (D. I. M. Wallace) . . . . . . 124 Stilt Sandpiper on Lincoln/Norfolk/Cambridge borders (Dr. C. D. T. Minton) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Stilt Sandpiper in Sussex (M. Shrubb) .. .. .. .. .. 126 Common Terns breeding in Bedfordshire (J. N. Dymond) . . . . 127 Ring Ouzels attacking Adder at their nest (John Anderson) .. .. 128 Exceptional longevity in Reed Warblers (R. Long) . . . . . . 128 Reviews: — Wildfowl in Great Britain edited by G. L. Atkinson-Willes. Reviewed by R. C. Homes The Birds by Roger Tory Peterson and the Editors of Life. Reviewed by Dr. Ian D. Pennie Birds of the World by Oliver L. Austin, Jr., and Birds of the World by Hans Hvass. Reviewed by Stanley Cramp 129 Hi 132 Letters : — Mallards killing and eating House Sparrows (Dr. Bruce Campbell) .. 133 Vernacular names in English (Dr. Robert W. Storer) . . . . . . 134 News and comment. Edited by Raymond Cordero .. .. .. .. 135 Annual subscription £ 2 6s. (including postage and despatch) payable to H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Watling Street, London, E.C.4 ive you affixed your I ESTBOXES r this season? heydon’ Observa- an l4/9d. Standard .T.O.) non-obser- tion type l3/6d. \ rge Rustic Obser- tion 21 /9d. NEW: ‘Snack-bar’ 8/9d. BUILDER'S YARD Our popular BUILDER’S YARD s four compartments for moss, aol, hair, etc., and can also be used r food (invaluable for watching and aotographing birds gathering nest- l material) l8/6d. nd 6d. for new ‘Bird Sanctuary’ Catalogue Nestboxes and Feeding Devices, No. BS/71 ;ant Peanut Feeder (see below) l9/9d. atainable only from 6PT. II tRDCRAFT PRODUCTS lEENRIGG WORKS OODFORD GREEN 5SE X The Isle of May A Scottish Nature Reserve W. J. EGGEL1NG BOOKS ON BIBOS Catalogue on request /HELDON & WESLEY LTD Lytton Lodge Codicote, Hitchin, Herts The Isle of May, lying in the Firth of Forth, has been renown- ed for over a century as outstand- ingly interesting to naturalists, especially as a station for the study of bird migration. Dr. Eggeling of the Nature Conser- vancy has known the Isle since boyhood, and was concerned with the building of the Bird Observa- tory there. He is now secretary of the committee in charge of it 35 half-tone plates 30s. OLIVER & BOYD Recently published books available from WITHERBY’S BOOKSHOP Birds of the Atlantic Islands, Vol. I, by D. A. Bannerman. 84s. The Birds of the British Isles, Vol. XII, by D. A. Bannerman and G. E. Lodge. 63s. A Study of Bird Song by Edward A. Armstrong. 17 plates and 335 pages. 45s. Scotland’s Eastern Coast by Lesley Scott-Moncrieff. A guidebook from Berwick to Scrabster. 41 photographs. 25s. A Sailor’s Guide to Ocean Birds by Ted Stokes with illus- trations by Keith Shackleton. Atlantic and Mediterranean. 6s. Wildfowl in Great Britain edited by G. L. Atkinson-Willes. A complete survey of distribution and habitats. 14-page colour section from paintings by Peter Scott. 28 half-tones, 60 line drawings and 364 pages. 45s. Quest under Capricorn by David Attenborough. An account of the author’s journey through the fascinating northern territory of Australia. 38 photographs including 5 in colour. 21s. The Birds of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight by Edwin Cohen, M.B.O.U. 16 plates of photographs, and line maps and drawings in the 270 pages of text. 30s. Pictorial Encyclopaedia of the Animal Kingdom by V. J. Stanek. 16 colour plates and over 1.000 remarkable photo- graphs. Magnificent value. 25s. Bird Migration by Robert Spencer. A comprehensive intro- duction to the subject. 9 plates of photographs and 13 figures. 12s. 6d. Animal Ways and Means by Eric Roberts. A book for the younger reader concerning the more unusual behaviour of animals, including birds and insects. Illustrated. 15s. The Handbook of British Mammals edited by H. N. Southern. The first complete handbook of British mammals to be pub- lished in this country. Written by members of the Mammal Society of the British Isles, edited by H. N. Southern and illustrated mainly by Robert Gillmor. 512 pages, 55 text figures, 60 photographs. 37s. 6d. Please address all enquiries to The Manager, Witherby’s Bookshop 61/62 Watling Street, London, F..C.4 or telephone City 5405 ALL BOOKS SENT POST FREE British Birds Vol. 57 No. 3 March 1964 Insecticides and Scottish Golden Eagles By J. D. Lockie and D. A. Ratclijfe Nature Conservancy 1 Introduction .. .. .. 89 Sources of insecticides in [■Breeding success in Scotland . . 90 eagle eggs . . . . . . 98 FFactors affecting breeding success: Conclusions .. .. .. 99 (a) Disturbance by man .. 91 Acknowledgements .. .. 100 (b) Climatic change . . . . 92 Summary . . . . . . . . 100 (c) Changes in food supply and References .. .. .. 10 1 population balance . . 93 Methods of analysis of eggs for (d) Toxic chemicals . . . . 95 chlorinated hydrocarbons . . 102 INTRODUCTION ^Observations at eyries show that the nesting success of Golden Eagles Aquila chrjsaetos in Western Scotland has declined in recent wears, especially since i960. Broken eggs have become a common occurrence in circumstances where interference by man can be ruled out and many pairs have failed even to lay. The Peregrine Valeo peregritius in Britain has recently suffered a serious decline in numbers; with this decline has been associated the breakage of eggs by the birds themselves, infertility and failure to lay and, finally, death (Ratcliffe 1963). Similar decline in numbers or breeding success has occurred in Sparrowhawks Accipiter tiisus and Kestrels Valeo tinnunculus in southern parts of Britain, and in Ospreys Pandion haliaetus and Bald Eagles Haliaetus leucocephalus in America (Cramp 1963, U.S. Fish and Wildlife 1963). In the cases of these last five species there is reasonable evidence that the changes have been produced by the persistent chlorinated hydrocarbons used as pesticides, which accumulate to harmful levels in the predator from small doses present in contaminated prey. There is growing evidence that chlorinated hydrocarbons are involved in the instance of the Golden Eagle too, and this paper presents the case. 89 BRITISH BIRDS Table i. Breeding success of Golden Eagles Aquila chrysaetos in west Scotland during 1937-60 and 1961-63 The percentage in the ‘broken eggs’ column excludes pairs robbed or not breeding, and the percentage in the last column excludes eyries with eggs where the outcome was unknown Total Number and % Number Number and % Number Number and number of of pairs of pairs of eyries with with eggs but % of eyrie; Years pairs not breeding robbed broken eggs outcome unknown with young 1937-60 40 1 (3%) 4 5 (M%) 4 26 (72%) 1961-63 39 16 (41%) I 8 (36%) 4 (29%) BREEDING SUCCESS IN SCOTLAND A great deal of information on breeding success contains a bias because many observers who find a known eyrie unoccupied do not persevere to check whether the pair really is not breeding or whether it is nesting elsewhere. Eagles normally use different nests in different years ; they may have several nests and these may be from a few yards to three miles apart. In assessing breeding success, therefore, we have relied on our own information, which does not have this bias. By comparing the periods 1937-60 and 1961-63 in western Scotland from Argyll to Sutherland, table 1 shows that the proportion of pairs of eagles not breeding (i.e. which built a nest but did not lay eggs or which did not even repair a nest) has increased from 3% to 41%; that the proportion of eggs broken in the nest has increased from 14% to 36%; and that the consequence has been a decrease in the number of pairs rearing young from 72% to 29%. The only reliable data for comparison are those given by Watson (1957) who found that approximately two-thirds of the eagle popula- tion in an area of the central Highlands reared young between 1944 and 1957. This figure is similar to our pre-1960 figure for the west. One curious aspect of the present situation is the number of clutches of eggs broken in the nest. Table 2 summarises the information. Table 2. Proportion of eyries of Golden Eagles Aquila chrysaetos in west Scotland which had broken eggs during 1937-63 Total eyries examined Number Percentage (excluding ones robbed or of eyries with of eyries with Years where birds not breeding) broken eggs broken eggs 1937-50 9 I u% 1951-60 26 4 15% 1961 6 1 17% 1962 7 2 29% 1963 9 5 56% 90 INSECTICIDES AND GOLDEN EAGLES which shows an increase in the proportion of eyries with broken eggs, particularly since 1961. Ratcliffe (1958, i960) found the same in both Peregrines and Sparrowhawks in Britain, and actually watched one Peregrine eating its own eggs; in other cases circumstantial evidence pointed to the same conclusion — that the eggs were destroyed by their owners. Only at one eagle eyrie were broken eggs possibly the result of predation (by Pine Marten Martes martes) and at another due to the accident of falling ice; in all the remaining instances of egg breakage we concluded that the eagles themselves were responsible. There were no grounds at all for believing that human interference was involved. The other main cause of the present low breeding success has been the apparent inability of many female eagles to produce eggs. In these cases eyries have usually been partly repaired, but not completed to the last details of the lining, and no eggs have been laid. Usually, too, the eagles have remained attached to the nesting cliff and once one was flushed from an unfinished eyrie where, to judge from the down at the nest, it had been brooding for seme time. Empty nests which have been robbed are always completely lined and the owners are usually less in evidence; only in a small proportion of nesting failures has robbery been known or suspected (table 1). In some cases failure to lay has been associated with the occurrence of juvenile birds: there were four instances in 1962-63 of a juvenile being paired with an adult, and in the former year one instance of a pair of juveniles holding a territory. For the rest, however, inability to lay has not been due to immaturity. Prior to the onset of decline in breeding success, one egg in the normal clutch of two quite commonly failed to hatch and when two chicks hatched one often died. It was rare, however, in our experi- ence, for both eggs not to hatch and unknown for both chicks to die. However, in 1962 the single eaglet of an inaccessible eyrie was found dead on the ground below and at another found in July 1963 (No. 2 in table 4) there were pieces of one egg below and two addled eggs in the nest. FACTORS AFFECTING BREEDING SUCCESS This decline in breeding success is widespread since the evidence is drawn from an extensive tract of western Scotland between Argyll and Sutherland. For an explanation, therefore, we have to look for some equally widespread yet recent environmental change. The possible factors are few: disturbance by man, climatic change, food supply in relation to population balance, and toxic chemicals. (a) Disturbance by man For over two centuries the Golden Eagle in Britain has been harried BRITISH BIRDS severely in the interests of sheep-farming, preservation of game (mainly Red Grouse L,agopus lagopus scoticus) and egg-collecting. Such disturbance is usually blamed for its early disappearance from England and Wales as a nesting species and its later extinction in Ireland and southern Scotland. But, whatever the damage done, human activities have not prevented the Golden Eagle from maintaining a strong population in the remoter parts of the Scottish Highlands, where the deer forests have been its safest refuge. There has even been some indication of a recovery during the last three decades, with recolonisa- tion of long-deserted nesting haunts in some areas, particularly the Hebrides. This has also happened in Galloway, where, after only sporadic nesting by odd pairs for many years, at least three pairs have bred regularly since 1952. One pair even nested in Northern Ireland from 1952 to i960. There have also been recent hopes of a re-estab- lishment in the Lake District where, in the last few years, two separate adult Golden Eagles have built nests; but, although these have been repaired annually, neither of the two birds appears to have mated and no eggs are known to have been laid. There is some evidence (e.g. Sandeman 1957) that certain southern districts of the Highlands are marginal for eagles, since human dis- turbance causes heavy adult mortality which is not balanced by the local output of young and breeding does not occur regularly in all territories. Even so, until the last few years, the breeding success of the Scottish Golden Eagles has certainly been sufficient to maintain the firmly established nesting population, and at the same time to provide a surplus which attempts to recolonise marginal and long-lost ground outside the districts of relative sanctuary. Disturbance is thus most serious in its effects beyond the established geographical range, rather than within the ancient strongholds to which our data refer. The recent tendency to extension of range may, in fact, reflect a lessening of persecution over the Highlands as a whole. Certainly, we believe that there has been no increase in shooting, trapping, deliberate poisoning, egg-collecting or even casual disturb- ance to account for the sudden fall in breeding success in the areas we have studied. From our acquaintance with the local scene it is un- likely that pairs which failed to lay eggs were molested in any way, and the high incidence of broken eggs seems accountable only in terms of a recently introduced factor. (b) Climatic change Climatically induced changes in bird populations involve shifts in the limits of distribution, with slow advance or retreat along a broad front. The present eagle situation in Scotland has involved quite a different kind of change — namely, a sudden drop in breeding success spread 92 INSECTICIDES AND GOLDEN EAGLES over a large part of the geographical range. This explanation is therefore discounted. (c) Changes in food supply and population balance The dependence, directly or indirectly, of numbers and density on food resources has become one of the central principles of animal population studies. It seems that, over a wide range of organisms, there have evolved regulatory mechanisms which adjust numbers to available food supply, whether this be constant or varying. Available food supply alters when there is change in the controlling environment or in the numbers of organisms competing for the same food. The question is posed: has the food supply of Golden Eagles changed by itself, or have the numbers of eagles grown so as to deplete their food supply? Taking the latter part of the question first, we have shown above that in some areas, notably in the Hebrides since about 1940, there has been an increase in the breeding density of eagles, resulting from the re- colonisation of ancestral sites unoccupied for many years. One factor has been the increased supply of sheep and deer carrion (Darling 1955, Lockie and Stephen 1959). But in the areas from which our data come there was no significant change in breeding density from 1956 to 1963 (Lockie in press). Likewise, Brown and Watson (1964) found that the breeding population of eagles in four widely separated dis- tricts of the Scottish mainland remained almost constant between 1944 and 1962. Eagles appear to be territorial and so reach a maximum level of breeding population beyond which any further increase is prevented by some kind of mutual interaction. That the surplus may move out is shown by the fairly frequent records of Golden Eagles in northern England and even in Snowdonia (Wales) during the last ten years. But some of the surplus, both adults and juveniles, may remain to live a nomadic existence in the territories of other eagles. It is extremely difficult to count such birds but they are evidently present, for an . eagle that has lost its mate usually finds another before the following breeding season (Browm and Watson 1964). Clearly, an increase in this part of the eagle population could reduce food supply or cause the kind of physiological upset (for example, cessation of breeding) associated with high densities of animals. However, we do not think that surplus birds have increased in our study areas in recent years. Coming now to the food supply, the most widespread recent change in wild prey in Scotland occurred in 1954 and 1955 when myxomatosis decimated the population of Rabbits Oryctolagus cuniculus over much of Britain. Buzzards Bu/eo buteo in south-west England and Wales were temporarily affected by the scarcity of Rabbits there and many of them 93 BRITISH BIRDS ceased breeding, though some built nests (Moore 1956). In Scotland the shortage of Rabbits affected certain pairs of eagles and thereafter lambs (some killed, most carrion) appeared regularly in these eyries. But most of the pairs included in tables 1 and 2 have never had access to Rabbits and so could not be affected by their scarcity. Moreover, Rabbits declined rapidly in 1955, but the effects we describe became clear only after i960. Over large areas of western Scotland other wild prey is deficient, but this is not a recent development and in Wester Ross the eagles are known to remedy such deficiencies by eating lambs and the calves of Red Deer Cervus elaphus in spring, and sheep and deer carrion, of which there is a great deal, in winter (Lockie in press). Over the last sixty years the Peregrine in the western Highlands seems to have suffered a slow decline due to a decrease in the bird populations of the region (particularly Red Grouse), this in turn resulting from excessive exploitation of the poor land for sheep and deer. But there has been no sign that the eagle, with its far more catholic choice of food, has been affected by these changes. Rather has the reverse been true, for eagles have replaced falcons at a number of old breeding haunts where, at the turn of the century, J. A. Harvie-Brown and others knew Peregrines alone. In two areas of the west, the island of Rhum and the Reay Forest in Sutherland, the removal of the sheep stocks during the last few years has substantially reduced the available food supply. While we have no data prior to this change, low breeding success now obtains in both areas and might here be justifiably blamed on the reduced food supply. Yet over the rest of the western Highlands we cannot detect any recent widespread change in food supply to which the sharp decline in eagle breeding success could be attributed. In early 1962 in partic- ular, mortality of sheep was unusually severe and there was a great deal of carrion all over the western Highlands; yet eagles had a poor breeding season that year. Wynne-Edwards (1962) has suggested that egg-breaking by Pere- grines is a form of birth control brought about when numbers are high in relation to resources and the idea could equally well be applied to the Golden Eagle. However, since this phenomenon has only recently become widespread in both species, the above explanation presumes that the necessity for such population control has also only arisen recently. From Wynne-Edwards’s arguments, one obvious cause of such behaviour would be a change in balance between population and food resources towards effective food shortage. For the Peregrine, however, this explanation is inconsistent with the evidence: first, there is no sign of a recent fall in gross food supply; and secondly, the British Peregrine population has suffered a serious decline during the last eight years, yet egg-breaking has increased during this period and in 94 INSECTICIDES AND GOLDEN EAGLES some areas has continued as numbers dwindled almost to extinction (Ratcliffe 1963). Sparrowhawks have also commonly destroyed their own eggs in areas where there has been a marked decline in population. There is strong evidence that toxic chemicals are responsible for the decreases in both the Peregrine and the Sparrowhawk. To anticipate a later section, we regard egg-breaking in these species, and in the (.Golden Eagle, too, as pathological behaviour resulting from contami- nation by pesticide residues. Some of these substances are nerve poisons and might produce behavioural disturbance, or metabolic dis- orders resulting in perversion of appetite of the kind called pica in human beings. This is not to deny the truth of Wynne-Edwards’s explanations in other contexts and, at a physiological level, two entirely different causes may produce very similar effects. To summarise, we believe that the widespread decline in the breeding success of eagles in western Scotland cannot be explained in terms of cchange in balance between population and food supply. ((d) Toxic chemicals Ten eagles’ eggs from seven eyries in Argyll, west Inverness-shire, Ross-shire and Sutherland were taken for chemical analysis in 1963. 'Methods and full results are given in appendix 1 and table 3. These 'show that every egg contained measurable amounts of three or four 1 chlorinated hydrocarbons — lindane (gamma-BHC), heptachlor epoxide (a metabolite of heptachlor), DDT and its metabolite DDE, and dieldrin. The presence in Golden Eagles of pesticide residues is thus demonstrated beyond doubt. The vital points are whether or not tthe levels of contamination are harmful and what proportion of the population is thus affected. There is no direct information at all about the effects of any insecti- cide on the Golden Eagle and only meagre information for any species about the amount needed in the adult to produce a given quantity of pesticide in an egg, the amount needed to kill or upset development of eeither embryo or chick, and also the amount needed in the adult to produce deranged behaviour (e.g. egg-breaking). However, a number of lines of reasoning and evidence all suggest that chlorinated hydro- carbons are the cause of the observed decline in breeding success (apart from the negative argument that none of the other possible factors provides an explanation): (1) The details of the present situation in the Golden Eagle are so strikingly similar to those which preceded or accompanied the decline in the populations of the Peregrine and the Sparrowhawk, species in which the same pesticides were, beyond reasonable doubt, the causal factor. Moreover, the Bald Eagle in the U.S.A. outside Alaska has, like our Scottish eagles, had extremely poor breeding success in recent 95 rc^ VO Cv •v 8 c« •M o u C/D i. be « W c v 2 o a to be be u « be 3.9 v ai U-i y i rt O -2 C ft O y ** » R u -2 ^ O 33 3 .S „ « u ti u H (j .G o •* ""Ps 33 jp y ji a 8 3 °.S w « o - w S ” s ^ CS C/3 o c« ' C/3 o 'S.'S " 2 -a u £ -STJ « S hn-a y *~s o <-> * Cl *C GJ ^ -C ^ U r- C/3 +J c/3 V-i S ^ « „ -w a; r C £ rf Crt .2 o QJ d> *-> *-'' C< -2 S T3 co X ^ O C « ^ « u S< jy Cum cl d> +-* -v-j '§ o C/3 G : o Vl d> -r- C/3 n o ^ « cj to VH Vi O cl _ *.s * d> ■ U be a d> - VI d Cl cu a o *’"' T3 d _ d d d (U C/3 C/3 ^ 34 « vS- U 3 _* C3 33 ^3 S « C U > 3 -30 'd G 9 c/) d> 3 3 *c/3 d 4-* a> Q cn 3 d H o JJ f*i . 4^ — < tr ^ d 3 ^ g a Cfl “> JJ d) d xJ vi ^ « S J3 8 c ^ ^ tj 5J 2 d T3 o i3 w r> 43 -3 ^ 3 ^ 2 -§ ^ •- U C rg 4 c ^ ,3 8 n Jj3 o « °2 g » »a • 2 u S, g g^j3 “ O o' o o ^ r* O T3 C U, CJ be o _ o ' ' u _ UW V .£ j.,2 d v „ 5 O ° I be ■■ — " "' - u o &|| M_g ^2 o o g O > 3 u og W “ Cl^ C4-1 pH rj 4C Sc a 'c s o u o o_- UU sa g « ^3 -3 33 -a U ■ 'O O Qi 1-^ > l* 8-S B ^ ^ c/3 cr o d ^ ^ d _, -w a ^ I -a p T3 d v Cn VO CV OO VO O O VO r^> vo 'u 0 g n, N 6 10 -* VO r- r-< Cv N M- g ON fCv VO M cO CO H-l N CO O _G a CL, VO M M M M 6 d O 0 O go O O O O 0 0 O 0 vo d) 6 O O O OO VO 0 OO vq 5 be h- r- N VO 4- OO M a. 0 VO r- CO »o CM co Cv M *-> Cv Cv O O vo CO N N V a C) O N M O O O O 0 d) Cu cu q 6 q 6 q 6 O 6 q d O O d d q d q d 2 * 43 X CU H* V X 0 0 0 0 0 VO 0 0 bJD N M 0 VO VO r- co co 1 CO a. 6 M M N O 0 d d O u \rs CX) O 00 0 0 0 O r- C/3 V3 N V-* O g g ' — ' ■v* ti U O • vr u d u to r CO V u 3 CO 1 CO 4J 'O 0 0 8 G CO Pi v/3 Pi O d) d) VI "O a lo 1 d) 43 v» 6 d) > c 00 d> G oJ > < < 0 C/) G H-l G HH £ >> /Ov /O /O O O w CN| CO VO VO V — / N — ' v-/ INSECTICIDES AND GOLDEN EAGLES years; for example, in the central Atlantic states only about 8% of Bald Eagles reared young in 1962. Although levels of contamination of wild caught Bald Eagles varied, the tissues of several such birds, as well as three eggs which failed to hatch, showed high concentrations of DDT or its metabolites (U.S. Fish and Wildlife 1963). Captive Bald Eagles fed with DDT died when the level of DDT in the liver was about 43 parts per million, although there was much individual ■variation. (2) Of the seven pairs of Scottish Golden Eagles whose eggs were ..analysed, the record of breeding success during the last two or three \/ears is worst in the territories where the eggs contained the largest .amounts of insecticide. In these eyries egg-breakage is correlated with amounts of dieldrin exceeding one part per million (tables 55 and 4). (3) Experimental studies have shown that hatching success and i:hick survival in Bobwhite Quail Colitius virginianus is significantly rceduced on winter diets containing one part per million of dieldrin, no p.p.m. of heptachlor, 25 p.p.m. of lindane or 200 p.p.m. of DDT ITable 4. Dieldrin residues in eggs of Golden Eagles Aquila chrysaetos in west Sicotland in 1963 in relation to recent history of breeding success at the eyries concerned Although Golden Eagles pair for life, it is impossible to be certain that there had aeen no changes in these pairs through the death and subsequent replacement of ndividuals. Eyries 4 and 7 were counted as successful, in spite of the addled eggs, \>ecause a single eaglet was reared in each (see page 90); the residue figure for the egg from eyrie 4 is an estimate (see table 3) Residues in 1963 iyrie Recent history of breeding success (parts per million) ■I) 1962: eggs broken by eagle. 1963: one egg broken by eagle and one egg taken for analysis 6.90 «) 1962: no young reared. 1963: one egg broken by eagle and the Other two, which failed to hatch, taken for analysis 1.30 1.58 5) 1962 : bred successfully. 1963 : one egg taken for analysis and the other failed to hatch 1. 11 -4) 1962 : unknown. 1963 : one young reared and addled egg taken for analysis (0.68) <5) 1961 : bred successfully. 1962: eggs broken (possibly by Pine Marten Maries marles). 1963: one egg taken for analysis; second egg later kicked out of nest and also taken 0.37 0.17 5) 1961: eggs in eyrie at end of April. 1962: unknown. 1963 : both eggs taken for analysis 0.32 0.29 7) 1962 : unknown. 1963 : one young reared and addled egg taken for analysis 0.04 97 BRITISH BIRDS (De Witt and George 1959). All these pesticides were found in Scottish Golden Eagle eggs. Again, in Pheasant Phasianus colchicus, within four days of beginning dosage with aldrin (which breaks down to dieldrin in the tissues) at between 4 and 8 p.p.m. in the diet, egg production ceased and the ovaries atrophied (Post 1951). Allowing for considerable variation in effect according to the pesticide, species and individual, it is evident from these findings, and from the wealth of data about the toxicity of these chemicals to wild birds, that the levels of contamination found in at least some Scottish eagle eggs cannot be dismissed as harmless. And it must be remembered that these amounts in eggs reflect a still higher concentration in the body of the parent bird (Rubin et al. 1947). (4) While broken eggs were occasionally found from 1952 onwards, marked decline in breeding success occurred only after i960. This accords with the fact that dieldrin, the most toxic insecticide found in eagle eggs, has been in widespread use in eagle country only since the late 1950s. (5) Breeding success has not declined in the eastern Highlands where different food habits make pesticides largely unavailable to eagles (see later). SOURCES OF INSECTICIDES IN EAGLE EGGS We obtained the eagle eggs from a wide area of the western Highlands and, since all contained chlorinated hydrocarbons, the source of these chemicals must be equally widespread. Sheep dips are the only source which accounts satisfactorily for such general contamination, remem- bering that much of the region is wild upland with little or no culti- vated ground. Since about the late 1940’s, DDT has been widely used in sheep dips, while BHC and dieldrin followed in the early and late 1950’s respectively. The dipping of sheep is a normal practice and most of the western Highlands is managed as sheep walk, there being only a few limited areas run exclusively as deer forest. Over all this region, sheep carrion is an important part of the diet of Golden Eagles; in Wester Ross, for instance, it forms an average of 18% of the winter feed (Lockie in press and unpublished). Moreover, eagles established in territories are more or less sedentary the whole year round, and so could not pick up pesticides from other sources in other areas. When eagles feed on dead sheep, they eat some of the skin and fleece, the wool appearing in their castings as proof of the diet. Chlorinated hydrocarbons could therefore be acquired from these tissues. But they could also be acquired from the fat and flesh, for chlorinated hydrocarbons can pass directly through the skin and Treon et al. (1955) produced convulsions and death in Rabbits and rats Rattus sp. by 98 INSECTICIDES AND GOLDEN EAGLES placing 94 milligrams of endrin (ioo mesh powder) per kilogram of body weight against the skin for 24 hours. A sample of subcutaneous fat from a sheep which lived in eagle country in Wester Ross was found to contain 0.6 p.p.m. of dieldrin, and two young Foxes Vulpes vulpes whose stomachs contained flesh, fat and some wool from dead sheep showed small residues of dieldrin and DDT in the liver, brain and muscle (unpublished data). Furthermore, in Western Australia the •sale of pesticides based on such chlorinated hydrocarbons as aldrin, dieldrin, BHC and DDT has been banned for external use on sheep ..and cattle (only blowfly dressings containing DDT are temporarily eexempt); residues of these chemicals had been found in the fat and flesh of treated animals and it was feared that these might be harmful tto the eventual human consumers of the meat ( World Wildlife News, (October 1962). A similar ban was imposed on sheep dips, dusts, i-powders and sprays in New Zealand in 1961 to ensure that the meat ecomplied with residue tolerance requirements in certain importing countries ( New Zealand Gazette, 8th September 1961). In New Zealand tthe body fat of several unshorn lambs was found to have an average ^concentration of 22 p.p.m. of dieldrin four weeks after dipping (D. L. Harrison in a paper to the New Zealand Fertiliser Manufacturers’ Research Association, 1962). Another point which serves both to confirm the source of insecti- cides in eagles and to identify these substances as the cause of falling breeding success in the west is that in parts of the eastern Highlands, where eagles seldom if ever feed on dead sheep, breeding success was normal in 1963, several pairs rearing two young each (A. Watson in littl). Sheep are fewer in the eastern Highlands than in the west, while •such wild prey as grouse and Blue Hares Lepus timidus are more plenti- ful and the carrion available is mostly that of Red Deer (Brown and Watson 1964). Heptachlor is only rarely used in sheep dips, so that the traces of the derived heptachlor epoxide found in the eagle eggs is likely to have had a different source. This chemical is widely used as a seed dressing, for cereal crops mainly, and since these find a local use even in the western Highlands, the heptachlor epoxide could have come through other birds. Hooded Crows Corvus corone cornix, Herring Gulls Larus argentatus and Common Gulls L. canus, for example, visit sown fields and are certainly taken as prey by eagles at times. CONCLUSIONS We conclude that the current decline in the breeding success of the Golden Eagle in the western Highlands is attributable mainly to the residues of chlorinated hydrocarbons, particularly dieldrin, in the adult birds and their eggs. 99 BRITISH BIRDS The chemical analyses have dealt with eggs. Since the series of eggs was taken at random from a wide area, the amounts of the residues found can be assumed to reflect the degree of contamination in all eagle eggs now laid in west Scotland. Those eagles which are still able to lay eggs are likely to be less contaminated than those which can no longer do so. Therefore the most heavily contaminated individuals have probably so far escaped examination. The only feasible major source of these chemicals is the dip residues held in the external and internal tissues of dead sheep. At least two-thirds of the British breeding population of eagles lives in sheep country and is thus likely to be affected by pesticides. Even if these pesticides cause only behaviour disturbances (resulting in persistent egg breakage), they constitute a potential threat to the species. For this reason, the fact that young were reared by some of the less heavily contaminated eagles (table 4) does not invalidate the thesis that relatively small amounts of pesticide may be harmful to breeding success. At present the result is confined to poor breeding success. Yet this alone will have serious effects when the existing adults die and there are no new birds to replace them. Moreover, if the pattern of the Golden Eagle in Scotland follows that of the Peregrine in Britain as a whole, we can expect the adults to begin to die prematurely as pesticides accumulate further in their bodies. If these chemicals continue to be used, therefore, population decline is likely to follow. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We must first express our gratitude to the staff of the Agricultural Scientific Services, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland, Edinburgh, for undertaking the analysis of the ten eagle eggs; particularly to N. C. Morgan for his supervision of this work, valuable advice and help with references; and to G. Hamilton and Miss M. Gray (Nature Conservancy) for carrying out the actual analyses. Our thanks are due also to Dr. N. W. Moore and C. H. Walker of the Nature Conservancy’s Toxic Chemicals and Wildlife Section, the first for his helpful comments on this paper and the second for his confirmatory analyses of two eagle eggs and for his analyses of the tissues of two Foxes and a sheep. Dr. Adam Watson has gener- ously provided unpublished information from his eagle studies, and we acknowledge help of various kinds from R. Balharry, K. East, C. K. Mylne, P. W. Sandeman, G. Waterston and P. Wormell. SUMMARY In a sample of the population of Golden Eagles Aquila chrysaetos in a wide area of the western Highlands of Scotland, the number of pairs rearing young has declined 100 INSECTICIDES AND GOLDEN EAGLES from 72% during 1937-60 to 29% during 1961-63 — an unprecedented drop. The recent high rate of nesting failure has included both the breakage of eggs by the . eagles themselves and the inability of the females to lay eggs. Disturbances by man, climatic change and change in food supply in relation to the numbers of eagles all seem unlikely as possible factors in this falling breeding success. Ten eggs from seven eyries were contaminated with dieldrin, gamma-BHC and .DDE (a metabolite of DDT). All but one had traces of heptachlor epoxide (a nmetabolite of heptachlor). Circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that these . chlorinated hydrocarbons are responsible for the decline. Eagles probably get the i! nsecticides, with the exception of the heptachlor, from the fat, flesh and fleece of s iheep carrion, the sheep having absorbed them from sheep dips. The source of the reptachlor is uncertain, but these traces could be a result of preying on other species 1 of birds which have acquired the chemical from seed dressings. REFERENCES Brown, L. H., and Watson, A. (1964): ‘The Golden Eagle in relation to its food supply’. Ibis, xo6: 78-100. Cramp, S. (1963): ‘Toxic chemicals and birds of prey’. Brit . Birds, 56: 124-139. LDarling, F. F. (1955): The West Highland Survey. London. DDeWitt, J. B., and George, J. L. (1959): Pesticide-Wildlife Review. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Circular 84. [Goodwin, E. S., Goulden, R., and Reynolds, J. G. (1961): ‘Rapid identification and determination of residues of chlorinated pesticides in crops by gas-liquid chromatography’. The Analyst, 86: 697-709. I _ockie, J. D. (in press) : ‘The breeding density of Golden Eagle and Fox in relation to food supply in Wester Ross, Scotland’. Scot. Nat. and Stephen, D. (1959): ‘Eagles, lambs and land management on Lewis’. J. Anim. Ecol., 28: 43-50. VvIaunder, M. J. de F., Egan, H., Godley, E. W., Hammond, E. W., Roburn, J., and Thompson, J. (in press): ‘Clean-up of animal fats and dairy products for chlorinated pesticide residue analysis’. The Analyst. 'vIoore, N. W. (1956): ‘Rabbits, Buzzards and Hares. Two studies of the indirect effects of myxomatosis’. La Terre et la Vie, 3 : 220-225. 'jost, G. (1951): ‘A study of aldrin insecticide: its effects on birds and other wild- life’. Wyoming Wild Life, 15: 4-7, 32-36. Latcliffe, D. A. (195 8): ‘Broken eggs in Peregrine eyries’. Brit. Birds, 5 1 : 23-26. (i960): ‘Broken eggs in the nests of Sparrowhawk and Golden Eagle’. Brit. Birds, 53: 128-130. (1963): ‘The status of the Peregrine in Great Britain’. Bird Study, 10: 56-90. Iubin, M., Bird, H. R., Green, N., and Carter, R. H. (1947): ‘Toxicity of D.D.T. to laying hens’. Poultry Science, 26: 410-41 3. Gndeman, P. W. ( 1 9 5 7) : ‘The breeding success of Golden Eagles in the southern Grampians’. Scot. Nat., 69: 148-152. Treon, J. F., Cleveland, F. P., and Cappel, J. (1955): ‘Toxicity of endrin for laboratory animals’. J. Ag. Food Chem., 3 : 842-848. J.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (1963): Pesticide-Wildlife Studies. A Review of Fish & Wildlife Service Investigation during 1961 and 1962. Circular 167. Watson, A. (1957): ‘The breeding success of Golden Eagles in the north-east Highlands’. Scot. Nat., 69: 153-169. Vynne-Edwards, V. C. (1962): Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social Behaviour. Edinburgh and London. 101 BRITISH BIRDS Appendix i. Methods of analysis of eggs for chlorinated hydrocarbons By G. Hamilton The contents of the egg were usually removed from the shell for analysis. Where the eggs were addled and the contents could not readily be separated from the shell, the shell was incorporated. Extraction and clean-up procedure was basically the same as that described by Maunder et at. (in press). The final extract in hexane was examined by gas chromatography, using an electron capture detector fitted with a tritium source. The solutions were chroma- tographed on two columns which gave different retention times for the insecticides being investigated. These were a two-foot silicone column of the type described by Goodwin, Goulden and Reynolds (1961) and a three-foot column containing 3.0% apiezon N and 0.3% epikote supported on 60-80 B.S. mesh graded celite which was operated at 1 88° C. The injection port of the gas chromatograph, which operates at about 25 0 C above the column temperature, and the internal surfaces of the column were coated with epikote resin to reduce decomposition of the insecti- cide. Standard solutions of insecticide were injected as external standards. Recovery tests were carried out on hens’ eggs to which known amounts of pesti- cides had been added. Most of the insecticides gave recoveries of 90%, but in the case of gamma-BHC only 80% was attainable. An unidentified compound with a similar retention time to heptachlor was detected in the eagle eggs by gas chromatographic analysis. However, heptachlor was not found by paper chromatographic analysis and its presence was unlikely in view of the low content of heptachlor epoxide, to which it is readily metabolised. Confirmation of the higher insecticide residues found (i.e. above about 1 p.p.m.) was obtained by paper chromatography. Late nesting in Britain in i960 By H. Mayer-Gross British Trust for Ornithology INTRODUCTION iNTHESUMMERof i960 some Song Thrushes and Blackbirds* around Oxford were found to be continuing their nesting much later than is normal. Subsequent investigation showed that this very late breeding occurred over a considerable part of Britain. Information was obtained mainly from the British Trust for Ornithology’s Nest Record Cards, hereafter referred to as NRCs, and from appeals made in B.B.C. nature programmes and in British Birds and Bird Study. A search through local bird reports and country magazines covering the period in question was comparatively unrewarding. The total amount of data collected was relatively small, mainly because few observers look for nests after June, but it became reasonably certain that a widespread ♦Scientific names of all species mentioned in the text are given in appendix 1 on page 1 18. 102 LATE NESTING IN i960 prolongation of the breeding season was confined to the Song Thrush and Blackbird, and so the greater part of the paper deals with these two birds. However, consideration is also given to the Oxford titmice, which had a more extended season than usual, and to the rrather few reports of late breeding by other species. There were 'Some records of nests in the last three months of i960, but as they occurred after the time of autumn moult they may be regarded as part of a new breeding season and so they are being dealt with elsewhere, in a separate analysis of early nesting in 1961. Throughout this paper the term ‘breeding season’ is applied to the period during which eggs are laid. SONG THRUSH AND BLACKBIRD The pattern of the whole i960 breeding season of the Song Thrush ^and Blackbird at Oxford can be seen in figs. 1 and 2 (where it should tbe noted that nesting started at the normal time), while table 1 gives tthe distribution of all July and August records for both species. The SSong Thrush, provided as many late records as the Blackbird, even tthough its total population is smaller, so a relatively higher proportion oof the population must have been involved. An abnormal amount of ringing by both was also noted in many areas during July and early August. It may be remarked in passing that there were no late breed- ing records (and only one instance of August song) for the Mistle Thrush. The normal breeding season {Previous analyses of data for the Song Thrush and Blackbird have indicated that the normal breeding season of both species extends tthrough June and that a small number of layings occur in July or even August. The appendix to the NRC analysis by Myres (1955) omits July nests, so these presumably formed less than 0.5% of the annual t:otals in his sample. Silva (1949), in an analysis of 282 NRCs for the s3ong Thrush in southern England, found that 1.4% of clutches were v :ompleted in July and August. The late Arthur Whitaker’s records • for the north of England, quoted by Lack (1950), show 2% of July nestings for the Song Thrush and 0.7% for the Blackbird. On the other hand, in Shetland during 1949-51 Venables and Venables (1952) • found that as many as 9.6% of 114 Blackbird clutches were completed in July. However, the season there starts much later than further south and this population must be considered separately from that of 1 mainland Britain. In any case, there were no records from the Scot- tish islands in i960. The i960 breeding season From the NRCs for i960, excluding those from my own study area, i°3 BRITISH BIRDS Fig. i. Breeding season of the Song Thrush Turdus pbilomelos in the Oxford area in i960. The percentages of clutches started in each five-day period are shown (data from 145 nests found by the author) the figures for July and August nests over Britain as a whole were 1.3% of 1,209 Song Thrush nests and 0.6% of 1,729 Blackbird nests (while in the southern half of England alone the Blackbird figure was 1 %). Thus from this very large source of information it would appear that the number of clutches begun after the month of June was hardly, if at all, higher than usual. However, the authors of various NRC analyses have stressed that relatively few of the later broods are recorded, and comparison of the NRC figures with my own field data below strongly suggests that this was the case in i960. My own NRCs were compiled during field work carried out in the Oxford area with approximately equal intensity throughout the season. In a total of 164 Song Thrush nests there were no August layings, but I found no less than 17 (10.4%) in which clutches were started in July (fig. 1). I analysed the Blackbird NRCs for i960 in more detail and in fig. 2 have compared laying dates from 205 nests in my study area with dates from 870 cards from southern England (all counties south of but excluding Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby and Cheshire). In this analysis I used all cards where the date of the first egg was given or could be calculated, and also all cards for nests which were occupied at more than one visit. For many of the latter the laying date had to be calculated by ‘bracketing’, as described fully by Mvres (195 5); for instance, if only two visits were made to a nest, both during incubation, the eggs were assumed to have been half-incubated on the 104 LATE NESTING IN i960 date half-way between these visits. Fig. 2 shows that 5% of my Blackbird clutches were laid from 30th June onwards (actually 1% were started on 30th June). The two histograms differ markedly in shape and it seems probable that the upper one showing my Oxford BRITISH BIRDS data gives a much more realistic picture of the second half of the i960 season than does the lower one representing the remaining NRCs from southern England. In particular, the high proportion of June nests in my area may be mentioned and it is likely that this is no higher than in many other years (see Snow 1958a). There were few March layings in my areas because these consisted mainly of woods and farmland where, as Snow found, laying begins later than in gardens. The remarkably prolonged nature of breeding around Oxford in i960 is brought out by the fact that I did not come across any July layings in either 1961 or 1962, despite frequent searching. Some July clutches did occur again in 1963, however, the last I found of each species being started about a week earlier than in i960; these amounted to two out of 45 Song Thrush nests (4%) and three out of 90 Black- bird nests (3%). For the Oxford area a further measure of comparison with other years is given by the number of broods hatched from July clutches found by Lt.-Col. G. O. Stephens (in lift.). with the estimated dates of the first eggs : These are listed below SONG THRUSH BLACKBIRD 1958 4 nests (6th, 8th, 19th, 19th) i nest (4th) 1959 3 nests (1st, 2nd, 2nd) 1 nest (2nd) i960 7 nests (7th, 7th, 19th, 24th, 29th, 31st, 31st) 3 nests (10th, 26th, 27th) 1961 0 nests 0 nests Since Lt.-Col. Stephens was searching methodically throughout the season, his records of late i960 nests have been treated with those on NRCs in the rest of this paper and in table 1 . Besides various places around Oxford, local concentrations of three or more late nests were reported from Nottinghamshire, Essex, Norfolk, the Worcester/Hereford border and Derbyshire. The fact that several July or August nests were found close together in these districts strongly suggests that late nesting there involved a sizeable proportion of the total populations. Of course, there were also many reports concerning only one or two nests. It is noticeable in table 1 that the regions from which ‘late’ NRCs came were on the whole the same as those from which late breeding was reported in journals and in answers to radio appeals. The only reports from Anglia were in letters and journals, but this is not surprising as extremely few NRC contributions came from this region. No marked peaks of nesting activity were found after June in the rather few records available. At that time of year such peaks can only be expected following the breaking of a spell of unsuitable weather, because the timing of fresh clutches depends on the end of the previous breeding attempts. However, rainfall could be associated with the increase in laying in mid- June which is shown for the south in figs. 1 106 LATE NESTING IN i960 and 2. An increase then was also found in the NRCs for northern Britain. In July the dates of laying by Blackbirds and Song Thrushes near Oxford showed some tendency to be grouped after the wettest periods, but the sample of nests is very small; of the two, the Song Thrush layings were rather more evenly spread over the month. The NRCs for the country as a whole suggested that the number of new nests started remained steady until the last third of July and that there was then a marked drop, followed by another in August; this is probably what actually happened. The letters and local reports suggested a peak of nests in the second half of July, falling oft' in August; this was probably due partly to the fact that the radio appeals for information were not made until the end of August, while county reports are likely to have quoted only exceptionally late nests. How- iever, these latter sources of information supplied the best indication of the final ending of the i960 season. In the end the Song Thrush’s inesting activity tailed off before the Blackbird’s. Table 1 shows that ttwelve out of 73 late Song Thrush records were for August nests, (compared with 20 out of 74 late Blackbird ones. ( Geographical distribution of late nests It can be seen from table 1 that nearly half the total records came from tthe Thames region, while a large proportion of the remainder were from Anglia, Severn (mainly Warwickshire and Worcestershire) and Trent. Thus for both species late nesting was noted principally in tthat part of east and central England bounded by the Thames valley, tthe upper Severn valley, the southern end of the Pennines and the [Humber. Of the very late (i.e. August) layings, all 18 reported for tthe Blackbird and ten out of the twelve reported for the Song Thrush came from this part of England. A peculiar difference in the proportions of late records for each v.pecies between southern and western Britain on the one hand and the r.iorth-east on the other is clearly shown in table 1. Far more late >>ong Thrush nests were seen in the south and west, whereas in eastern ind northern areas Blackbird nests showed a marked preponderance. The x2 test shows this difference (found both in the NRCs and in the ample supplied by letters and journals) to be highly significant. The [Thames region was somewhat intermediate, but late Song Thrush tests still outnumbered those of Blackbirds by about four to three. In i960, as in previous years, roughly three Blackbird NRCs were eceived for every two of Song Thrush, and these proportions showed 1 10 marked variations from region to region.) Late breeding was recorded in all the common habitats of the two pecies. My own records were mainly from woodland and farmland. [Re other NRCs were mostly from rural and suburban localities, many 107 o VO Ov o s 0 4-» O i* 8 8 H OO Tf N 't l i l i i i i 1 | M | I M 1 M M | I M | | 1 M 00 eo, r- | 1 cn rev 'O CS M M | | m | w | N t— < M w ON 00 M OO fCN M N cCv | | «S 1 1 1 «V 12 1 VN N M VsO WA 00 K\ M N NN M N"\ V\ M f/'v O *-* +++++++ m O O O N oo N M + m rA rA H M OO + + + + + O m o o >-< O rTv Tf lAi 1^ 0 1 1 Tl- 1 w | ^ v> 1 M M 1 N I 11 12 », mNNmNmCN 21 (A N | I ^ Vs O M N AC\ -( ^ M M rt 1 | M r^ 3 — > r- M I M l w N Tf N O N N d 3 c c .sis c g > o .o « £U U (A) « o ^2 o H o S CJ -G H T3 c J3 4-» u O O V w -£ t/5 C S *-* *' 3 S AS3AV ONV HAflOS < H X Uj HAHON V '3 Total Nest Record Cards Total from other sources Total from all sources LATE NESTING IN i960 of the nests being in or near gardens. Gardens also provided most of the sites mentioned in the letters. Three cases were reported from inner London, but in general there were rather few records from very big towns, even from outskirts where the birds are reasonably numer- ous, although large urban audiences must have heard the B.B.C. requests for information. In Derbyshire four Blackbird nests (includ- ing the latest clutch of all) were reported at altitudes around 1,000 feet above sea level. 'Nesting success and productivitj In my own study areas the nests started in June and July suffered much Mess predation than earlier ones, thanks apparently to the greater Limount of cover present, but it was not possible to form any accurate . dea of the general breeding success over the whole country in July Lind August, because the majority of the records concerned nests found kwith young (and many of these were in the comparative safety of gardens). Rough assessments of clutch size and of the number of woung leaving successful nests could be made, however, and in table :> these figures are compared with the much larger sample of May and June nests analysed by Snow (1955b). Nests were used in the i960 calculations of clutch size if they were Steen during incubation or with recently hatched young; the resulting i'.verages may be a little low, but the July and August clutches clearly :ontinue the decline in size from the mid-season peak found by Snow. Table 2 also shows that Song Thrushes laid bigger clutches than Blackbirds in the extension of the i960 season. This is in agreement with Snow’s finding that Song Thrush clutches show less seasonal •ariation, as well as being bigger. Hatching success appeared to be ower in both species than Snow found for March to June, but this is ■ iased on very few records and the figures have not been included in he table. able 2. Clutch and brood sizes of Song Thrush Turdus pbilomelos and ilackbird T. merula in July-August i960 compared with averages for May and June he months referred to are the ones in which the clutches were started. The May id June averages are for 1950-53 and have been taken from Snow (1955b). All figures exclude nests which failed completely May June July-August i960 ')ng thrush/ Average clutch laid b Average brood reared {Average clutch laid Average brood reared 4.3 3.8 3.6 (26 nests) 3.9 3.3 2.7 (25 nests) 4-3 3-7 3-5 2-9 CACKBIRD 3.3 (24 nests) 2.7 (18 nests) BRITISH BIRDS In calculating the averages of young reared, I included not only nests where the actual number fledged was known but also all broods which reached the age of one week; thus these figures may be slightly high. The data actually suggested that both clutch and brood sizes declined during the six weeks of July and the first half of August, but they were too few to warrant setting out in detail. The very few fledging periods recorded were on the high side. One Song Thrush brood (probably of four young) spent about 15 days in the nest and four Blackbird broods about 14-16 days. In conclusion, it should perhaps be mentioned that the only evidence of hasty building activi- ties during the period was provided by a Song Thrush nest in Oxford- shire in July lacking a mud fining. GREAT AND BLUE TITS Great and Blue Tits also had more late broods than usual around Oxford in i960 and I am much indebted to Dr. C. M. Perrins for the information in the next paragraph, which comes from the long-term nest-box study being carried on by the Edward Grey Institute. It must, of course, be added that these two species are predominantly single-brooded in British broad-leaved woodland (Lack 195 8), so that any clutches started after about the first third of May can be considered ‘late’ and the very latest nests are started in June during the normal breeding season of the Song Thrush and Blackbird. Thus the period for ‘late’ nests in tits and thrushes does not overlap and the factors inducing some members of each genus to extend their breeding seasons in i960 must have been different. The timing of the main laying period of Great and Blue Tits near Oxford in i960 was normal (mid- April) and the adult populations were at a very high level. Both species produced an abnormally large proportion of late (presumably repeat) clutches in the second and third weeks of May. There were then eleven very late attempts by Great Tits (which are normally less strictly single-brooded than Blue Tits) and the first-egg dates of these ranged from 25 th May to 5 th June. Two were in gardens and were largely unsuccessful in that one was robbed and only a single chick fledged from the other. The remaining nine nests were in broad-leaved woodland and six of these were successful, a total of 29 chicks being reared from 40 eggs — a much higher success rate than is usual for second broods in this habitat. There was also one very late Blue Tit nest in which the first of seven eggs was laid on 18th June and six young were subsequently reared. There were a few rather late NRCs for tits in i960, but it is impossible to tell from them whether late breeding was generally on a larger scale than usual. Great Tit cards for the same period as the very late Oxford layings were received from south coast counties (two) and 1 10 LATE NESTING IN i960 the Midlands (four); few young were reared in these nests. No really abnormal Blue Tit NRCs were sent in, the latest layings having been started about 20th-25th May. Experience since 1947 at Oxford (Lack, Gibb and Owen 1957) has shown that tits produce a few late May and June clutches in some but not all years, but these have never been proportionately so numerous as in i960, nor have they resulted in so many well nourished chicks. The tits’ first clutches are timed so that young are in the nests during the short season when defoliating caterpillars, on which they largely depend, are abundant. In ordinary years late broods, hatched when most of these caterpillars have pupated, fare rather badly and the ^scarcity of such nests shows that the birds have become adapted to breed only during peak food conditions. From this it may well be argued that many of the tits instinctively anticipated in i960 that the rperiod of food abundance would be unusually protracted. Since it is not known what the extra food supply was, one can do no more than sspeculate on the type of stimulus to which the birds reacted by breeding 'late. OTHER SPECIES NMo birds other than Song Thrushes, Blackbirds and tits gave evidence of any large-scale prolongation of breeding in i960. Although a s small number of late nests of various other species were found, their significance is doubtful in view of the fact that a year rarely passes vwithout a few similar reports. The matter is further complicated because for many species the time of the normal end of breeding is mot very precisely known. Judging from a scrutiny of the NRCs i including my own field observations) representatives of most species nested up to but not after the dates when their last clutches can be r:xpected in normal years, while end-of-season nests were not unusuallv numerous. Among species which have been studied over a period of years, no inusually late nests of Shag or Kittiwake were noted in north-east : England in i960 (J. C. Coulson in litt.), nor were any late clutches 1 af eggs produced by Swifts at Oxford (C. M. Perrins). In Britain as a whole Woodpigeons did not continue laying after the end of their usual season in October (NRCs and R. K. Murton in lift.). However, he London population (which has been found to start and finish breeding earlier than those in most rural habitats) extended its laying >eriod into October instead of stopping in September as in other vears: ' Stanley Cramp {in litt.) recorded three October nests out of a total of .15 seen during i960, whereas none of the 520 nests he found in the rears 1954-59 and 1961 were started in October. Other odd records of late breeding in i960, gathered from various hi BRITISH BIRDS sources, are as follows.* Two exceptionally late nests, one of Manx Shearwater in Caernarvonshire and one of Heron in Cornwall, have already been described in this journal (Walker 1961 and Stevens 1961). There is a vague record from Co. Durham of young Little Grebes which were probably hatched from an August laying. Mention should perhaps be made here of Mallards with clutches of 1 8 eggs in Devon in late September and 16 eggs in Sussex on 19th October, though M. A. Ogilvie informs me that autumn Mallard layings are quite regular at Slimbridge and are probably produced by birds of the year (see Boyd 1957). A rather late Peregrine clutch in northern England must have been laid about the beginning of June. A ‘day-old’ Partridge chick seen in Glamorgan on 13th September must have come from a clutch started in the first half of August. The weather of late summer i960 might have been expected to favour continued breeding by Moorhens; in fact, however, the only nests which I know to have been started after July were two in Co. Durham in August and one in Co. Armagh in which eggs were probably laid about 2oth-24th September. There were also several quite late passerine nests. A Buckingham- shire Wren evidently began laying about 23rd July. It is interesting that Redstarts in Surrey and Fife had second broods, a rare occurrence, although no clutches were begun after mid-June. A Robin in Hamp- shire was estimated to have started laying about 27th July, five weeks after the time when most individuals stop breeding (see Lack 1948). Two Blackcap layings in early July, in Oxfordshire and Buckingham- shire, appear to have been slightly unusual. In Norfolk a Spotted Flycatcher laid about nth August, some nine days later than any record in the NRCs analysed by Summers-Smith (1952). Four Dunnock clutches were started in the Thames region between 20th and 29th July; laying in this species generally stops by mid-July. A Meadow Pipit nest in Lancashire in mid- July appears to have been late, considering that Coulson (1956) found only two July cards in his analysis of NRCs. Finally, a Chaffinch clutch was started about 13th July in Kent; very few Chaffinches lay after 20th June and this is the second latest record among over 4,000 cards covering 22 years (Newton in press). THE WEATHER IN MID-I960 The information for this section was extracted from the Monthlv Summaries of the Daily Weather Reports issued by the Meteorological Office, and also the records kept by the School of Geography at Oxford. Monthly sunshine and rainfall totals for June and July i960 ♦Species for which no late records were found are not mentioned, but a list of the latest i960 nests of each has been deposited in the B.T.O. files and the species-totals of NRCs received in i960 can be seen in Mayer-Gross (1962). 112 Plate 13. Female Parrot Crossbill Lo.xia pytyopsittaais regurgitating pine seeds to the young in nest C, Sweden, April 1963 ; some food has already been passed and a mucous thread stretches from bill to bill. Note the nest site in a horizontal fork; the untidy mass of twigs, mosses and lichens; and the droppings which the adults stop taking about the fifteenth day (pages 118-123) {photo: Viking Olsson) Plate 14. Above, typical open habitat of Parrot Crossbill L oxia pylyopsitlacus in pines, Sweden, 1954, with site of nest A arrowed 30 feet above ground. Below, sorted material from nest A (ten heaps listed on page 119) {photos: Viking O/sson ) 0 1 ’late i 5. Above, nestling at two weeks: its mandibles arc quite uncrossed and he feathers are less developed than in many passerines of this age, but it can ilrcady resist cold (page 121). Below, female on nest A ( photos : Viking Olsson ) Plate i 6. Above, female Parrot Crossbill Loxia pytyopsit/acus on nest A, Sweden, April 1954, pointing her bill skywards as the male arrives (page 120). Below, a comparison of beaks at nest C, April 1963. Three of these four adults have bills crossed to the left and the fourth to the right (page 1 1 9) ( photos : Viking Olsson) LATE NESTING IN i960 Table 3. Rainfall and sunshine totals for June and July i960 Weather station JUNE Rain Sunshine % of % of mm. mean hrs. mean JULY Rain Sunshine % of % of mm. mean hrs. mean minsula Plymouth 3i 61 273 ”3 109 168 196 99 i tunnel Thorney Island 56 156 257 - 82 158 177 - Boscombe Down 68 166 256 122 69 1 10 163 84 ; :vern Ross-on-Wye 64 168 255 126 55 95 139 77 Elmdon 57 136 270 139 78 ns 145 81 Vales Cardiff 65 259 - 146 195 178 - Anglesey 30 6l 267 120 77 120 181 98 rersey Manchester 37 63 269 154 102 129 151 99 hames London 3i 70 256 122 86 139 163 82 Oxford III 222 275 140 no 182 130 70 r.nglia Gorleston 34 81 269 127 72 122 is? 87 Cardington 55 153 254 - 86 137 140 - :;rent Watnall 45 102 261 135 91 132 126 69 uumber Dishforth II 24 270 145 96 152 142 87 \ yne Tynemouth l6 36 189 IOI 84 112 121 73 ’ Scotland Renfrew 46 76 236 130 85 108 134 89 c . , , ( Lcuchars ! Scotland 37 38 86 7° 221 236 107 126 79 104 no 120 156 158 92 104 are shown in table 3. May i960 was rather dry in most areas, with above average tempera- tures. It was followed by a warm and very sunny June, in which : there was much local variation in rainfall. Areas in western Britain had below average precipitation, while in the north as little as 16 mm. and 11 mm. of rain were recorded at Tynemouth and Dishforth. In south-east England, Nottinghamshire and Scotland it was fairlv near or below average. On the other hand, areas in south and central England (including Oxford) had some very heavy falls. The next four months, July to October, were consistently wet and cool in most districts, but Scotland generally had drier weather than England. In July, weather stations in the Channel area, at Plymouth and on the Welsh coast registered rather more sunshine than elsewhere, despite high rainfall and low mean temperatures. Although condi- tions over much of the country from July onwards could in a sense be described as spring-like, the mean temperatures and amounts of sunshine were still much higher than the averages for April or May. However, the high rainfall would mean that the ground dried out less than usual, especially in those areas where there was also a defi- ciency in sunshine. Moist ground conditions are essential if earth- worms are to stay near the surface where they can be caught by thrushes. When worms are available, they form an important con- ”3 BRITISH BIRDS stituent in the nestling diet of both Song Thrush and Blackbird (see, for example, Witherby et al. 1938 and Snow 1958a). DISCUSSION It is well known that birds can vary their times of breeding according to environmental factors. Among papers showing how the start of breeding can be advanced or delayed by a warm or cold spring are those by Goodacre and Lack (1959) and Marshall (1949). Snow (1955a) described how a mild winter can stimulate out-of-season nesting. The likelihood of a species breeding late on occasion depends on a number of factors. Single-brooded species (especially if they have long incubation and fledging periods) are unlikely to attempt a second nesting outside their usual season, although weather conditions might encourage later replacements of failures in some years than in others. On the other hand, at least some multi-brooded birds do to a certain extent regulate the starting of later nests according to conditions pre- vailing at or after the time when the first brood is becoming indepen- dent. Therefore they are far more likely than single-brooded species to be able to take advantage of abnormal favourable conditions in order to rear extra broods outside their usual season. Next, it seems reasonable to suppose that in some individuals the impulse to continue breeding after, say, two broods have been reared will be weaker than in others, and support for this is lent by Snow’s (1958a) data on Oxford Blackbirds. The fact that in general the amount of nesting at the end of a species’ breeding season tends to decline gradually, rather than finish abruptly, also forms circumstantial evidence for the idea. In other words, some individuals seem to require stronger or more prolonged stimulation than others to make additional nesting attempts when the season is well advanced, just as certain members of a population react more slowly to warm weather in spring and so begin laying later than their neighbours. Lastly, in the cases of many species it might be disadvantageous for breeding to be prolonged much beyond the normal time, even if food were unusually abundant, because otherwise, as Lack (1950) suggested, the food supply might diminish by the time the young were learning to fend for themselves and summer-visitors would have less time to moult and store fat before migration. However, with certain species the end of the season does vary somewhat from year to year and in i960 some of the late-nesting birds may well have reared one brood more than they would have done in an average year. Once a bird has started moulting it is presumably inhibited from making fresh breeding attempts even if unusually favourable conditions persist or recur. The following outline of some of the factors which influence the n4 LATE NESTING IN i960 breeding season and success of the Song Thrush and Blackbird owes much to the studies by Myres (195 5) and Snow (195 5, 1958a and 1958b). Snow found that Song Thrushes have fewer partial failures than Black- birds, and in a drought in 1961 1 noted that fewer young Song Thrushes than young Blackbirds starved in the nest. The probable reason is that, while both species rear their chicks primarily on worms and at times on insects, the Song Thrush can use snails as a reserve food supply (and being smaller may be able to rear young more easily on such small items as insects). Presumably because of this greater ability to raise young under dry conditions, the Song Thrush normally has a more protracted season than the Blackbird, with less of a decline in clutch size at the end. However, drought in April temporarily inhibits the laying of fresh clutches by both species, and a dry period in June brings the season to an early close. In the very dry May and ; early June of 1961 laying by both these species virtually ceased at 'Oxford. Then, following rain in mid-June, there was a brief resurg- : ence of laying and it was very noticeable that far more Song Thrushes i than Blackbirds took part in this. It is most probable that the spell of wet weather did not last sufficiently long to bring many Blackbirds back into full breeding condition and it may be inferred that, after 1 dry weather in the latter part of a season, Blackbirds need more pro- longed stimulation than Song Thrushes to begin nesting again. Although it proved impossible to find much definite correlation between weather conditions and records of thrushes nesting in July and August, some tentative conclusions suggest themselves. Firstly, the general preponderance of Song Thrush nests was presumably due to this species being more adaptable and more readily able to react to suitable conditions. Next, rainfall at Oxford in June and July was evidently sufficient for nesting by both species to continue over this period with no major interruptions. In that area it is certain that a rather higher proportion of the Song Thrush population was in- volved. The scarcity of records from other areas may be due either to a lack of observers (as was surely the case in parts of Anglia) or to a genuine cessation of breeding in June with no later resumption. Certainly there are few or no records for the first half of July from any area where June was very dry. In some of the districts where a dry June was followed by a wet July there was a considerable increase in breeding records for late July and August, but as these were mostly from sources other than NRCs the real picture in early July is uncertain. Where above-average rainfall in July was accompanied by average amounts of sunshine, as in western Britain, few late nests were found and all but one were Song Thrushes’. This suggests that circum- stances in those areas were still not quite suitable for Blackbirds. Finally, there are two possible reasons for the apparent excess of BRITISH BIRDS Blackbird nests among those started in August. One is the likelihood that, as I suggested earlier, some of these birds needed a longer period of stimulation to resume nesting after conditions became favourable following a dry spell, so that they would tend to be starting their final nesting attempts when the last broods of most Song Thrushes were further advanced. The other factor which may have been involved is the time of the autumn moult which appears to start a little later in Blackbirds than in Song Thrushes (B.T.O. moult cards). No doubt birds of both species began moulting immediately after or even during the completion of their late breeding attempts and this would finally bring the season to an end. The weather is unlikely to have inhibited nesting in August since it remained rather similar to that of July. The conditions which induced Song Thrushes and Blackbirds to prolong their breeding could not of course be expected to affect other birds in the same way. The cool wet weather which increased the availability of worms during the second part of the summer probably on the whole discouraged insect reproduction. However, adult insects tend to be less active in such conditions and so more easily caught by birds which usually prey only on caterpillars. A scarcity of insects on the wing adversely affects hirundines (whose last i960 nests were only marginally late) and the young in each of three apparently late House Martin nests may have taken a particularly long time to fledge owing to a shortage of food, as was shown for one August brood (Congreve 1961). Apart from the thrushes, all the late passerine nests belonged to birds which feed their young on insects. There is no reason to suppose that the weather could directly affect the late summer breeding of birds which rear their young on seeds, or affect their food supply in such a way that the length of their nesting season would be altered. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank all those who wrote to report cases of late nesting, especially A. Dobbs and S. S. Blythe who collected records from several observers. Dr. Bruce Campbell and I. J. Ferguson-Lees forwarded the data which they received in correspondence, and the whole analysis would have been impossible without the work of the contributors to the Nest Record Scheme. I am also very grateful to N. P. Ashmole, Dr. C. M. Perrins and Dr. D. W. Snow for helpful criticisms of drafts of this paper. SUMMARY In i960 the breeding season of many Song Thrushes Tardus philomelos and Blackbirds T. merula was extended for up to a month or more beyond the time when it normally ends, especially in central and eastern England. This was apparently associated with 1 16 LATE NESTING IN i960 very high rainfall and below average sunshine in July. Over the country as a whole more late nests of Song Thrushes than Blackbirds were recorded ; in the south and west and in the Thames region Song Thrush nests predominated, while there was a preponderance of Blackbird nests among records from the north-east. Both Song Thrushes and Blackbirds laid smaller clutches in July and August than they do in June. At Oxford titmice Parus spp. had more late nests than usual in i960 and a higher than normal proportion of young were reared from them. Details are also . given of a small number of late nests of other species which were recorded in Britain diat year. Some factors involved in the prolongation of breeding seasons are discussed, with specific reference to thrushes. REFERENCES Adams, L. E. G. (1957): ‘Nest Records of the Swallow’. Bird Study, 4: 28-33. Boyd, H. (1957): ‘Early sexual maturity for female Mallard’ Brit. Birds, 50:302-303. ■ Congreve, W. M. (1961): ‘Unduly prolonged fledging period of House Martin’. Brit. Birds, 54: 1 19- 120. Coulson, J. C. (1956): ‘Mortality and egg production of the Meadow Pipit with special reference to altitude’. Bird Study, 3: 119-132. Cramp, S. (1955): ‘The breeding of the Willow Warbler’. Bird Study, 2: 121-135. Goodacre, M. J., and Lack, D. (1959): ‘Early breeding in 1957’. Brit. Birds, 52: 74-83. Lack, D. (1948): ‘Further notes on clutch and brood size in the Robin’. Brit. Birds, 41: 98-104. (1950): ‘The breeding seasons of European birds’. Ibis, 92: 288-316. (1958): ‘A quantitative breeding study of British tits’. Ardea, 46: 91-124. , Gibb, J., and Owen, D. F. (1957): ‘Survival in relation to brood-size in tits’. Pros. Zool. Soc. Pond., 128: 313-326. Marshall, A. J. (1949): ‘Weather factors and spermatogenesis in birds’. Pros. Zool. Soc. Loud., 1 19: 711-716. Mayer-Gross, H. (1962): ‘The Nest Record Scheme, 1961’. Bird Study, 9: 252-258. Myres, M. T. (195 5) : ‘The breeding of Blackbird, Song Thrush and Mistle Thrush in Great Britain. Parti. Breeding seasons’. Bird Study, 2: 2-24. Newton, I. (in press): ‘The breeding biology of the Chaffinch’. Bird Study. Silva, E. T. (1949): ‘Nest Records of the Song-Thrush’. Brit. Birds, 42: 97-m. Snow, D. W. (1955a): ‘The abnormal breeding of birds in the winter 1953/54’. Brit. Birds, 48: 120-126. (1955b): ‘The breeding of Blackbird, Song Thrush and Mistle Thrush in Great Britain. Part III. Nesting success’. Bird Study, 2:169-178. (1958a): ‘The breeding of the Blackbird Turdus merula at Oxford’. Ibis, 100: 1-30. (1958b) : A Study of Blackbirds. London. Stevens, C. J. (1961): ‘An apparent case of Herons being double-brooded’. Brit. Birds, 54: 202. Summers-Smith, D. (1952): ‘Breeding biology of the Spotted Flycatcher’. Brit. Birds, 45 : 153-167. Venables, L. S. V., and Venables, U. M. (1952): ‘The Blackbird in Shetland’. Ibis, 94: 636-653. Walker, I. M. (1961): ‘Manx Shearwater nestling still unfledged in late November’. Brit. Birds, 54: 242-243. Witherby, H. F. et al. (1938): The Handbook of British Birds. London, vol. 2, p. 1 16. ”7 BRITISH BIRDS Appendix i. Scientific names of species mentioned in the text The Parrot Crossbill Loxia pytyopsittacus is normally only a rare vagrant to the British Isles, although it is likely that a number of these birds reached Scotland and England in late September and early October 1962, when a total of 36 were examined in the hand on Fair Isle and a few others were identified elsewhere (Davis 1963)*. The *Whether or not the Parrot Crossbill is regarded as a rare vagrant in the British Isles depends on the species in which the Scottish Crossbill is placed. The authors of The Handbook of British Birds (1938) and the most recent Check-list of the Birds of Great Britain and Ireland (1952) both treated the latter as a race of the Crossbill, jL. curvirostra scotica, but in 1956 the Taxonomic Sub-Committee of the British Ornithologists’ Union {Ibis, 98: 167) considered it should be regarded as an isolated form of the Parrot Crossbill, L. pytyopsittacus scotica. Individual authors — for example, R. Meinertzhagen and K. Williamson in 1953 (Ibis, 95: 369) — have gone further and treated curvirostra and pytyopsittacus as conspecific, giving ecological isolation as the reason why there seems to be little hybridisation (see A. P. Gray, 1938, Bird Hybrids, p. 267) in spite of a wide overlap in breeding area in northern Europe. Neither of these courses has found general favour with systematists, however. For instance, C. Vaurie (Amer. Mus. Novitates, 1786: 23-26) preferred to continue to regard scotica as a large-billed race of curvirostra, citing the complication of the even slightly larger L. curvirostra guillemardi of Cyprus as an additional reason, and this is the course he adopted in his The Birds of the Palearctic Fauna (1939). More recently, Peter Davis ( Bird Migration, 2 : 260-264) has proposed that it might be more realistic to group all the red crossbills under curvirostra as ‘emergent inter- species’, but this only serves to drive home the complex nature of the problem and for the present it is probably best to recognise two species with scotica as a race of curvirostra. In any case, the Parrot Crossbills of Continental Europe are normally rare vagrants to the British Isles and so we have purposely left the nomenclature in this paper as it appeared in Dr. Olsson’s typescript. — Eds. Little Grebe Podiceps ruficollis Manx Shearwater Procellaria pufjdnus Shag Phalocrocorax aristotelis Heron Ardea cinerea Mallard Anas platyrbynchos Peregrine Falco peregrinus Partridge Perdix perdix Moorhen Gallinula chloropus Kittiwake Rissa tridactyla Woodpigeon Columba palumbus Swift Apus apus House Martin Delichon urbica Wren Troglodytes troglodytes Great Tit Parus major Blue Tit Parus caeruleus Mistle Thrush T urdus viscivorus Song Thrush Turdus philomelos Blackbird Turdus merula Redstart Phoenicurus phoenicurus Robin Erithacus rubecula Blackcap Sylvia atricapilla Spotted Flycatcher Muscicapa striata Dunnock Prunella modularis Meadow Pipit Anthus pratensis Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs Studies of less familiar birds 126. Parrot Crossbill By Viking Olsson (Plates 13-16) 1 18 PARROT CROSSBILL STUDIES brewing range of the species extends from Scandinavia eastwards into Russia. Nesting depends very much on the size of the cone crop of the Scots pine Pinus sylvestris, and as this varies considerably from year to year the nesting population also fluctuates (Svardson 1955, 1957; Olsson i960). The observations on which this paper is based were made chiefly at three nests (referred to here as A, B and C) in Ostergotland, Sweden; the photographs shown on plates 13-16 were • taken at two of these (A and C) which were studied from hides at distances of less than a yard for a total time of about a hundred hours in 1954 and 1963 respectively. Plate 1 6b shows particularly well the very heavy bill which gives the bird its English name and it should also be noted that the male and : female of this pair (nest C) had their beaks crossed in opposite direc- 1 tions. As is the case with the Crossbill L. curvirostra , the mandibles imay be crossed in either direction in both sexes and the pair in plate 1 6a (nest A) both had the upper mandible turned to the left. It can be seen from plate 15a that the bill of the nestling is not crossed at all at the age of a fortnight and the young actually leave the nest with : straight beaks. Plate 14a illustrates a typical habitat of the kind in which breeding usually takes place. Normally the tree selected as the nest site is close to a clearing, glade, forest-ride or path, and it is never in dense woodland. The nest is generally built rather high in the tree and when in a pine it is placed in a fork amid dense needles some feet or even yards from the main trunk. The arrow in plate 14a points to the position of nest A, while plate 13 illustrates the actual site of nest C and the untidy appearance of the whole structure. Nests A and C were about 30 feet above the ground in Scots pines, the most com- mon site, but nest B was more exceptional in that it was built 60 feet up in a Norway spruce Picea excelsa ; all were quite near to the tops of the trees concerned. The female alone builds the nest, but she is often accompanied by the male when she is collecting the material. She gathers moss and withered grass from the ground and pulls lichens from the branches of trees. Uncommon for the nest of a passerine, and very characteristic of this species, are the many thin twigs of Norwray spruce. The material from nest A, separated and sorted after the young had left, is shown in plate 14b. The ten heaps into which it is divided may be identified as follows: (1) Thin twigs of spruce and pine (6) (2) Moss (mostly Hylocomium and (?) Drepanocladus ) (8) (3) Lichens ( Alectoria and Usnea) (9) (4) Grass and a few dead leaves (10) (5) Lichens ( Parmelia furfuracea) Inner bark of juniper Dry needles of pine and juniper Animal hair and vegetable fibres Feathers Hair of Elk Alces alces BRITISH BIRDS In nest C Sphagnum was the dominant moss. Eggs were laid in the last week of March and the first half of April. There was a difference of two weeks in the time of egg laying in 1954 and 1963, but in each case it turned out to be so well co-ordinated with the development of the pine crop that the seeds became acces- sible in the cones just at the time the young hatched. During the period of incubation Parrot Crossbills had been seen foraging only in spruce trees, where the seeds were accessible much earlier. After hatching, they changed completely to pines. For various reasons it was difficult to obtain exact data on the duration of incubation, but in the three most closely investigated cases it seemed to be 14, 15 and 16 days respectively. These calculations wrere based on observations which indicated that true incubation (as against brooding) took place from the laying of the first egg. At nest A the first egg hatched on 26th April, the second on the 27th and the third and fourth on the 28th. The female alone incubates. During this period she receives all her food from the male at intervals of two to two and a half hours. When not on foraging-trips he mostly stays in the tree-tops near the nest, where one can hear his characteristic contact-note, a weak descending sve-sve-sve-sve. I have heard this note only in the immediate vicinity of the nest. Other calls are the well-known gyp-gyp, not distinguishable from that of L. curvirostra, and in alarm a stuttering tsu-tsu-tsu-tsu (the u sound as in ‘duck’). When the female becomes hungry she apparently tells the male by uttering the gyp-gyp call loudly several times. At any rate he then leaves on a foraging-trip which may often take him for a distance of half a mile or more. When he returns, he always feeds the female on the nest after a special ritual which in detail is very similar to that photographed by Hosking (1948) at a nest of the Scottish Crossbill L. c. scotica. In the first place it is quite clear that the female can dis- tinguish the calls of her own mate, whether he is returning alone or in the company of other males. She then answers and presses herself flat in the nest with partly extended and quivering wings. As he comes down from twig to twig, she gradually raises her head until it is in a vertical position (plate 16a) and all the time she quivers her wings and her eyes are half shut. There were several differences in the ways of incubation and of rearing the young at the two nests most closely studied. At nest A the female was not seen to leave the eggs for periods of more than ten minutes. At nest C, however, the female once left the eggs for 40 minutes, and on another occasion for more than 45 minutes in spite of wet and chilly weather with a temperature of only a few degrees above freezing point. There was a similar difference at the two nests after the eggs had hatched. At nest A the female left only for short intervals 120 PARROT CROSSBILL STUDIES during the first week, but at nest C the female once left her very feeble three-days-old young for as long as 60 minutes in almost freezing conditions and on 20th March, when the nestlings were only six days old, she left them for 90 minutes in dull and cold weather with a temperature of about z° C. When she returned on this occasion the young were so chilled that they seemed to be dead. They were quite motionless and not even the slightest breathing movement could be 'Seen from the hide. The female tried to stimulate them to gape, but they did not react at all. After she had brooded them for only seven minutes, however, they recovered and fed quite normally. Later the same day the young were once again alone and uncovered for 75 minutes in a cold drizzle. The young and probably also the eggs of the Parrot Crossbill seem to have an unusual capacity to resist ccold. At the age of seven or eight days the young begin to open their eyes and by the ninth day they appear to have full control of temperature. iUp to that time all the actual feeding at both nests A and C was done by the female. If only the male had been away, he would first feed 'her and then she the young. If both had been away, she would first ifeed the young, then he would feed her and, as soon as he had finished, -■ihe would regurgitate the food just swallowed and give it to the young. iPlate 13 shows the female regurgitating pine seeds to the two young an nest C; as she transfers the food, threads of mucous secretion are wisible between her beak and that of the nestling. Feeding is performed quite instinctively, the female turning her 1 lead to and fro from nestling to nestling. In spite of this the dis- tribution of food at nest C often turned out to be quite unfair. Several ; :imes close observation showed that the female certainly divided her oeak movements fairly, left-right, left-right, but often she did not succeed in regurgitating food more than every other time. With only t wo young, as in nest C, this could result in one getting nearly all the ood. This kind of false feeding with repeated beak movements but 10 food passed was also observed on several occasions at nest A. When the female had given all her food to the young and had been irooding them for a time, they could stimulate her to complete the whole feeding action again, even to the subsequent clearance of Iroppings, without their getting any food at all from her. At both nests A and C the male himself began to feed the young on he ninth day after hatching. During the next few days the female 1 zould still sometimes sit beside him on the edge of the nest and beg, nd he would then still give her some food which she would at once •ass to the young. At nest A the male took over more and more of he feeding and from the sixteenth day after hatching I never saw the smale give food to the young even when she had followed her mate 121 BRITISH BIRDS to the nest. At nest B both were still feeding the young on the eighteenth day and I saw them together at the nest as late as the twenty-fifth day. At nest C, on the other hand, the male was seen for the last time on the sixteenth day and after that the female alone took care of the young. It is difficult to say which of these patterns is typical of the species and whether the differences were the result of unfortunate circumstances. At nests A and C the young were generally fed at intervals of about ij hours. By weighing them both before and after, I was able to estimate that the quantity of food given at each feed was about two grams of partly digested pine seeds. Further calculations — very approximate, of course — showed that the young received about 350 seeds per feed, or about 3,500 seeds a day. The fledging period at nests B and C was 25 days (it was only 19 days at nest A, but it is probable that the single youngster that reached this age did not leave spontaneously) and so this length of time might mean a total of 85,000 seeds. The clearing of droppings from the nest was strictly linked to the feeding. As long as the female alone was responsible for the feeding, she alone cleaned the nest by eating all the droppings. As soon as the male began to feed the young, however, he also ate droppings. When both had fed the nestlings, real disputes could arise between them over a dropping. From the eleventh day the young began to defecate on the nest rim, and around the fifteenth day the parents’ interest in the droppings began to weaken. Eventually one side of the nest, the twigs and even the ground below were sprinkled white (plate 13). When the chicks are very young they are no more downy than those of other passerines, in spite of the very low temperatures which they have to endure, and their feathers are slower in developing. Plate 1 5 a shows a nestling at the age of two weeks and vet the young of many other passerines have left the nest by this age. Very soon after this, however, they are all at once fully feathered with a streaky, light brown plumage (cf. Olsson i960, fig. 7, where the age was wrongly printed as 12 days when it should have been 16). When they are about 16 days old one can hear them using the typical gyp-gyp note for the first time ; a little earlier they utter a trilling sound. At the age of one week, when their eyes are beginning to open, they have a weight of about 12 grams. At the age of two weeks, when the feather tracts on the body and the primaries are beginning to develop into the pale brown plumage (plate 15 a), this figure is doubled. At nest C the maximum weight of 39 grams was reached on the twentieth day and the two young weighed the same on the twenty-second day. On the twenty-fourth day their weight was 38 grams and it was pre- sumably much the same when they left the nest the day after. This 122 NOTES weight is considerably less than the figure for adults which Niethammer ( 1 9 3 7) Put at 5 2 grams and which Szczepski and Kozlowski (195 3) gave as 47.5-56.8 grams. In this connection, however, it is interesting to note that, whereas adult migrants on Fair Isle in October 1962 weighed 37.5-54.7 grams, juveniles weighed only 32.4-41.8 grams (Davis 1963). The breeding of Parrot Crossbills in any one region is synchronised and, as a result, broods of Hedged young are likely to be seen here and there in the woods during the same period. They are fed by their parents for a long time after they leave the nest. At least to begin with, the food continues to consist mostly of pine seeds. As late as 20th June 1963, however, I came across a pair feeding their grown-up young (which, incidentally, now had a new note, a begging chit-er, i chit-er, chit-er, chit-chit, chit, chit-er) and to my surprise I saw that the •food involved was the larvae of the saw-fly 'Lophjrus sertifer ; there was aa plague of these insects in that part of Sweden in the summer of 1963. REFERENCES 10 avis, P. (1963): ‘The Parrot Crossbill irruption at Fair Isle’. Bird Migration, 2: 260-264. HTosking, E. (1948): ‘Studies of some species rarely photographed. XIII. The Scottish Crossbill’. Brit. Birds, 41: plates 9-14, especially 10-13. N'Jiet HAMMER, G. ( 1 9 3 7) 1 Handbuch der dcutschen Vogelkunde. Leipzig, vol. i. IOlsson, V. (i960): ‘Iakttagelser vid ett bo av den storre korsnabben (Loxia pytyop- sittacHs). Var Fagelvarld, 19: 1-19. SSvardson, G. (1955): ‘Crossbills in Sweden in 1953’. Brit. Birds, 48: 425-428. (1957): ‘The “invasion” type of bird migration’. Brit. Birds, 50: 314-343. S IzczEPSKi, J. B., and Kozlowski, P. (1953): Pomocnic^e Tabele Ornilologicsyie. Warsaw. Notes ( Juvenile Moorhen brooding eggs. — At about 8.30 a.m. on 30th June : 1963, on an open sewer near Darlington, Co. Durham, I found the lest of a pair of Moorhens Gallinula chloroptts containing five eggs. These were being brooded by a juvenile Moorhen. An adult was eeding some 1 5 yards away. By the following evening two more :ggs had been laid, so that the nest now contained a clutch of seven, ind the juvenile bird was again brooding. Unfortunately the nest vas robbed the next day, so I was unable to make further observations. Kevin W. Robertson [We suppose that the juvenile Moorhen was from an earlier brood of he same pair. This species is normally at least double-brooded and 123 BRITISH BIRDS three broods are frequently reared in a season; there have even been records of four (e.g. Howard Bentham, Brit. Birds , 25: 106). It is recorded in The Handbook , on the authority of Viscount Grey of Falloden, that the young of later broods are sometimes fed by the juveniles of earlier ones and this has since been amply confirmed by a number of other observers ; for example, R. H. Brown frequently saw a first-brood juvenile feeding second-brood nestlings with insect food in the case of a pair studied in Cumberland in the early 1940’s (Brit. Birds, 37: 202-204). More recently, R. W. Hayman observed a half- grown nestling helping one of its parents repair a nest in Kensington Gardens, London, by working into the structure a number of good- sized sticks brought to it by the adult (Brit. Birds, 48: 414). Mr. Robertson’s observation above seems to provide the final link in the chain of evidence to illustrate the precocious domesticity of this species. — Eds.] Least Sandpiper in the Isles of Scilly. — Brief reference to the remark- able fall of American birds on St. Agnes, Isles of Scilly, in late Septem- ber and early October 1962 has already been made in this journal (Brit. Birds, 56: 462-463). The present note serves to describe in detail the occurrence among them of a Least Sandpiper (American Stint) Calidris minutilla , only the sixth to be recorded in Great Britain and Ireland, on 4th October. Shortly after dawn on that date, R. E. Emmett, I. J. Ferguson-Lees and I began counting waders on the sandy beach of Periglis. After a few moments our attention was attracted to a small, dark Calidris which suddenly appeared in front of us, amongst Turnstones Arenaria interpres and Sanderlings Crocethia alba. Our initial impressions, with the bird often only a few yards away, were of a diminutive, dark brown- ish stint, very active and nervous, given to sudden flights and frequent utterances. The combination of an almost straight, needle-like bill, a small head on a finely proportioned body and short flexed legs gave it a character totally unlike Little or Temminck’s Stint C. minuta or temminckii. I was quickly convinced that we were looking at a Least Sandpiper, a species with which I became familiar in Canada in 1956. During the next hour and a quarter, aided by binoculars and tele- scope, we concentrated on obtaining views from every angle and at ranges between ten and 75 yards. Full notes and a series of sketches were obtained, and from these the following description was compiled : Bill: black, shorter than head, fine and straight apart from slight downward kink at very tip. Head: small, but rather square in shape ; forehead and crown brown, streaked blackish and broken by short pale line behind eye and above supercilium; supercilium greyish- white, most prominent behind eye; lores and upper ear-coverts brownish, forming dark stripe through black eye; lower 124 NOTES ear-coverts greyish, faintly streaked and merging into slightly browner nape. Res t of upper-parts: mantle feathers, scapulars and upper wing-coverts dark- brown very faintly margined with lighter brown and relieved by two white V’s (the lower on the edge of the scapulars and the other halfway up the mantle, both formed by whitish feather edges); median wing-coverts darkish brown edged ochre and greater coverts slightly greyer; tcrtials dark-brown edged buff; folded primaries blackish-brown; tail dark with greyish outer feathers. Under-parts: generally faint yellowish-white, marked only by a buff wash across breast and brown chest patches (formed by fine vertical streaking). Legs and feet: dark olive-green. In flight the bird retained its dark appearance, showing white only on :the lateral tail-coverts and along a narrow but well-defined wing-bar. Its wing-beats were noticeably fast, even for a stint. Its voice was remarkably varied, consisting of two distinct flight-calls (a mono- syllabic kreep and a disyllabic kree-it ) and a twitter recalling that of iTemminck’s Stint and written down as pit, pit, met, wit. . . . At 09.00 hours BST my wife and Mrs. E. L. Ferguson-Lees joined uis, but they had only the briefest views before the bird took flight for tthe last time to make oft' hurriedly in the direction of St. Mary’s. D. I. M. Wallace SStilt Sandpiper on Lincoln/Norfolk/Cambridge borders. — At n 1 p.m. on 19th July 1963 a wader which could not readily be identified was caught in a mist-net at Wisbech sewage-farm, on the border of ! Lincolnshire and Norfolk. It had not previously been observed in tthe field. It was examined in the hand by Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Hard- iman, G. Gould, D. Stanyard, my wife and myself, and the following v description taken: Upper-parts: crown dark brown with some white flecks; pronounced white stripe just over eye; huffish orange-brown ear-patch about 7.5 mm. across; dark brown patch connecting eye and base of bill; nape lighter than crown and mantle; mantle and scapulars dark brown with pale buffish- white edges to feathers, extensively abraded; rump white with some slight barring, particularly in centre; upper tail-coverts widely barred brown and white; tail dark fawn- brown (but lighter than mantle) with centres of individual feathers almost pure white; wings uniform brown except for small white tips to secondaries and secondary-coverts, most marked on innermost feathers; wing-coverts heavily abraded. Under-parts : from base of bill to under tail-coverts strongly barred brown ; barring extremely heavy on upper breast. Soft parts: bill slender, black, slightly downcurved at tip; legs long, olive-green, wrinkled and scaly as in adult rather than juvenile bird. Measurements: wings 135-136 mm., with 5th, 6th and 7th primaries emarginated (and 4th slightly); bill 41.5 mm. to feathers, 49 mm. to base of skull, with downcurve beginning 12 mm. from tip; tarsus 43 mm., tibia 30 mm. to feathers, feet projecting about 30 mm. beyond tail. The bird was not weighed but appeared to be fat and in excellent :ondition. It was photographed in colour and then released at 7 a.m. 125 BRITISH BIRDS on 20th July 1963. The flight somewhat resembled that of a Snipe Gallinago gallinago and the contrast of white rump and dark wings was somewhere between a Green Sandpiper Tringa ochropus and a Wood Sandpiper T. glareola. The bird was subsequently observed feeding on the bank of the River Nene, just in Cambridgeshire, at a range of forty yards in good sunlight. The rapid feeding rate recalled that of a dowitcher Limno- dromus sp. The general ‘jizz’ did not closely resemble that of any common British wader. The ear-patch was clearly visible in the field and the eye-stripe was most pronounced between the dark crown and the dark patch in front of the eye. The description fits that of a Stilt Sandpiper Micropalama himantopus still largely in summer plumage. The abraded mantle and wings were typical of an adult wader in autumn. The good condition of the bird and the absence of strong westerly winds in the period immediately preceding the occurrence suggested that it had not recently crossed the Atlantic. It remained at Wisbech sewage-farm for nearly three weeks, during which time it was seen by a number of other observers, and it was last reported by R. Harrison and R. A. Richardson on 7th August. C. D. T. Minton Stilt Sandpiper in Sussex. — On 7th August 1963, during a visit to the pool at Manhood End, near Chichester, Sussex, I found a wader which I identified as a Stilt Sandpiper Micropalama himantopus feeding with a mixed party of Dunlins Calidris alpina and Ringed Plovers Charadrius hiaticula. The bird remained in the area for about a week and was apparently last seen on 1 3th August. During this time it was watched by many observers, including D. D. Harber, B. A. E Marr, Miss J. V. Stacey and D. I. M. Wallace, and also filmed by M. Hollings. The following description has been compiled from notes made by D. D. Harber, D. I. M. Wallace and myself: Upper-parts: crown streaked brownish, darker than neck but paler than back; whitish supercilium from bill to end of ear-coverts, most marked behind eye; dark mark through eye; slight chestnut tinge to upper ear-coverts; hind-neck streaked greyish, often appearing paler than rest of upper-parts; mantle, back and scapulars mainly grey or greyish-brown according to the light (many feathers with whitish edges and some with blackish centres) ; rump and upper tail whitish with dark deckings; rest of tail dark with some barring; wing- coverts greyish-brown (some feathers with pale edges and dark centres); te.tials blackish edged white; primaries blackish. Under-parts: throat whitish; front of neck and upper breast streaked greyish-brown; remainder whitish with greyish-brown barring on breast and more distinctly on flanks and under-tail coverts. Soft parts: bill black, fairly thick at base and not sharply pointed, about ij-tf times length of head and straight but for distinct decurve towards tip; legs yellowish-green (often just appearing dark) and very long. 126 NOTES The bird associated closely throughout its stay with a party of Dunlins, visiting the pool regularly with them during the high-water period and going out with them to the mudflats of Chichester Harbour when the tide dropped. It was obviously larger than the Dunlins, but smaller than Greenshanks Tringa nebularia and Redshanks T. totanus which were also present on the pool; I thought it about the size of a Wood Sandpiper T. glareola. The length of its legs was a striking •feature when it was on dry ground. D.D.H. noted that its neck seemed particularly long when it stood with it drawn out. It fed chiefly with a rapid perpendicular probing motion, often with its head half submerged, but it also picked food off the surface of the water along the very shallow edges. In flight it was not unlike a Wood .'Sandpiper, but it had a distinctive silhouette with disproportionately Hong wings, very prominent head and bill, and conspicuously trailing feet; the rump and upper tail formed a noticeable whitish patch which ddid not extend up the back, and the wings appeared uniformly dark ggrey (no wing-bars). No call was heard. The bird was unringed. It \was generally very similar to the Stilt Sandpiper recorded in Sussex in t'the previous year, also in the Chichester area, though its plumage was ldess grey and the barring on its under-parts more distinct. M. Shrubb [These are the third and fourth British records of this North Ameri- can species, the previous two having occurred in Yorkshire in 1954 Brit. Birds, 48: 18-20) and in Sussex in 1962 (Brit. Birds, 56: 64-66). IThe dates of the 1963 birds just overlap and, in any case, the fact that t :he one at Manhood End was not ringed shows that two individuals '■were involved. Moreover, we were very interested to learn from Dr. 1 3engt Danielsson that on 13th July 1963, just six days before the one it Wisbech was trapped, an adult Stilt Sandpiper in breeding plumage 1 was identified in Sweden, at Beijershamn (56° 35'N, 160 25'E) in the province of Oland. — Eds.] Dommon Terns breeding in Bedfordshire. — On 21st June 1963 I bund two Common Terns Sterna hirundo at Wyboston gravel-pits, Bedfordshire. They frequently settled on one or other of two small gravel islands out in the middle of the water. When I approached as tear as possible (about thirty yards away), they flew towards me calling :ontinually. They were still present on nth and 25th August. On :st September three young Common Terns were noted with the adults )y P. Smith, with whom I visited the pit on the following day. The ’oung could just fly from one island to the next, but they still had a arge amount of brown on the wings and back. The family was last 127 BRITISH BIRDS seen on 8th September when the young were flying quite strongly. This is the first breeding record of Common Terns in Bedfordshire. J. N. Dymond [Since 1945 Common Terns have bred in Middlesex, Huntingdon- shire, Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire, as well as inland in Lincoln- shire, Norfolk and Essex, but records as far inland in England as this one (approximately 47 miles from the nearest point on the Wash) are still few and far between. However, it does appear likely that, with the increase in gravel-pits and similar sites, the habit may be growing. In many parts of the Continent, of course, as well as in Scotland and Ireland, the species has long bred far inland. — Eds.] Ring Ouzels attacking Adder at their nest. — On 24th July 1963 I was walking over moorland near Wooler, Northumberland, when I saw a Ring Ouzel Turdus torquatus acting rather strangely. It kept flying over to a patch of grass about six feet square and then diving like a hawk, all the time uttering an unusual call. I sat down on a rock about fifty yards away and watched this behaviour for a quarter of an hour. Eventually the bird was joined by another Ring Ouzel and then a Curlew Numenius arquata , so to satisfy my curiosity I walked down to the patch of grass and there found a large Adder Vipera herns curled up on top of a tussock. I killed it with a stick and then found the Ring Ouzels’ nest about three feet from it. This contained one egg which was quite intact except for two small holes in the shell. There were also fragments of egg-shell where the Adder had been lying and I assumed that it had destroyed the clutch. John Anderson Exceptional longevity in Reed Warblers. — The heligoland trap at the Jersey Bird Observatory is situated on the edge of a bed of reeds Vhragmites communis , in a position suitable for trapping and retrapping the Reed Warblers Acrocephalus scirpaceus which both breed in the area and pass through on migration. As a result, since ringing was started there in 195 1, no less than 254 Reed Warblers have each been caught in two or more years, the most frequent one (A 790) having been ringed in 1952 and retrapped every year up to i960, except 1957 {Ann. Bull. Societe Jersiaise, 18: 39). This bird had been ringed as an adult and so was probably at least nine years old when it was last seen. Another Reed Warbler at least nine years old (A 3754) was trapped several times in 1963, having previously been caught in 1955, 1956, 1958 and 1962. These two cases of longevity were easily surpassed, however, when on 19th July 1963 J. Rostron trapped a Reed Warbler (A 1087) which had originally been ringed on 6th July 1952; and then two days later I caught another (A 1593) which had been marked on 27th June 1953. Each had been ringed as an adult and they were therefore at least twelve 1 128 REVIEWS md eleven years old respectively. (Although some difficulty has been experienced in the past in estimating the age of Reed Warblers trapped rowards the end of the breeding season, these two birds were ringed early enough in the summer to preclude any such error.) Both rings B.T.O. size i) were perfectly legible and the older one was not even .worn enough to need replacing; the other, being not quite round, was : :hin at the ‘angle’ and a new one was substituted (N 524). During the : wo or three weeks before these two were caught, a steady passage of I leed Warblers had been apparent from the increase in numbers in the r.rea. Unfortunately, it is impossible to distinguish the local move- nents of the resident population from the migrants so no deduction :an be made about their status, but in view of the regularity with i vhich other Reed Warblers have been caught over a number of years it ,eems remarkable that neither was retrapped until this year. Dr. W. Rydzewski (The Ring, 33: 147-15 2; and 34: 177-181) and L. ; Sarrietv (Bull, du Centre d’ Etudes et de Recbercbes Scientifiques, Biarrit 4 : 9-24), in longevity tables, mention only one Old World warbler tore than five years old, that being the first Reed Warbler referred to hove (A 790). R. Long Reviews Tildfowl in Great Britain. Edited by G. L. Atkinson-Willes. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London, 1963. xiv+368 pages ; ontispiece and 14 colour plates; 28 black-and-white photo- raphs; many text-figures and maps. 45s. is always a pleasure when a long-delayed project reaches fulfilment, specially when it has grown in scope with the passing of the years, his present volume was originally planned before the war by the fildfowl Inquiry Committee of the British Section of the International ommittee for Bird Preservation, as a report on the status and dis- ibution of wild geese and wild duck in England. The companion ork on Scotland appeared in 1939 and an introductory volume entitled be Factors Affecting the General Status of Wild Geese and Wild Duck in 741. During the interval the National Wildfowl Counts, originally rganised by the same committee and later taken over by the Wildfowl rust under the auspices of the Nature Conservancy, have added such 1 enormous amount of quantitative information that the whole of reat Britain has now been covered, instead of England only as at :st intended. The thought that their regular observations at one ace are being used to contribute to a national picture is one which istains naturalists with a great variety of interests, but none the less 129 BRITISH BIRDS unstinted tribute is due to the many observers whose enthusiasm has been maintained so long. The first part of the book deals with the methods of collecting and analysing the data, the checks made to test the validity of the monthly counts, the use of samples to determine monthly indices, and the definition of such terms as regular population, maximum population and average peak leading to an assessment of the total population. This part closes with a brief account of wildfowl ringing. The second part starts with a survey in great detail of wildfowl habitats and distribution throughout Great Britain, and, however much one may lament some gaps, they are in fact surprisingly few and it is astonishing how much information has been collected. It covers essentially the last 15-20 years and, as one reads of the tremendous additions to habitats in the form of reservoirs, gravel-pits and sewage- farms, it often evokes in one’s mind the old question of how far these artificial additions have compensated for the loss of natural marshland through drainage or increased human disturbance. Since we shall never know how many wildfowl there used to be at any given time in the past we can only surmise, but it is obvious that the larger reser- voirs, when situated away from sterile moorland surroundings, not only provide the essential freedom from disturbance by day but open up whole new areas of countryside as potential feeding grounds for dabbling ducks. This theme is developed in a separate chapter on ‘The influence of man’ in which there are discussions on artificial habitats and wildfowl, and on wildfowl and agriculture. Another section deals, species by species, with the present status of wildfowl. It is clearly stated throughout the book that it is the winter population that is the subject of discussion, but quite a lot of interest- ing information on breeding distribution is given here as well. Guesses at the total population of wildfowl in winter are of course on firmer ground for some species than others, and they are probably of a reasonably high degree of accuracy for the geese but much less accurate for the commoner ducks. What is so important is that there has been an attempt, based on evidence that can be examined, to put a figure to the wildfowl population. We have progressed beyond talk of ‘myriads’ and ‘catastrophic declines’, when no one knew what figures were involved at any stage, and there is now a reasonable chance of our realising in good time whenever any particular species is in danger. There are also sections on the control of wildfowl stocks and on the selection and establishment of wildfowl refuges, subjects which illus- trate the extremely successful co-operation between wildfowlers and naturalists which has emerged through a stormy past, largely as a result of the unflagging drive of E. M. Nicholson, the Director-General of the Nature Conservancy, who has done so much to bring all in- REVIEWS crested parties together. The wildfowlers are now doing a great deal f work on experiments to improve breeding conditions for wildfowl. The book is illustrated by plates of the species concerned from the oil aintings of Peter Scott, by a series of photographs of typical wildfowl . :enes and habitats, by text figures of recent trends in the British winter- lg populations of the five commonest species of ducks (all except Pigeon showing an upward trend), by maps of wildfowl localities ud concentrations, and by many of Peter Scott’s delightful line-draw- i lgs scattered through the text. In such a monumental task there is little to cavil at and few books in be better value. However, I hope that in a future edition the ithors will be able to give an account of the varying effects of severe veather on the shifting wildfowl population according to its direction id timing; in the south-east, for example, the effect of a blizzard loving down from Scotland is quite different from that of one moving vest from Russia, and the consequences on the national wildfowl dcture must differ widely. Also, the decline of Bewick’s Swans in icotland is discussed, as is their increase in the Ouse Washes, but the wo are not taken in conjunction; the missing link is almost certainly le situation in Ireland and, as is so often the case in ornithological latters, one is left with a story which is incomplete, through no fault, t f course, of the authors. Other countries do not seem to be moving ejry fast with the task of appraising their own wildfowl stocks, but t irhaps one day we shall have a Wildfowl in Europe which includes both ae U.S.S.R. and Ireland, thus enabling us to see our own problems i . better perspective. R. C. Homes he Birds. By Roger Tory Peterson and the Editors of ‘Life’, iime Incorporated, New York, 1963. 192 pages; many colour id monochrome photographs and text-figures. $3.95. his volume is the twelfth in a nature series produced by the publishers : : Life and Time and is a lavishly illustrated review of avian biology, hich, although intended primarily for the general reader interested in rds, contains a great deal to commend it to the more advanced nateur ornithologist. It might be expected that in a book of this type the text would be erely subsidiary to the plates, but this is not by any means the case, r in successive sections on palaeontology and classification, anatomy id physiology, food and habitats, populations and migration, breed- g biology and, finally, relationships between birds and man we see oger Tory Peterson as a biologist who has a compendious knowledge ' current literature and a capacity for synthesising his material clearly id succinctly. Each chapter has brief explanatory sub-sections on ich topics as the physiology of vision, visual and other anatomical 131 BRITISH BIRDS adaptations, flight mechanism, the late Gustav Kramer’s studies of sun navigation, and song notation, to mention only a few, where the author’s neat drawings serve as first class visual learning aids. On the other hand, to say that the plates have been chosen to illus- trate the subject matter is to do them less than justice; this is a truly remarkable collection of extremely interesting photographs by many workers, not all American. Several are outstanding; the final scene in a series of a Horned Owl attacking and killing a snake is undoubtedly one of the most arresting and spectacular bird portraits ever published, and a close-up shot of a pelican in the act of seizing a fish calls to mind the unique Osprey photograph in R. Meinertzhagen’s Pirates and Predators. This book can be thoroughly recommended both as an album of unusual and attractive photographs and as a concise and authoritative primer on bird biology. Ian D. Pennie Birds of the World. By Oliver L. Austin, Jr. Paul Hamlyn, London, 1962. 317 pages; 300 illustrations in colour by Arthur Singer. 84s. Birds of the World. By Hans Hvass, translated by Gwynne Vevers. Methuen, London, 1963. 21 1 pages; illustrated in colour by Wilhelm Eigener. 21s. The British bird-watcher’s horizon is expanding with startling rapidity. Thirty years ago only a few amateurs had explored as far as the Camargue, but now more and more are visiting the nearer parts of Europe, from Spain to Scandinavia, and some are even pushing further, into eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. As leisure increases and faster and cheaper methods of travel spread, we are likely to see ornithological holidays extending into most continents. Ulti- mately, we may perhaps expect a series of field guides for all the major regions of the world; meanwhile, here are two books which give a foretaste of the beauty and diversity of the discoveries to be made. The general plan of both books is similar — a survey of all the orders and families into which the 8,500 or so species comprising the Class Aves are divided, with representative birds described and illustrated in colour. Here the resemblance ends. Dr. Austin gives us a series of extremely readable essays, which cover not only the anatomical features, evolutionary history and fossil relatives of the main groups, but also discuss in some detail many individual species in the 155 families — their habits, food, display, nests and eggs, longevity, migra- tions and so on. He has not only studied the extensive literature; he writes with real feeling for the living bird in its environment and is able to draw on his own field experience in many parts of the world. The specialist may regret that he does not quote any of his authorities, 132 LETTERS c include the scientific names of birds mentioned in the text (though aese are given when a species is illustrated, which is often the case), at even the specialist, and certainly ordinary ornithologists at all vels, will gain from him a remarkably clear and full knowledge of me living biology of a large proportion of the world’s birds. This .agnificent text makes it very much more than a picture book — and . :t what a superb picture book it is! Arthur Singer, little known as a •rd illustrator so far, now takes his place in the front rank. For this >ok he has produced 300 plates and illustrated over 700 birds, some : lgly and others in groups in their natural habitats. These are ilfully incorporated in the text, in varying and striking patterns, often great beauty. The emphasis is understandably on the more brightly loured forms and usually only the adult males are shown; the colour, • tail and stance are in most cases excellent, though he has not always *en successful with the more sober plumaged species. There are ; ;o a number of maps showing distribution and migration. Hans Hvass manages to discuss and illustrate over 1,100 species a much smaller book, and this is achieved only by drastic compres- 'on. The notes on orders and families rarely consist of more than ite or two paragraphs and those on individual species vary from short ■ragraphs to two or three lines, although all scientific names are given. ie illustrations are smaller and again mainly restricted to adult • des; they are cruder and more heavily printed, useful for identifying r; more striking species but of limited value for, say, warblers. He ices, however, manage to include nearly all the birds of Europe, as :bll as a generous selection from other continents, and, at one quarter tthe price of the other, this book is quite good value. Stanley Cramp Letters Mallards killing and eating House Sparrows s, — With reference to the note by Miss J. M. Stainton on a Mallard ' las platyrhyncbos killing and swallowing a House Sparrow Passer vesticns, and the accompanying editorial comment on the frequency such happenings in the London parks (Brit. Birds, 56: 339), I should e to draw attention to a similar observation made by E. J. Schatz Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, and reported in The Countryman : 344). The situation (both species feeding on morsels thrown by itors) and the behaviour (the sparrow carried into the water and inked’ until dead) were similar, but in this case the Mallard was a nale and she returned with her prey to land where she ‘ripped off its thers and devoured it’. The occurrence took place in late Septem- H3 BRITISH BIRDS ber or early October 1961 and this seems to be the first record of the habit outside the London parks. Bruce Campbeli. Vernacular names in English Sirs, — In his letter concerning definitive English names for birds (Brit. Birds , 56: 383-384), O. M. Ashford brings up several points on which comment from the western side of the Atlantic is desirable. It is difficult, if not impossible, to settle on a vernacular name on which all will agree. Yet, with increasing intercontinental travel and com- munication, I believe that great effort should be made to achieve more accord over the English names of Holarctic species. A means of reaching such agreement and many compromises would be necessary, but the task is not impossible. The need for agreement is well shown by Mr. Ashford’s suggested name ‘Black Swift’ for Apus apus. It so happens that there is a wide- spread North American species, Cypseloides niger, with which this verna- cular name has been associated for more than a hundred years, while an Asiatic form of Apus apus is an accidental visitor to North America and appears as ‘Common Swift’ in the A.O.U. Check-list of North American Birds (1957). Another example is provided by the suggested ‘Long-toed Treecreeper’ which, although apposite, further increases the discrepancy between the vernacular names used on the two sides of the Atlantic; in North America this species is called ‘Brown Creeper’. Of the other names mentioned, I should like especially to comment on ‘Guillemot’. This vernacular, used in Britain for members of two widely different genera, Uria and Cepphus, has not only led to there being two names for the species of Uria but has also had an important, if unrecognised, effect in prejudicing some ornithologists and many bird-watchers into thinking that Cepphus and Uria should be combined (actually Uria is far closer to Ale a than to Cepphus ). To avoid these difficulties, I would strongly urge using the vernacular ‘Tystie’ as the basic name for members of the genus Cepphus and ‘Murre’ for species of Uria. ‘Tystie’ is already applied in Scotland to the Black Guillemot Cepphus grjlle, and the same name, variously spelled, is widely used in Germany, Iceland and Scandinavia. ‘Murre’ is regularly used in North America for the species of Uria and, as far as I know, has not been applied to any species of Cepphus. The recent ruling on the scientific names for the divers (loons in North America!) and the grebes is a similar compromise; now that the initial adjustment to the new scientific names for these birds has been made, the clarity achieved has been most worth-while. The adjust- ment to new vernacular names involves more people, but I believe that except for a few ultra-conservatives most workers will find some changes valuable. Robert W. Storer U4 News and comment Edited by Raymond Cordero ..eport of the Nature Conservancy. — The Nature Conservancy now manages 52 iational Nature Reserves in England, 29 in Scotland and 24 in Wales, with a total -ea of 218,126 acres. The largest acquisition during the year ending 30th Septem- . ;r 1963, the period covered by its latest report, was the 19,113-acre Glenfeshie -.tension to the Cairngorms reserve, the fauna of which includes Golden Eagle, isregrine. Merlin, Ptarmigan, Raven and Crested Tit. The activities of the Nature onservancy are multifarious and far-ranging, and although, as the report states, success can never be absolute’ and substantial losses from expanding population id technological progress arc inevitable, it can look back on a year of considerable : hievement and turn to the future with reasonable confidence. Practical work in the reserves has yielded good results. At Wcedng Heath, in ice Breckland, for example, the marked grazing effects wrought by a population of ild Rabbits in a 40-acre enclosure has encouraged the regular nesdng in recent ,.ars of Stone Curlews, Curlews, Lapwings, Skylarks, and up to a dozen Wheatears. it n other parts of this heath and on Thctford Heath experimental areas have been ■ tovated and mown to produce flat surfaces with short vegetation and these have • :ractcd Stone Curlews, while ammunition boxes sunk into the ground have been ccepted as nesting sites by Wheatears. At the Loch Druidibeg Reserve in South Uist the breeding population of native :rey Lag Geese has been maintained, but a much larger local population than at resent is not desired, for this would result in damage to crofters’ grain crops, r.i St. Kilda the Great Skua and the Common Gull arc new breeding species. iae ternery at the Sands of Forvie Reserve in Aberdeenshire was temporarily fenced i ’ in early summer and an unusually large number of terns nested successfully, ctluding 800 pairs of Sandwich (353 in 1962), 150 of Arctic (50), 27 of Little (17) id 1,500 of Common (500). On the more inland dunes there the notably large ■pulation of breeding Eiders — some 900 pairs — was maintained. In Fife, Perth and Kinross the protection of Sites of Special Scientific Interest is 'particular importance owing to the increased traffic and development which will 1 low the opening of the Forth and Tay road bridges. The main locality concerned Loch Leven, which is the most significant inland area for wildfowl in Britain, sscussions with a view to safeguarding this wildfowl refuge of international ■ portancc have taken place in a ‘favourable atmosphere’. res Section of the Zoological Record. — To anyone wishing to know what has :n written on a particular bird or ornithological subject, the Aves Section of the • 'logical Record is an essential mine of information. The latest issue documents ier 2,500 books, papers, articles and notes which were published mainly in 1962 all parts of the world; as in previous years, these are listed alphabetically under names of their authors and then indexed by subjects, geographical regions and cies. Yet though it was founded as long ago as 1864, with the result that this r will see its 100th issue, this invaluable publication is quite unknown to many ateur bird-watchers. The Aves Section is compiled by Lt.-Col. W. P. C. aison (Russian literature by A. I. Ivanov), appears annually — with commendable ed, for the issue covering 1962 was published before the end of 1963— and costs . a year from the Zoological Society of London, Regent’s Park, London, N.W.i :iety of Wildlife Artists. — The great success of the Exhibition by Contemporary nters which opened in Reading in 1 960 and which subsequently toured provincial 135 BRITISH BIRDS galleries for two years, has led to the formation of the Society of Wildlife Artists. The Society is to hold its inaugural exhibition in London at the galleries of the Federation of British Artists from 13th August 1964. It will be open to all and details may be obtained from the Secretary, Maurice Bradshaw, Suffolk Street, London, S.W.i. Later the exhibition will be taken on permanent tour, being renewed from the annual London exhibitions. The conveners of the Society are Dr. E. A. R. Ennion, Robert Gillmor, R. B. Talbot-Kelly, Peter Scott, Keith Shackleton and Maurice Wilson. Nearly thirty other artists have accepted invitations to become founder-members. One of the aims of the Society is to bring the work being done by wildlife artLts before a much wider public. Hitherto, people interested in wildlife art have had to search in books or a few specialised galleries and there are probably many would- be enthusiasts who do not realise the wide range of subject and treatment that characterises present-day work in this ever-increasingly vigorous branch of art. French award for Miss Phyllis Barclay-Smith. — The Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire Medal of. the Societe Nationale de Protection de la Nature et d’ Acclimation de France has been awarded to Miss Phyllis Barclay-Smith. This medal is awarded annually to a distinguished foreigner for work in nature conservation. Miss Barclay-Smith is Secretary of the British Section of the International Council for Bird Protection and Joint Honorary Secretary of the International Wildfowl Research Bureau. The Cage Birds Show. — A visit to the National Cage Birds Show at Olympia in December served as a valuable reminder of the possible confusion which escapes from captivity can cause. Not only may observers be led to think that a rarity has arrived here unaided, but several exotic species including buntings, finches and weavers sufficiently resemble birds illustrated in British books to mislead the unwary, and an escaped chat or warbler could lead to an ill-founded record of wintering. Among the many species represented at the Show were the Striped Bunting from Africa, which could, for example, be confused with the Rock Bunting; the Olive- backed Thrush, Summer Tanager and Rose-breasted Grosbeak, all of which are on the British List as accidentals, as well as several other North American birds; and a wide variety of regular British species including Ring Ouzel, Whinchat, Redstart, Nightingale, Blackcap, Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Chiffchaff, Spotted Fly- catcher, Tree Pipit, Pied Wagtail, Yellow Wagtail, Waxwing, Redpoll (including what was apparently a specimen of the Greenland race). Crossbill, Yellowhammer, Cirl Bunting and Snow Bunting. The number of Crossbills appeared to be unusually high and a suspicious mind might regard this as an interesting reflection of last autumn’s large-scale invasion. ‘Recent reports’ As the weather in the early part of 1964 was remarkably benign, very few unusual occurrences were reported and the general picture remained much the same as outlined in the ‘Recent reports’ in the February issue {Brit. Birds, 57: 88). We have decided, therefore, to delay the summary of this period until the April issue, in which the whole of January and February will now be covered. We should be glad to receive any interesting observations by 7th March at the latest. — I.J.F.-L. 136 Bird Songs of Minsmere A two-disc album of magnificent recordings made by John Kirby for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds during the springs of 1962 and 1963. Many characteristic birds of Minsmere Reserve in Suffolk are featured, including Bittern, Bearded Tit, Common and Little Terns, Canada Goose, Gadwall and such song-birds as the Nightingale The! most breath-taking feature of this superb recording is the wonderful tone poem of evening on the marsh. Against the Constant background of Reed Warblers one captures the atmosphere as one hears, amongst others, the calls of the Cuckoo, Pheasant and Tawny Owl £1 Is., plus Is. 6d. packing and postage, from R.S.P.B., The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire Cliff House Residential Club Dunwich In walking distance of Minsmere Bird Sanctuary * * * Open from Easter till the end of September * * * Good food Packed lunches Comfortable rooms, H. & C. Club Licence * * * Telephone: Westleton 282 Irish Naturalists’ Journal A quarterly magazine de- voted exclusively to the botany, geology and zoology of Ireland and publishing bird records as a regular feature Edited by Miss M. P. H. Kertland Department of Botany Queen’s University Belfast 7 Annual subscription io /- post paid • 4 MAR 1964 SMALL ADVERTISEMENTS *■ r 1 2 1- for 3 lines (minimum) ; 4/- for each extra line or part thereof. For the use of a Box Number there is an extra charge of If. Dorset Naturalists’ Trust. Assistant War- den required for Brownsea from April to September. Particulars from the Hon. Sec., Burnage House, Martello Park, Canford Cliffs, Poole. Handa Bird Reserve, Sutherland. Book- ings now being taken for accommodation in bothy. 5s. per person per night. Pros- pectus from R.S.P.B. Scottish Office, 21 Regent Terrace, Edinburgh 7. The Bird Observatory on the Calf of Man, off the south-west coast of the Isle of Man, will be open in 1964 from mid- March to mid-October. Persons interested in help- ing the Warden with the work there (ring- ers, mist-netters and other bona fide naturalists) will be welcome for periods of one week or longer. Accommodation is limited, and anyone interested should get further particulars from the Secretary, The Manx Museum & National Trust, Douglas, Isle of Man. Bardsey Island, North Wales. Kenneth Williamson, Eric Ennion and Peter Davis will each lead a week’s course of instruction in May/June. Full board 8 gns. Apply (S.A.E.) Mrs. Walton, 51 Mount Road, St. Asaph, Flintshire. A Mecca for birdwatchers at the Cairngorm centre. Craigellachie Guest House (full board). Craigellachie self-contained flats. Craigellachie self-contained chalets. Craigellachie-Speyside caravan site. Bro- chure from Mrs. A. J. Tully, S.R.N., Craigellachie House, Aviemore, Inverness- shire. Cley-next-the-Sea. Beautifully equipped cottage facing the marshes, three double bedrooms, available May and end of September and October. Apply: Till, 3 Melbury Road, London, W.14. Books on birds bought, sold and diligently searched for. C. C. Kohler, Pathways, Westhumble, Dorking, Surrey. For sale. British Birds, bound volumes 42-50, £1 each. Buffery, 17 Holmbush Road, Putney, S.W.I5. Wanted. Sussex Bird Report for 1954. Good price offered for clean copy. Please apply to Box M H29I . For sale. Bewick’s British Birds, vbl. I, 1797 (with signature and thumbprint of engraver); offers. British Birds, bound volumes 39-44, £1 each; unbound volumes 49-56 (except Apr. 1957 and Feb., Apr., Aug., Oct. 1960), Is. each issue. All excellent condition. Box MH301. Cook/housekeeper wanted for Bardsey Island Bird Observatory off North Wales, 9th May-27th June; wages £5 a week. Also part-time voluntary cooks at Easter and during summer. Details from the Asst. Hon. Sec., Mrs. Susan Cowdy, The Lee, Great Missenden, Bucks. Essex Bird Report 1962, 71 pages, now available, price 5s. 6d. including postage, from J. K. Weston, 63 Woodberry Way, Walton-cn-Naze, Essex. Week-end course on ‘Where birds live’ conducted by Christopher Swaine and Kenneth Williamson at Missenden Abbey Adult College, Great Missenden, Bucks., 17th- 1 9th April. Details from the Warden. Zoological Record Section Aves 1962 This indispensable biblio- graphy, compiled by Lt.-Col. W. P. C. Tenison, D.S.O.. is an annual list of ornithological literature in all parts of the world. Full references are given with authors and titles, and they are indexed under species, subjects and countries. The latest issue covers over 2,500 articles and books pub- lished mainly in 1962 and is obtainable, at a cost of 21s. (including postage) from The Zoological Society of London REGENT'S PARK LONDON. N.W.I Notice to Contributors ■itish Birds publishes material dealing with original observations on the birds of ritain and western Europe, or, where appropriate, on birds of this area as observed other parts of their range. Except for records of rarities, papers and notes are >rmally accepted only on condition that the material is not being offered to any her journal. Photographs (glossy prints showing good contrast) and sketches are : ;lcomed. Proofs of all contributions are sent to authors before publication. After publication, 25 separates of papers are sent free to authors (two or more thors of one paper receive 15 copies each); additional copies, for which a charge made, can be provided if ordered when the proofs are returned. Papers should be typewritten with double spacing, and on one side of the sheet ly. Shorter contributions, if not typed, must be clearly written and well spaced. ' Notes should be worded as concisely as possible, and drawn up in the form in lich they will be printed, with signature in block capitals and the writer’s address arly written on the same sheet. If more than one note is submitted, each should on a separate sheet, with signature and address repeated. ( Certain conventions of style and layout are essential to preserve the uniformity any publication. Authors of papers in particular, especially of those containing • itematic lists, reference lists, tables, etc., should consult the ones in this issue as a ide to general presentation. English names of species should have capital 1 dais for each word, except after a hyphen (e.g. Willow Warbler, Black-tailed >dwit), but group terms should not (e.g. warblers, godwits). English names are >se used in The Handbook of British Birds, with the excepdon of the changes listed in tish Birds in January 1953 (46: 2-3). The scientific name of each species should underlined (but not put in brackets) immediately after the first mention of the .glish name. Subspecific names should not be used except where they are 1 ivant to the discussion. It is sometimes more convenient to list scientific ncs in an appendix. Dates should take the form ‘1st January 1964’ and no i«er, except in tables where they may be abbreviated to ‘1st Jan.’, ‘Jan. 1st’, or :n ‘Jan. 1’, whichever most suits the layout of the table concerned. It is particu- y requested that authors should pay attention to reference lists, which otherwise sc much unnecessary work. These should take the following form: cker, B. W. (1949): ‘Species and subspecies: a review for general ornitholo- : ;ists’. Brit. Birds, 42: 1 29-1 34. therby, H. F. (1894): Forest Birds: Their Haunts and Habits. London, p. 34. rious other conventions concerning references, including their use in the text, uld be noted by consulting examples in this issue. 'ables should be numbered with arabic numerals, and the title typed above in style used in this issue. They must either fit into the width of a page, or be igned to fit a whole page lengthways. All tables should be self-explanatory. figures should be numbered with arabic numerals, and the captions typed on a arate sheet. All line-drawings should be in indian ink on good quality drawing er (not of an absorbent nature) or, where necessary, on graph paper, but this st be light blue or very pale grey. It is always most important to consider how 1 drawing will fit into the page. The neat insertion of lettering, numbers, >ws, etc., is perhaps the most difficult part of indian ink drawing and, unless he had considerable experience of this kind of work, an author should seek the of a skilled draughtsman. THE PICK OF THE WORLD’S GREAT INSTRUMENTS ON 14 DAYS’ FREE TRIAL Britain's greatest stocks of New, Used and Ex-Govt. Binoculars, Telescopes and Navigational Equipment. Accredited agents for ROSS, BARR & STROUD, WRAY and ZEISS (both East and West Zones) TELESCOPES. The Charles Frank PANCRATIC 30 x to 55 x. £7 . 17.6 I The Charles Frank 22 x OG 50mm. PRISMATIC with tripod. £22. 10.0 NICKELSUPRA I5x to 60x OG 60mm., £36 .12.0 From the current Japanese quota, we can offer a high quality 10 X 50 glasi at £18 10s. and an excellent 8 X 30 at £12 I0». Both models are centre focus- ing and complete with case and straps. Approval facilities available. SEND FOR NEW ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE CHARLES FRANK LTD. 67-75 Saltmarket Glasgow Cl Phone. BELL 2106/7 Est. 1907 6 x 30 ARMY BINOCULARS An excellent general purpose binocular of good performance, which will stand up to a great deal of rough usage. Cost approximately £20. £7 . 15 • » The wildfowler who requires maxt* mum brightness in all conditions win do well to consider the Canadian Naval 7 X 50 day and night glass: com- plete in waterproof rubber case, »n amazing glass which will stand up to I an inordinate amount of rough usage. £24. Incidentally, current value of* glass of this quality would be about £W- CHARLES FRANK Large Tripod Mounted TELESCOPE 3' aperture. £57. 10.0 for the bird watcher Designed with the bird watcher in mind, the new 10 x 40 ROSS SOLAROSS embodies all the features which the bird watcher requires: Adequate magnification (lOx) 40 mm. object glass and fully coated optics to ensure maximum brightness Brilliant performance Centre focusing for speedier adjustment Streamlined design Lightweight — only 28 oz Compact with sensibly designed camera-type leather case and straps BRITISH MADE BY WORLD iq FAMOUS ROSS OF LONDON ■“ gHS A WONDERFUL NEW BINOCULAR Printed in England by Diemer & Reynolds Ltd., Eastcotts Road, Bedford Published by H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 6i/6z Watling Street, E.C.4 British Birds Notes on the behaviour of the Red Grouse Adam Watson and David Jenkins (with one plate) Studies of less familiar birds: 127 — Collared Dove I. J. Ferguson-Lees, H. A. Hems and others (with four plates) Diseases of the skin and soft parts of wild birds I. F. Keymer and D. K. Blackmore (with two plates) Notes News and comment Recent reports Vol. 57 No. 4 THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE British Birds AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY JOURNAL Editors Stanley Cramp, I. J. Ferguson-Lees, P- A. D. Hollom, E. M. Nicholson Photographic Editor Eric Hosking Editorial Address 30 St. Leonard’s Avenue, Bedford ‘News and Comment' Rarities Committee Raymond Cordero D. D. Harber Rohan Lodge, Wadhurst Park 1 Gorringe Road Wadhurst, Sussex Eastbourne, Sussex Contents of Volume 57, Number 4, April 1964 Page Notes on the behaviour of the Red Grouse. By Dr. Adam Watson and Dr. David Jenkins (plate 17 by the late Ian M. Thomson) . . . . 157 Studies of less familiar birds: 127 — Collared Dove. Photographs by H. A. Hems, Eric Hosking, Dr. Rolf Lachner, C. P. Rose, Sq.-Ldr. D. M. Turner- Ettlinger and A. Winspear Cundall (plates 18-21). Text by I. J. Ferguson-Lees .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 170 Diseases of the skin and soft parts of wild birds. By I. F. Keymer and D. K. Blackmore (plates 22-23) • • • • • • • • • • • • 175 Notes : — Black-browed Albatross off Co. Cork (B. A. E. Marr and J. T. R. Sharrock) 179 Haemorrhage in trachea of dead Red-breasted Merganser (S. E. Crooks and J. H. Jones) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Shelducks breeding in Shropshire (J. M. Langford, R. E. Simister, Miss E. J. Peele, G. Wood and L. Durtnall) .. .. .. .. .. 181 Great Bustard in Norfolk (M. J. Seago) . . . . . . . . . . 181 Curious behaviour of two Woodcocks (R. E. Forrest) .. .. .. 182 Rook and Hooded Crow hanging upside down from wires (Alexander C. Baird) 182 Song of White’s Thrush (Jeffery Bos wall) ... .. .. .. .. 183 Unusual growths on feet of Chaffinches (Derek Washington) (plate 23b) 184 Requests for information: — Rock Doves in Scotland (Raymond Hewson) .. .. .. .. 185 Breeding Golden Plovers in Britain and Ireland (Dr. D. A. Ratcliffe) . . 185 Status of the Wryneck in Britain (R. E. F. Peal on behalf of the B.T.O.) . . 185 News and comment. Edited by Raymond Cordero .. .. .. .. 185 Recent reports. By I. J. Ferguson-Lees . . . . . . . . . . 186 Annual subscription £2 6s. (including postage and despatch) payable to H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Watling Street, London, E.C.4 A'OR NEW ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE il ARLES FRANK LTD. 775 Saltmarket Glasgow C.1. 'thone. BELL 2106/7 Est. 1907 "n s greatest stocks of New, Used and Ex-Govt. “■Jlars, Telescopes and Navigational Equipment.! AA WONDERFUL NEW BINOCULAR for the bird watcher CHARLES redited agents for ROSS. BARR & STROUD, I Mounted TELESCOPE 3' aperture. AY and ZEISS (both East and West Zones) £57 . 10 . 0 Jesigned with the bird watcher in mind, he new 10 x 40 ROSS SOLAROSS mbodies all the features which the bird /atcher requires: Adequate magnification (lOx) 40 mm. object glass and fully coated optics to ensure maximum brightness Brilliant performance Centre focusing for speedier adjustment Streamlined design Lightweight— only 28 oz Compact with sensibly designed camera-type leather case and straps RITISH MADE BY WORLD , \MOUS ROSS OF LONDON IV gnS TELESCOPES. The Charles Frank PANCRATIC 30x to 55x, £7 . 17 . 6 The Charles Frank 22 x OG 50mm. PRISMATIC with tripod. £22 .10.0 NICKELSUPRA 15 x to 60- og 60mm.. £36 .12.0 From the current Japanese quota, we can offer a high quality 10 x 50 glass at £18 10s. and an excellent 8 x 30 at £12 10s. Both models are centre focus- ing and complete with case and straps. Approval facilities available. 6 x 30 ARMY BINOCULARS An excellent general purpose binocular of good performance, which will stand up to a great deal of rough usage Cost approximately £20. £7 . 15.0 The wildfowler who requires maxi- mum brightness in all conditions will do well to consider the Canadian Naval 7 X 50 day and night glass: com- plete in waterproof rubber case, an amazing glass which will stand up to an inordinate amount of rough usage, £24. Incidentally, current value of a glass of this quality would be about £60 THE PICK OF THE WORLD’S GREAT INSTRUMENTS ON 14 DAYS’ FREE TRIAL Swoop — a proven aid to ornithologists and a vital food for hungry birds You can use Swoop wild bird food for scientific or for humanitarian reasons, or for both as you prefer. It has very apparent uses as bait for bird photography and study — and equally it is vital to the actual existence of wild birds in adverse conditions. Swoop’s balanced formula of twelve different foods — each carefully test- ed for acceptance by granivorous, insectivorous and omnivorous birds —has been shown to attract no fewer than 34 different species, including Redwing, Goldcrest, Snow Bunting, Crossbill, and even Woodcock. Recommended and used by the R.S.P.B., Swoop wild bird food is available at all grocers and pet shops. I'^l'fetokmpybhxt' Price 1/11 per pack. SWOOP V balanced- formula wild bird food Swoop gives life to hungry birds British Birds Vol. 57 No. 4 April 1964 \Nfotes on the behaviour of the Red Grouse By Adam Watson and David Jenkins Nature Conservancy Unit of Grouse and Moorland Ecology, Natural History Department, University of Aberdeen (Plate 17) ■reduction 137 Feeding, comfort movements s isonal changes in behaviour G7 and resting . . 146 .ceding behaviour 138 Voice of adults 149 haaviour of young 1 39 Voice of young 154 . actions to predators 140 Sexual activity 155 sr, traction behaviour M3 Displacement activities 163 actions to non-predators 146 Agonistic behaviour . . i63 INT RODUCTION ! i is paper documents details of behaviour noted in the course of tudy of the population ecology of the Red Grouse Lagopus lagopus Ocus in Angus, north-east Scotland. It supplements observations ' blished elsewhere (Nethersole-Thompsons 1939, Witherby et at. j.i) and amplifies remarks in a paper bv Jenkins, Watson and Miller 63). We are grateful to Professor V. C. Wvnne-Edwards for pful criticism of the typescript. SEASONAL CHANGES IN BEHAVIOUR ck grouse defend territories from other cocks by threat and fighting ns also threaten and fight other hens, occasionally associating with same cock throughout the winter but usually moving from one to >ther. A new pattern of territories is established each year in )tember-October, and thereafter the birds maintain roughly the le number and size of territories till the next autumn. In autumn y defend their territories for only a few hours in earlv morning and :r collect in flocks, feeding on territories without restriction. Thev 7 in flocks even in the morning on dull windv davs, and all dav and ht during snowy periods. 1 37 BRITISH BIRDS Most grouse which are unsuccessful in obtaining territories disperse in the autumn. However, some non-territorial cocks and surplus hens (i.e. those not associating with territorial cocks) survive till February, feeding on undefended interspaces between territories, and on the territories whenever the territory-owners are not aggressive. Surplus cocks often try to supplant territory-owners. They are rarely successful, but quickly occupy any territories that become vacant. From February till May grouse defend their territories all day long and surplus birds are no longer allowed to feed there. There is a further dispersal of non-territorial birds to undefended ground where food is scarce. Eventually most of them die (Jenkins et al. 1963). Eggs are laid in April or May in a nest within the territory, and in June and July the cock defends its territory only in early morning and late evening. Only the hen incubates, but both parents look after the young till the covey disperses in autumn. BREEDING BEHAVIOUR Hen grouse may make nesting scrapes for up to a fortnight before laying, and cocks, even when unmated, also make scrapes (Nethersole- Thompsons 1939). One captive hen laid eggs in a nest though no cock was present. Grouse lay at any time of day, and the cock stays close to the nest till the hen comes off. The hen usually covers its eggs with vegetation when it leaves the nest, particularly as the clutch nears completion. Some nests are left uncovered at all times, but others are so well covered that the eggs are invisible. The bird uses dead grass and other vegetation lying loose near the nest, but some- times snips off fresh crowberry and heather stems. Each hen lavs in its own nest, and with two hens on one territory we have found two nests a hundred metres apart. In 1961 we found a Teal Atlas crecca incubating nine Teal eggs and six grouse eggs in a typical Teal nest. Incubation starts with the laying of the last egg, but sometimes (Nethersole-Thompsons 1939) with the penultimate egg. Only the hen incubates, though a captive cock owned by Lt.-Col. A. A. Johnson sometimes brooded the eggs when the hen came off to feed, and frequently sat beside the nest with its head resting on the incubating hen (personal communication). In several nests where the eggs were robbed by a predator, hens returned to the nest and probably spent a night there since they left many faeces. In another nest where the eggs disappeared, we re- placed the clutch with dummy grouse eggs an hour later. Two hours later the hen returned to the nest with the cock, both continually giving the sexual koab call (voice ii). Next day the hen was found incubating the dummy eggs. Desertion and renesting have been described by Jenkins et al. (1963). 138 BEHAVIOUR OF THE RED GROUSE Incubating hens leave the nest several times a day for periods of -i | hours, probably varying in length and frequency with the weather ad the state of incubation. One bird left three times at roughly six- our intervals on its fourth day of incubation (Nethersole-Thompsons ; )39)- Willow Grouse Lagopus l. lagopus in Lapland came off three i > five times a day for periods of ten to thirty minutes (Semenov-Tian- hanski 1959). There is only one record of an incubating hen covering its eggs with ;getation when coming off to feed (Nethersole-Thompsons 1939). n leaving the nest, the hen usually walks for several metres and then es, accompanied by the cock which often shows sexual display, he hen usually drinks first and then feeds hurriedly, closely attended / the watchful cock. The hen excretes a large dropping usually well v vay from its nest and often near its drinking place. On returning, it ;ain flies at first but walks for the last few metres to the nest, unaccom- mied by the cock. After the eggs start chipping, the hen stays on the nest for up to two nys till hatching is over, leaving faeces in or just outside the nest. ie last egg usually hatches within six hours of the first, but in some - ses up to 24 hours later. The hen then broods in the nest for up to a 1 .y after the chicks hatch, especially in wet weather, and then leaves e nest for good. Brooding out of the nest is mostly done by the m, with the cock keeping watch, but if the hen is killed the cock oods all the chicks, even sitting in the nest in one case when a oat Mustela erminea killed the hen during the hatch. The young are ooded till they are about six weeks old. BEHAVIOUR OF YOUNG ty-old chicks run easily and can go faster by flapping their wings. iey can preen their down, groom their eyes, bill, feet and anus, and •etch their bodies. Captive chicks peck continually at conspicuous •jects such as the eyes and comb of their bantam foster-parent, or Dving insects against a light background, and brass paper clips on a rdboard surround, and they sometimes wound the eyes of other icks. Dust-bathing starts at the age of five to seven days, and at /en to ten days they can fly for up to two metres. From this age :y also run away with large insects before eating them and may be ased by other chicks while doing so. Captive chicks do not crouch the appearance of a man until they are nearly a week old and then ly for a few seconds, but wild day-old chicks will crouch for up to e minutes. Captive chicks threaten and peck each other from their first day, d occasionally attempt to sing on the ground in a characteristic adult sture. From the age of a week they increasingly threaten each D9 BRITISH BIRDS other by crouching briefly, raising their tiny combs, wagging their heads and then jumping wildly about. These displays space the young further apart, and they often occur when there are many in one cage, but wild young seldom show them till almost fully grown. Captive chicks over a week old frequently sing on the ground and have disputes in which they face and peck each other, raising their tiny pale combs while threatening. The combs of young cocks and hens are of different size and colour from eight weeks, but look smaller than those of old birds till about twelve weeks. Aggressive encounters become increasingly common as the young reach maturity after twelve weeks, and culminate in the break-up of the family parties in autumn. REACTIONS TO PREDATORS Man When a man approaches a grouse, it often crouches with head low and forward to avoid being seen. On nearer approach, it sits up or stands up with erect head in the alert or watchful posture, and may also show a bobbing posture signifying flight intention (fig. i). If the man retreats, it stops flight intention and merely stays alert. Grouse flush at distances varying with weather and time of year. On windy or snowy winter days they sometimes flush at 1,000 metres, but on calm days at less than 50 metres, and in spring and summer they may be almost trodden upon before flying. Often they run away instead of flying, usually in an alert posture but sometimes with heads and bodies low near the ground. Cock grouse in spring occasionally threaten approaching men or vehicles, and exceptional cocks attack and peck at people in spring and autumn. Two captive cocks flew at people approaching or entering their cage, giving so many blows that they wore all the feathers off their carpal joints and above their bills. Hens are very unwilling to fly just prior to egg-laying, and often allow themselves to be stroked during incubation. A pair of Red Grouse with small young once dive-bombed one of us, and a cock Willow Grouse in Alaska flew straight in the face of a man coming near the nest (Dixon 1927). When they have small chicks, hen Red Grouse sometimes sit on the ground within a few metres of the intruder, lowering their heads, fanning their tails, stretching their necks and hissing loudly with wide- open bill. However, breeding cocks and hens usually either fly away from an intruder or stand conspicuously in the alert or watchful posture (fig. ib), or else show the distraction behaviour described below. barge mammal predators When grouse see a dog, cat or Fox Vulpes vnlpes within 100-200 metres, . 140 BEHAVIOUR OF THE RED GROUSE BRITISH BIRDS Owls Grouse pay little attention to Short-eared Owls Asio flammeus unless they come very close. However, we once watched an owl hovering two metres above a single five-week-old grouse which rose high on its legs and chattered loudly while stabbing with its bill every time the owl stooped. Young grouse are sometimes found as prey at Short- eared Owl nests, and we have twice flushed these owls from freshly killed grouse. Crows and other egg-predators When Carrion Crows Corvus corone fly past overhead, parent grouse and their young crouch down, but both cocks and hens fly and dive at crows or gulls coming within about ten metres of their eggs or young. A single hen with small young successfully repelled a pair of crows by standing up and pecking every time one came near. Cock Willow Grouse in Alaska put to flight gulls and Magpies Pica pica coming near their eggs or young (Dixon 1927). Broad-winged raptors and falcons Golden Eagles Aquila chrysaetos, buzzards Buteo spp. and Hen Harriers Circus cyaneus usually take their prey on the ground, and when they appear grouse often fly swiftly away for 800 metres or more; flocks in winter may fly three kilometres from an eagle or a buzzard. They usually crouch when they have eggs or young, however, and they do this at any time of year if the predator is higher than 150 metres. Single birds and pairs occasionally crouch even when these predators come close, but flocks nearly always fly. Once when a male Hen Harrier stooped at a territory-owning cock grouse, the grouse stood up high and struck quickly several times with his bill towards the predator, repeating the action when the latter stooped a second time; the harrier then flew on. When another harrier stooped vertically with its legs outstretched towards a hen grouse, she flattened herself into some long heather in a violent movement in which she lost some feathers. She then jumped sixty centimetres into the air with her wings out, then down to the ground and up again in a quick bouncing movement, avoiding the harrier’s strike by half a metre. The whole action was over within two seconds. Peregrines Valeo peregrinus and Merlins F. columbarius usually take prey in the air and grouse react to them by crouching, often gliding with elongated necks and flattened bodies into tiny depressions, where they remain till a minute or two after the falcon has gone. One flock did not emerge till six minutes after a Merlin flew past. When Black Grouse Lyrurus tetrix fly over, Red Grouse usually react only bv becoming briefly alert, but on two occasions when a flock of Black 142 BEHAVIOUR OF THE RED GROUSE Grouse flew low over some Red Grouse the latter all crouched for two ninutes. In these cases the Black Grouse were in sight for only about i second, probably too short a time for recognition, and the Red Grouse reacted as they normally would to a falcon. Eagles, buzzards and harriers usually hunt grouse by flying low and hen rising suddenly over small hillocks or peat haggs to catch unsus- pecting birds on the other side. Though eagles often pursue flying grouse, they are usually outstripped and rarely kill in full flight unless hey have the initial advantage of extra height. Peregrines and vlerlins, however, often kill birds in flight, and this is presumably why ;rouse crouch below falcons but fly before eagles and harriers. Since grouse often flee from harmless flying Herons S\rdea cinerea or lavens Corvus corax and crouch below the innocuous Kestrel ¥alco • nnunculus , their reaction presumably depends on the shape of the lying bird ( cj . Tinbergen 1948). However, they can differentiate to ome extent between birds of roughly similar wing shape, since they 1 .0 not fly so wildly before a Heron as before an eagle or a harrier. , Vhen aircraft pass overhead at an altitude of 300 metres or more, rouse react to them as they do to high-flying predators, becoming lert and turning their heads sideways to look straight up. When a upersonic plane streaks past silently overhead, they move immediately ito depressions as they do on the appearance of a falcon, but often *nore the plane if it is audible as well as visible. Once when a jet lane flashed low and silently overhead, a cock grouse which had been ceding on his territory erected his combs and ran forward in an ggressive posture towards the approaching plane. As in the case f the cock grouse which reacted aggressively to a harrier, it seems kely that dominant grouse which have territories may sometimes ireaten an approaching predator and thus escape being attacked. Grouse are more frightened of eagles than of men or dogs. On iveral occasions we have observed many grouse rising before an igle from an area which had just been driven by about twenty men 'ith some dogs, and which one might therefore have supposed to ontain no grouse. DISTRACTION BEHAVIOUR •istraction behaviour is generally taken to mean conspicuous behavi- ur ‘to deflect potential predators from eggs or young’ (Simmons 1955). ed Grouse frequently show this when they have eggs or young, but ie cock birds also frequently divert attention away from their mates atside the breeding season, when a man, dog or car comes into their rritories. Since this diversionary behaviour (walking in a circle) is so commonly shown by both cocks and hens with eggs or young, it ;ust be regarded as a form of distraction behaviour. The other forms *43 BRITISH BIRDS of distraction behaviour (crouched run, heavy flight, injury flight) occur only during the breeding season, and are used by both sexes. (1) Walking in a circle From February onwards, a cock grouse, looking conspicuous with its combs erect and tail cocked, often struts in front of a car in a typical threat posture. Occasionally it does this in front of a man or dog, now and again making short song flights and invariably leading away from the hen. It generally leads the intruder round in a circle of about ioo metres diameter without going near the edge of its territory; and if the intruder keeps pursuing, it repeats the same circular path two or three times in succession, taking five minutes or more. By search- ing the territory thoroughly with dogs, we have found that unmated cocks do not show this behaviour, and when it is seen a female is invariably found hiding somewhere within the circle. As soon as the hen has been found and runs away from the intruder, the cock no longer circles around but follows the hen instead. This diversionary behaviour becomes increasingly common towards the time of egg-laying, and is most frequent when the hens are incubat- ing or brooding small young. In one case, while the observer waited in a stationary car, a cock spent half an hour walking round the same circular path and continually coming back to where it started. The hen and newly hatched chicks were discovered only at the end of this period when the observer happened to notice them crouching near the car. If the observer finds the eggs or young, either parent will often circle round less than 20 metres away, running or walking in the alert posture and sometimes showing flight intention. If the bird is fol- lowed, it leads the intruder straight away from its eggs or chicks, but will start circling again if the intruder returns to the chicks. (2) Crouched run The bird runs quickly, close in front of or in a circle round the observer, with its head low, neck hunched and body near the ground. Often a hen will fly for some metres off its nest or young and then run, whether the observer follows or not. Others run without flying. (3) Heavy flight The bird flies off verv heavily near the ground for a few seconds before flying or running normally. The wings are flapped slowly and the expanded tail droops slightly. (4) Injury flight The bird calls loudly and threshes heavily along the ground away from 144 BEHAVIOUR OF THE RED GROUSE he observer, quivering and flapping its wings, spreading its tail and .howing its combs. This usually lasts only five to ten seconds at a ime, but occasionally for a minute without a break, and is most dgorous when the chicks are small. Hens occasionally show injury light after the first week of incubation and more often towards hatchi- ng, but cocks rarely show it till after hatching. It is uncommon after he young are six weeks old, but one pair displayed vigorously when I heir voung were almost fully grown at nine weeks. Injury flight is j ommoner some years than others, possibly varying with the health of he parents (Jenkins, Watson and Miller 1963). Sometimes the different distraction postures grade into each other. V bird that flies off its young in front of a running dog will often lutter rapidly downhill in a posture intermediate between heavy flight nd injury flight, and walking in a circle sometimes intergrades with rouched running. Injury flight is commonly interspersed with brief 'eriods of the other postures, and with periods of upright threat, tanding alert and flight intention. The performance of different individuals varies greatly. Many fly traight away from their eggs or young for up to a kilometre without topping, and at the other extreme one pair led us by injury flights and rouched running for ten minutes and for 400 metres in a straight line way from their brood, and then flew straight back to the young, locks usually display less often, less vigorously and for shorter periods ian hens, but occasionally the cock displays and the hen flies away, ometimes both parents show injury flight, but often only one does so nd the other shows another distraction posture or else flies away. Crouched run, heavy flight and other postures are less intensive )rms of distraction behaviour than injury flight. Most birds fly rraight from the nest in the earlier part of incubation, but when isturbed later in incubation show heavy flight. Towrards hatching, rouched running and injury flight become commoner. Many birds low injury flight when leaving their small young, but, if the observer oes not go away, they change after a minute to crouched running or eavy flight. After five minutes, the bird generally moves further vay and walks in a circle. It may stand upright or fly away, but will :vert to injury flight and come right up to the feet of the observer or og if one of the chicks starts cheeping. These postures, and in particular the injury flight, momentarily dis- act even experienced observers and especially dogs long enough for lem to miss some or all of the chicks; they are particularly effective ith young dogs. When a grouse is flushed off eggs or young by a lan with a dog near-by, it usually runs or flies in front of the dog and lay decoy it as far as 300 metres away even though the man has :mained beside the chicks. It then returns to show less intensive M5 BRITISH BIRDS distraction postures near the man. We have not seen any distraction behaviour in captive grouse with eggs or young. REACTIONS TO NON-PREDATORS Grouse sometimes become briefly alert on the close approach of poultry, sheep, cattle, small rodents, Rabbits Orjctolagus cuniculus, hares Fepits spp., Pheasants Phasianus colchicus , Partridges Perdix perdix and Black Grouse. During winter several aggressive encounters have been seen between cock Red Grouse and cock Ptarmigan Lagopus mutus , and also between the former and domestic fowls. On two occasions cock Red Grouse showed the ‘rapid-stamping’ sexual display to Greyhens (female Black Grouse) which became alert and then walked or ran away, and a captive one put in a cage with a Greyhen at once mounted it, killing it by shock. We once saw a Rabbit chasing two Red Grouse, and Lapwings Vanellus vanellus often dive at them near their nests, forcing them to duck and move away. FEEDING, COMFORT MOVEMENTS AND RESTING Feeding Feeding Red Grouse usually snip oft' the topmost shoots of heather Callrna vulgaris , but also peck sideways at lower shoots and stretch or jump up to reach tall heather or J uncus seeds. They run and flutter to catch insects up to the size of bluebottles Calliphora spp. and small Lepidoptera, but seldom scratch for insects, unlike Pheasants and domestic fowls. Sometimes they feed above ground on sheaves or stacks of oats and in trees up to ten metres high. When there is snow, they sometimes scratch with their feet to expose heather, but more often fly away to feed where heather projects above the snow. When they are on oat stacks, they will also scratch the straw to uncover the grains. Grouse often eat grit, and sometimes fly to roads, sand pits or streams to obtain it. They often drink, usually within their territories, and in dry weather they may move locally to streams. One bird was seen flying 400 metres across other birds’ territories to drink at a lake. However, young are often reared in territories without any permanent water. Grouse also frequently drink dew drops and nibble at hoar frost, and in winter swallow large mouthfuls of snow. Preening A grouse preens its plumage and grooms its feet with its bill, puffing 1 out its feathers slightly and occasionally rubbing its bill on the preen | gland above the tail. The bill is cleaned either by wiping it on the | feet or on the ground, or by scratching it with one foot drawn straight j 146 BEHAVIOUR OF THE RED GROUSE G. 2. Red Grouse Lagop/is l. scoticus : (a) and (b) postures during cold weather; (c) standing at rest ) without extending the wing. The bird also draws up one foot ce this to groom its head. '■ather movements ) Shaking. The grouse stands up and shakes all its feathers, except ose on the head, upper neck, wings and legs, in a sudden movement hich also involves wing shuffling and rapid fanning and closing of e tail. ) Wing flapping. The bird stands on its toes with legs fully retched and shakes its body feathers vigorously while flapping its ings, often rising slightly into the air. i Feather puffing and sleeking. On very cold days grouse often sit ith feathers puffed out and heads drawn in, occasionally shivering ghtly (fig. 2a and b). On warm days they keep their feathers sleek d tight against the body, elongate their necks as if alert, and often nt with open bills and vibrating throat. On hot days they seek 147 BRITISH BIRDS shade under tall vegetation or boulders and may even lie in pools of water. Grouse also momentarily puff out their body feathers to full extent and retract them without any shaking, whatever the weather is like. Sick or emaciated grouse, as well as subordinate birds which have just been attacked, may also stand hunched up for minutes on end with feathers puffed out. During aggressive encounters, subordinate birds also frequently show feather shaking and wing flapping. Body stretching (a) Wing stretching. The grouse stretches one wing fully out to"the side and draws the extended claws of one foot slowly through the primaries. (b) Forward stretch. A sitting or standing grouse leans forward for several seconds with flexed legs, lowered head and neck, and wings bent partly upwards but not fully extended. (c) Yawning. A sitting grouse yawns while stretching its head for- wards. Bathing When bathing, grouse lie down and wriggle from side to side, scratch- ing up dust, snow or water into their plumage with feet and wings. In soft snow, they often slide head-first downhill for one to two metres, using wings and feet for propulsion, burrowing into the snow with their heads, and flapping their wings now and again to shower snow on to their backs. When sun-bathing, at all times of the year, they lie on one side with the opposite leg stretched out, puffing out the feathers on the thigh and belly to the full extent. Resting When resting in daylight, grouse usually sit or stand with heads drawn in (fig. 2c), closing their eyes for a few seconds at a time and occasionally tucking the head under one wing. They go to roost about dusk and stay in the same spot till dawn, except in bright moonlight when some will occasionally walk or fly. Some sit with head under one wing, and others in the usual daylight resting posture. Captive birds often sleep on ■wooden perches one metre off the ground. In the wild they usually roost in fairly long heather, but sometimes on open ground with short vegetation. They seldom rest or roost right underneath tall bushes of heather, except when moulting and also during the breeding season when the cock often has several resting hollows under tall heather or trees near the nest. Nearly every bird on frosty mornings is white with hoar all over its back, upper tail and crown but not over its breast and throat, which shows that it roosted with uncovered back. 148 BEHAVIOUR OF THE RED GROUSE vlost grouse roost in flocks from October to spring, then in pairs or ingly till the eggs hatch, and subsequently as a family party. In a lock they usually roost about half a metre apart, but the members of a amily party roost close together (often touching each other) till the oung are almost fully grown. Grouse scratch out roosting hollows 10-12 centimetres deep in hard now and 15-20 centimetres or more in soft snow. The bill marks, aotprints and faeces show that they stay in much the same position 11 night, facing the wind. Occasionally they dig sideways into a rift, or straight down and then sideways, and roost at the far end of le burrow 25-30 centimetres from the surface (one unusual burrow 'as 15 centimetres deep and had two entrances 30 centimetres apart), 'hey walk both to and from their roosting place, and sometimes dig . artial hollows in one place before finally settling in another. Each ole is used for only one night, and where a flock has roosted many oles occur fairly close together. They also dig snow hollows for :sting in during the day, occasionally making deeper burrows and tting inside the entrance. Roosting grouse are stated (Committee 7 Inquiry 1 9 1 1) to tread the snow under them during a heavy snow- 11, the night’s pile of faeces being scattered through a depth of several et, but in our experience grouse during a severe blizzard roost in irlv open places where deep drifts are unlikely to accumulate. VOICE OF ADULTS he rest of this paper deals with sexual and agonistic behaviour, ost grouse calls are associated with these aspects, but all are described :re to avoid confusion. Fifteen distinct calls are given by both xes, with the hen’s higher pitched than the cock’s. They are accom- .nied by characteristic postures which are also described. ) So >ig in flight (‘ becking’) song flight the bird flies steeply upwards for about ten metres, sails r less than a second, and then gradually descends with rapidly beating ngs, fanned tail and extended head and neck. On landing, its imaries often touch the ground, and it then stands high with droop- 5 wings, bobbing its body and fanning its tail in and out. Its mbs are erect throughout and often its nape feathers are raised. During the ascent it gives a loud barking aa, and during the descent '-ka-ka-ka about eight to twelve times, at first quick but gradually >wer and more high pitched. After landing, there follows a gruffer, adually slower call kobwa-kohwa-kohwa (sometimes kohivayo-kobwayo- bwayo) a varying number of times lasting up to eleven seconds, the :d fanning its tail rapidly out and in at each kohwa. The height of the song flight varies with the bird’s dominance, hens 149 BRITISH BIRDS and surplus cocks usually rising only one to two metres compared with ten to fifteen metres, and exceptionally thirty metres, by territory- owning cocks. The loudness of this and other aggressive calls also varies with the bird’s dominance and with the amount of interaction going on near-by at the time. Grouse usually sing only one refrain during one flight, but vigorous cocks occasionally give two and exceptionally three or four, climbing highest with the first song and omitting the kohwa part till they finally land. The duration of this last part varies with the time of year (cf. Peterle 1955) and the dominance of the bird, hens and surplus cocks usually giving few or no kohwa calls. When a grouse lands while chasing or being chased by another, it often omits the first part of the song and gives only the kohwa part after a very short upward flight. Grouse often sing when flushed, without the typical associated ascending flight or the kohwa calls, and may repeat this abbreviated call once or more before finally landing in the usual manner. During territorial disputes they often give this abbreviated song without the ascending flight while flying forward for one to two metres along the boundary. Captive birds confined in a small cage often give the full song from the ground or from a perch without flying at all, but wild birds that are stationary use another type of song described below. (2) Song on the ground The bird stands upright on the ground or on a stone or post, stretching its head and neck up and forwards, and swelling its neck as it calls a vibrating ko-ko-ko-ko-krrrr (plate 17). There are about twenty syllables, but, since the call lasts only about two seconds and gets faster right from the start, it is difficult to transcribe the last and fastest part. The bird often repeats the first syllable slowly and intermittently when less aggressive, and this slow drawling sometimes speeds up into a complete ground song. On a few occasions a hen about to land with her mate after a sexual chase has made a steep turn straight up and given a quick version of the ground song in mid-air. Sometimes a cock pursuing another cock or hen has also given this call in mid-air when flying up after nearly landing. Flight and ground song serve as both advertisement and threat. Advertisement by an invisible singing cock is obvious when an un- mated hen flies immediately to it. Threat is obvious when a submis- sive cock crouches or flies away from an invisible cock singing near-by, or when a territory-owner flies at once to attack an intruder that has sung out of sight. Ground song is also used to threaten approaching men, sheep or cars, or other grouse flying briefly overhead. Song is most frequent during territorial disputes, when a ‘chain reaction’ develops in response to the spontaneous singing of one bird. The 150 BEHAVIOUR OF THE RED GROUSE birds usually sing on the ground when there is little disturbance, but mav also sing in flight if disturbance is near. They sing outside their territories when they alight after being flushed and after aggressive or • sexual chases, and they occasionally also sing in autumn and early winter when they are in flocks. |(3) Attack [kohwa) ’ This call, with the accent on the second syllable, sounds the same as the Anal kohwa part of the flight song, but is given once, or two or three times in quick succession, without any preceding notes or upward song flight. After a song flight the kohwa call is uttered by . grouse that are stationary, but when this call is given alone without xnv preceding notes the birds are usually moving. It is often heard when a cock runs forwards to attack another bird, with its head stretched low and forwards, its neck swollen and its body close i to the ground. It often fans its tail and droops its wings, but tucks :hem in just before running forwards to strike the other (flg. 4c and d). 1 Cocks also use this call when chasing and trying to mount hens, and immediately following copulation. 4) Attack intention ( kohwaj ) This single call is given by birds which are stationary and threatening, out not actually attacking. Variants are kohwaj-ko-ko, and less often ko-ko-ko- kohwaj or kohwaj followed by a hurried kohway-kohway-kohwaj. The bird leans low and forwards with legs bent, bobbing its tail and •gradually raising its vibrating head and neck (Ag. 4b). The call occurs in disputes where two birds are equally matched and both are ihowing attack intention movements without actually running for- wards in attack. ■> 5) Threat ( kohwajo ) This call, often rapidly repeated, is less aggressive than the attack kohwa. The bird has a posture similar to that in ground song, stretching higher md higher, raising its slightly bobbing head and neck upwards and vibrating its body. 6) Threat and social contact ( krrow ) This nasal, rattling call is occasionallv given only once, but usually everal times in succession. The hen’s higher-pitched version sounds rery like the sharp kia call of the Jackdaw Corvus motiedula. Grouse jiving this call stand with head and neck upright, often looking around .lertly. It is heard in three different circumstances : (a) Threat. Both sexes use it in aggressive disputes and cocks Iso when pursuing hens. The aggressor usually stands sideways on 1 5 1 BRITISH BIRDS to the other bird, with its neck slightly thickened, its breast partly puffed out and its combs partly or fully erect, rather like the drawing which appears at the head of the first page of this and every issue of British Birds. The four calls kohiva, kohway, krroiv and ko-ko-ko (flight intention) form a decreasing sequence of aggression from attack to weak threat to escape. (b) Contact between adults. A hen grouse often gives this call while looking for a cock, and flies around calling at intervals till she finds one. She may also use it continually when her own mate is temporarily absent, sometimes up to twenty times in succession. (c) Contact with young. Both parents keep in touch with their young by this call, and use it to gather them together after disturbance. If a brood is scattered, the cock and hen often separate to follow different chicks, and then gather the remainder from distances of up to 500 metres by calling. In summer, the krrow call serves as contact with the young, and in winter as threat and contact between adults. The Chukar Partridge Alectoris graeca also has a call serving as threat and contact with the young at two different seasons (Stokes 1961). (7) Blight intention ( ko-ko-ko ) A bird giving this rapid call flexes its legs, has its head forward and erect, and its plumage tight and ready for flight. It also bobs its head, neck and the front part of its body backwards and forwards, flicks its wings and tail, and may also raise its crown feathers in a slight crest (fig. ic). The call may be given either spontaneously or as a result of disturbance. When approached by a man or chased by another grouse, the bird gives tiffs call more and more frequently till it flies off. It is also the usual call of a bird when handled. When two birds are threatening each other at close range and neither gives way, this call is frequently interspersed with attack and threat calls, the more submissive of the two birds giving more flight intention calls and fewer attack calls. This call is often given by a bird about to fly, either alone or from a flock, when there is no disturbance. The calling often stimulates others to call and show the bobbing flight intention posture, and thus the flock may take flight. (8) Chase (kok) When one grouse is chasing another aggressively or sexually, a single kok is given intermittently by both, but more often by the one being chased. It is also used by grouse that are being slowly chased by a man or car, whereas a closer approach or more rapid chase leads to the flight-intention call. If a grouse flushes after disturbance, it often 152 BEHAVIOUR OF THE RED GROUSE pves a single loud kok on taking off or in full flight. The calls get ouder, sharper and more frequent as the chase gets faster, and a hen hased in flight by a cock calls almost continuously, sounding like a >arking puppy. During intervals between aerial chases, cocks occasionally call after hey have stopped chasing, even several minutes after the chased bird ias settled down to feed. This call is often given by both cock and ten during distraction display, when their brood has been disturbed by man or dog. )) Warning {kok) > ^hen a dog. Fox or cat appears near a grouse, the bird stands very alert nd gives a single kok at intervals. This is louder and higher pitched lan the chase kok and elicits a different response from other grouse, diich at once become alert and give the call themselves. During the reeding season, cock grouse sometimes use this call when a man or og appears, whereupon the hen and young crouch out of sight. If single hen gives this call, the young all crouch immediately and the . en stays alert till danger is past. A hen with small young occasionally rtters this call when a Kestrel or Carrion Crow flies past, but the borrow call is generally used as a warning of bird predators. 0) Warning {chorrow) 'his rattling call, harsher and longer than the contact krrow, is usually iven by both parents with chicks when a raptor or crow flies near, 'he parent giving this call crouches and immediately the whole brood oes the same till the predator has gone, whereas the contact krrow lakes the chicks stand up and look around. 1) Sexual (/ koah ) nlike the attack kohwa, this call has the emphasis on the first syllable id is given softly and in rapid succession by birds which are not tacking. Both sexes give the call when they are (a) showing head- agging and crouching during sexual display, (b) looking for and icavating trial nest-hollows and (c) bathing in dust, water or snow, aptive hens also give this call when laying eggs, when the cock or a an approaches near the nest during incubation, and occasionally in inter when a man approaches the cage. During sexual behaviour it usual for only one bird, cock or hen, to be displaying actively at anv le time; the active bird often gives this call when it crouches or sits, ren if its mate is feeding or resting up to four metres awav. 2) Hissing 'hen disturbed by a man, hen grouse occasionally hiss while incubat- g eggs and more commonly while brooding small chicks. Both 1 5 3 BRITISH BIRDS parents with small young often hiss during distraction display after being disturbed by a man or dog. Hissing is sometimes heard when one grouse approaches another to attack or display sexually. Some captive grouse hiss when approached or handled, and both wild and captive grouse hiss when a small mammal predator comes within one metre of them. (13) Distraction (krow) This call is distinct from the contact krrow and is uttered only during distraction display. The young crouch as long as the parents are giving this call, but stand up and look around as soon as the parents start the longer and softer contact krrow. The distraction krow thus elicits a similar response from the young as the warning cborrow, but is sharper and less rattling, and is given by adults in an alert posture. (14) Calling to small chicks Cock and hen grouse calling to tiny chicks give a soft, cooing, purring korrr, sometimes more lengthy and resembling koo-ee-oo. The call is given more frequently when chicks cheep loudly in distress. Captive hens occasionally use this note when sitting on eggs, and even in winter when a man approaches the cage. In these cases it often merges into the koah call and it may therefore be a variant of the latter. (15) Defence against bird predators A grouse that is being attacked at close range by a bird predator, or whose mate or young are being attacked, stands up alertly and gives a harsh chattering krrrrr. This was observed on one occasion each with a Hen Harrier, a Short-eared Owl and a Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus , and twice with Carrion Crows. None of these attacks was successful. VOICE OF YOUNG Grouse chicks often cheep softly, particularly when attractive food is given or when they are settling under a hen or a brooder. From a day old, they also give a much shriller distress cheep when they are cold or when they are handled or flushed, whereupon one of the parents usually comes running; this distress cheep is a single note, repeated frequently. They give the soft cheep till almost fully grown, but after about a month the distress cheep becomes a high pitched kjow, which gradually turns into the adult krrow and is probably a contact call. If a crouching chick is picked up and gives the shrill cheep, at any age from a day onwards, others in the brood rise from their hiding places and scatter by running or flying away. The parents use the know contact call to gather in the young, which then fly or run to them. H4 BEHAVIOUR OF THE RED GROUSE Captive male chicks a day or two old sometimes climb on to a stone jr turf, stand up with swollen necks and give a high pitched chatter. This resembles the adult ‘ground song’ increasingly as they grow up. They often give this call just after a man arrives, but sometimes when jne chick threatens another. Young hens rarely use it till fully grown, but cocks commonly after two or three weeks. Young cocks start singing in flight at ten weeks and young hens at twelve weeks. The young cock’s songs at ten weeks resemble those of an adult hen, but ts voice breaks at ten to twelve weeks and becomes indistinguishable 'rom that of an adult cock. All the adult calls are apparently innate, since they are all used by :aptive young hatched and reared in the absence of their natural larents. Young grouse learn within a day or two that the ‘titbitting’ .all (Guhl 1962) of poultry foster-mothers signifies food, though grouse have not been heard giving a titbitting call nor seen dropping 'ood in front of their chicks. SEXUAL ACTIVITY iexual activity occurs in every month, but mainly from February to \pril. Continuous activity usually lasts only one to two minutes at a ime, sometimes less, and rarely over fifteen minutes. The most obvious feature of sexual and agonistic activity is the red :omb of the cock grouse. This flap of loose, bare skin above the lird’s eye measures about centimetres long and one centimetre ligh when fully erect. It is invisible below the feathers during feed- ng, resting or preening, except that the comb is often kept erect and he body stiff for several minutes of feeding or resting immediately .fter a period of sexual or agonistic activity. Sometimes the comb is lalf erected with the upper part folded down, and the extent of erection ndicates the dominance of the bird. Combs have a wrinkled surface nd a deeply serrated upper edge, and when fully erect they project bove the bird’s crown and appear to dilate. Though the hen’s pink ombs are much smaller, with a smooth surface and tiny serrations, hey also can be erected or depressed. The cock’s approach to another bird of either sex is threatening (fig. a); usually the other shows a submissive posture (fig. 3b) and may un or fly away, sometimes chased by the cock. If it does not flee, c invariably threatens back if it is a cock, and an aggressive encounter nsues, but if it is a hen it often remains submissive and the cock then hanges to courtship. Thus the typical postures of cock and hen ; uring sexual activity are respectively the same as the dominant and 1 ubmissive postures during aggressive encounters between two cocks •r between two hens. Much of what might at first be considered ourtship is aggression between cock and hen (cf. Tinbergen 1953), and M5 BRITISH BIRDS courtship displays take up a minor part of the time spent in sexual activity. However, although the aggressive and submissive postures of the cock and hen in sexual activity are often the same as those seen in agonistic behaviour, especially when there are two or more hens and when the cock is chasing rapidly, slight differences are often noticeable. When a cock is pursuing a hen, he generally walks more slowly and stiffly, puffs his breast further out and appears to have more swollen combs than when he is simply displacing a hen in a brief ‘individual distance’ dispute or when he is chasing another cock. The difference is particularly clear when a cock is chasing a hen he has been paired with for some time, and for this reason the difference becomes more frequent and easier to identify towards the spring. Fig. 3 . Red Grouse Lagopus l. scoticus : (a) general threat posture of cock approach- ing another cock or hen; (b) submissive posture of hen or subordinate cock; (c) and (d) front and rear views of tail-fanning cock; (c) pattern left in snow by tail- fanning cock; (f) cock showing asymmetrical tail-fanning and wing-drooping while waltzing near crouching hen (from photo of Willow Grouse Lagopus /. lagopus in Dixon 1927); (g) cock approaching hen in rapid-stamping display 156 BEHAVIOUR OF THE RED GROUSE A cock chasing a hen continually tries to head her back into his territory, but another cock will be driven right out of the territory, even though the latter may have had apparently the same submissive posture as a hen. Moreover, cock grouse have not been seen courting :he most submissive-looking birds of their own sex. Therefore the distinctive voice, plumage or comb of the hen may help recognition. Courtship displays 'his section describes postures not shown during aggressive encoun- ers between two birds of the same sex: tail-fanning, waltzing, rapid- ;tamping, bowing and head-wagging. Bowing occurs more often owards the breeding season, but since the other postures occur less • iften in late spring their purpose may be to help in pair attachment. This is also suggested by the fact that birds pairing for a second year, ;nd those laying a repeat clutch after the destruction of the first clutch, how fewer of these displays. This was also noticed by the Nether- ole-Thompsons (1939). (1) Tail-fanning. While threatening a hen, a cock often fans his tail mefly with a rapid flick. When the hen stops moving or starts feed- ng, the cock often keeps his tail fanned for several seconds and droops lis wings. He may scrape his primaries along the ground for up to hree metres, leaving characteristic patterns in snow (fig. 3c). The Irooping of the wing cannot be for balance in this species (cf. Goodwin 953), since both wings usually droop equally. The cock usually fans is tail alongside the hen, but sometimes behind her during pursuit, ometimes the cock moves in a very slight curve ahead of the hen, but lore often in a tighter curve so that he comes around her and may ice her briefly, or in a sinuous series of curves so that he passes in tont of her alternately from left and right. When he moves away in cont, there is a spectacular back view of his tail fanned to almost 1 8o°, nd also of the conspicuous white-tipped feathers on the belly, under lil-coverts and sometimes on the rectrices (fig. 3d), as in the Caper- lillie Tetrao tirogallus (see Brit. Birds, 5 1 : plate 32). Likewise the front iew shows up the white spots on the dark belly and thighs (fig. 3c). (2) W'altzing. When tail-fanning near a hen, a cock often circles ghtly within half a metre, pivoting around her with rapid high steps ister than normal walking and drooping the wing next to her further tan the other (fig. 3Q. This appears to be similar to the waltzing isplay of poultry (Guhl 1962). The cock grouse also twists his •nned tail sideways so that the fan is partly turned towards the hen id often tilts his whole body slightly to the same side. W'altzing is robably a more intense form of tail-fanning, which the cock uses onlv hen very near the hen. This is suggested by occasional observations intermediate cases in which the cock tilts his body slightlv towards 1 57 BRITISH BIRDS the hen while he shows ordinary tail-fanning and sometimes even without any tail-fanning when he is simply walking a few metres away from her. (3) Rapid-stamping. The cock runs forwards towards the hen with rapid short steps, fans his tail slightly, thickens and arches his extended neck, and holds his head low with bill wide open (fig. jg) On rare occasions the cock runs with his body almost touching the ground when passing close alongside the hen. She usually moves on quickly when he comes very near, and further rapid-stamping or tail-fanning may follow. A cock may display to stationary or moving hens by either rapid-stamping or tail-fanning and waltzing, but rapid-stamping is probably a more aggressive display. A cock chasing another cock often fans his tail and droops his wings for a moment, but runs for- ward rapidly with wings tucked in and neck outstretched when actually attacking (figs. 4c and d). Thus tail-fanning and rapid-stamping both occur as threat and courtship on different occasions. Certain aspects are exaggerated during courtship, particularly the longer duration of wing-drooping and tail-fanning, the asymmetrical tail-fanning and wing-drooping, and the arching of the neck, while the movements are much slower and more leisurely. Though the common origin of courtship and threat postures is apparent, these differences in emphasis allow easy identification of courting or threatening birds. (4) Bowing. If the hen does not run away and the cock does not try to mount, the latter often bows his lowered head up and down, still with arched neck and lowered body, with tail partly fanned and often with raised nape feathers. This indicates less aggression than rapid- stamping. Towards egg-laying time, grouse often show head-bowing alone in the absence of other displays, without much arching of the neck and without rapid-stamping and bill-opening. They often nearly touch during this display. This bowing during courtship is probably a slow version of the bobbing movements of the head and neck which occur when birds are giving the kohway and kohwayo attack-intention calls. (5) Head- wagging. Both sexes show this display. Either one crouches in front of or at the side of its mate, stretches its neck for- wards stiffly and quickly wags its head and neck several times from side to side, showing off its combs and pointing its bill slightly up- wards. At each turn, it twists its head so that the eye on that side looks upwards for a split second and the tail wags sideways. Hens occasionally stretch their heads low and forwards just before crouching and head- wagging, and sometimes a bird shows head- wagging while standing up. When a hen approaches a cock, the cock sometimes crouches low, erects his combs and, the nearer she comes, lowers his head till it almost touches the ground. As the lien passes, he gradually 158 BEHAVIOUR OF THE RED GROUSE raises his head again. This may be a less intense form of head-wag- ging, but it is not certain. Only one at a time shows head-wagging, and often the cock and hen do it alternately, during his pursuit of her or when they have stopped, and occasionally without any previous display. Either may start. If it is the hen, the cock usually reacts by rapid-stamping, but sometimes he stands upright for a few seconds before running for- ward. He then walks towards her back and tries to grasp her head- feathers in his bill, but she nearly always stands up at the last moment. She usually runs away, but sometimes she jumps quickly to one side ust as he is about to mount, stands upright for a few seconds and :hen crouches and wags her head again. This may occur up to four imes in quick succession. However, when the cock is the one to itart the head-wagging, the hen usually shows no reaction till he starts :>ne of the other displays. Head-wagging and subsequent jumping resemble the aggressive umping display, and the two probably have a common origin. How- :ver, the crouching and head-wagging parts are emphasised during :ourtship and the jumping part during threat. standing upright During intervals between other displays, the cock often stands at the ten’s side, with upright head and neck. This is not the same as the usual standing alert posture (fig. ib), since he has his combs erect and lis neck and breast partly puffed out. This posture of weak threat is imilar to that of cocks giving the krrow call in disputes with other ocks, and a cock often gives these calls while in this posture near the ten. Population The hen invites copulation by crouching before the cock without lead-wagging, opening her wings slightly and holding her head in a lormal position, unlike the otherwise similar posture when a predator ; near. She may show this precopulatory invitation after tail-fanning >v the cock, but sometimes without any preceding display on his part. The cock responds by jumping on the hen’s back, grasping her rown feathers or skin in his bill, drooping his wings on either side nd moving his fanned tail up and down for a few seconds as he copu- ites. As the hen moves away, he jumps off, often giving several breat calls while she runs ahead for a few steps. She then shakes her ody feathers and moves away to feed or preen. He, on the other and, usually displays vigorously for a minute or two with fanned tail nd drooping wings, giving frequent threat calls and often moving to a M9 BRITISH BIRDS high stone or post where he looks around alertly. The grasping of the crown feathers or skin is an action that also occurs occasionally at any season when cocks attack cocks or hens attack hens, and here again the common origin of sexual and agonistic postures is clear. Sometimes a hen allows a cock to mount but moves away before copulation, and in such cases she does not shake out her body feathers. Cock grouse sometimes copulate or attempt to copulate with hens which are merely alert, without there being any previous display from either bird. This has not been seen in wild birds, but one vigorous captive Red Grouse, and also Willow Grouse (Host 1938), copulated with a strange hen within a minute of being put in the cage together. Both wild and captive Red Grouse have been seen copulating in early morning, mid-afternoon and evening, from just before egg-laying started until half way through incubation. In several cases, copulation occurred when the hen came off the nest after laving an egg and during incubation. Sexual chases Sexual chases, when a cock rapidly pursues a hen on the ground or in the air, occur in every month except June and July, but mostly from late January to late April. Chases on the ground usually last a few seconds and the birds walk or run only a few metres, but they some- times cover fifty metres or more, and two ground chases have been seen lasting 15 minutes and covering distances of 250 and 300 metres. Often the hen circles within the same small area, running round stones and bushes so quickly that the cock has to flutter to keep up with her sudden changes of direction. If the hen takes flight, the cock usually pursues and attacks in mid-air from above and below and from the side, trying to force her back to his territory. Aerial chases may cover an area up to 40 hectares and 800 metres in diameter, and may last several minutes at a time. Sexual chases often result from disturbance. If a pair are resting or feeding and the hen starts moving away, either spontaneously or through being disturbed, the cock at once pursues and a rapid sexual chase often occurs. Again, if a man or another cock grouse is very near and the hen does not move, the cock attacks his mate, forcing her to fly and starting off another sexual chase. Aerial chases with two cocks pursuing one hen are sometimes seen after territorial disputes between an unmated and mated cock, during which either of the cocks may attack the hen and all three fly off. These threesome chases also occur after territorial disputes between two mated cocks, if only one of the hens is near the dispute and flies off spontaneously. If two pairs come within a few metres of each other after sexual chases on the ground, there sometimes follows a sexual chase in the air, in which 160 BEHAVIOUR OF THE RED GROUSE he two pairs may either separate in mid-air or sometimes land to- gether in a great scuffle almost on top of each other. Pair for /nation locks advertise on their territories and hens tend to come to and stay vith the most vigorous cocks. Typically a hen lands on the territory ;arly in the morning and is at first alert for a minute or two. If she is .ompletely ignored, she starts giving the know contact call and looks iround. If the cock still shows no response, she may fly away and :ontinue flying from territory to territory till a cock flies towards her md starts displaying. If she sees or hears another cock advertising limself, she often flies oft’ to land near him and then starts calling. If the cock responds, he makes a song flight landing near the hen, md then struts aggressively towards her. The hen then runs with the :ock pursuing, but if she runs towards the territory boundary he leads her off from the outer side to change her direction. The cock lsually shows courtship displays as soon as the hen stops or slows lown, but if the hen is pursued too quickly and flies off, an aerial chase nay follow. The cock may then manage to drive the hen back, but iften the two separate after landing on other birds’ territories. Occasionally a hen takes a more active part in pair formation. During one incident a hen that landed in a territory and gave the :ontact call was at first ignored by the cock. She then ran aggressively vith head forward and cocked tail towards the male, who ran away n a fairly submissive attitude with combs only slightly raised. As ;oon as he stopped, the hen gave the contact call and then crouched md wagged her head. However, the cock moved on again, where- lpon the hen got up again and ran after him. Whenever the cock topped, the hen gave the contact call. Eventually the hen flew everal metres to land and give threat calls close beside the cock. For he first time, the cock now began to chase the hen, and when she lew away after giving more contact calls, he pursued her and the two anded singing together. The cock then showed courtship displav or the first time. We have also seen several suggestive incidents where a second hen anded in a cock’s territory. The cock’s own mate standing beside iim then diverted his attention from the new arrival by showing the light intention posture and giving the associated calls, before living >ff in the opposite direction. The cock then flew after his mate. X'hen a cock with two hens is chasing one of them on the ground, the econd hen often walks behind or catches up by flying forward, but ometimes flies right in front of the cock, diverting his attention from he first hen, or runs and then squats in front of him. Usually only one hen at a time accompanies a displaving cock, but on 1 6 1 BRITISH BIRDS several occasions a very vigorous cock has been seen displaying to as many as five hens at once. The cock continually chased and rounded them up, but this did not last more than an hour. Some hens Hew away and associated with cocks on other territories, or became aggres- sive towards each other and flew away as a result. The cock generally stayed with the hens that were left rather than pursuing those that flew away. The longest that one cock had three hens was one whole day, but many cocks regularly had two hens and later bred with both, even though other cocks near-by remained unmated. A cock with two hens usually displayed to one individual hen more than to the other. Prolonged observation of individually marked birds has shown that many pairs in autumn and winter are only temporary associations be- tween cock and hen, and the development of the pair bond can be gauged fairly easily by flushing the birds. In autumn and early winter the cock generally flies first and the two birds often separate. In spring, by contrast, the cock usually flies second, after the hen, and the two tend to return to the territory together after aerial chases. The hen becomes less willing to flee from the cock, singing on the ground and giving other threat calls when he advances towards her, and singing with him when they land together after a flight. It is fairly easy to distinguish between temporary and permanent pairings in this way. Interaction with other grouse Sexual behaviour during pair formation often leads to territorial inter- action with other grouse and a consequent change of mates. When a hen lands during a sexual chase, the cock nearly always lands with her. If they land on a second cock’s territory, the invading cock usually attacks his mate and another aerial chase ensues in which he tries to force her back to his own territory. If she tries to land elsewhere, he often flies at her from underneath to keep her in the air, and he may chase her two or three times like this before they both return to his territory. If the hen does not fly from the second territory when her mate attacks her, she walks or runs away from him. Often the neighbour flies over as soon as he hears or sees the intruders landing and either displays to the hen or, more often, attacks the intruding cock. This invariably causes the intruding cock to attack his own mate fiercely, whereupon she usually flies and he pursues her to force her back to his territory. If the hen does not fly but merely runs out of the way, the neighbour puts the intruding cock to flight and the hen now associates with the neighbour. This is the most frequent cause of changing mates. A cock grouse often shows sexual display to his own mate following 162 LA TE 1 7- ^la'c Grouse L agopus I. sco fic/ts singing on the ground; note its aright stance and outstretched and swollen neck (page 150) {photo: lan M. Thomson) Plate i 8 . Abo a pair of Colla: Doves Streptop ciecaocto , Nort'o the male the lap and greyer (m H. A. Herns). lj close-up of n® showing collar i eye-ring, Gcrmi {photo: Rolf lAm Pl ate 19 (npposi Collared DoveSj Norfolk, l .sscx j Cheshire respectiv ( photos: A. Cinulall . c. p.m D. Turner-1 Hll"1. Pi. vi e 20 (fiterk Male Collared O suspicious, {photo: H. A. (see pages 17°"' Plate 21. Above, Collared Dove Streptopelia decaocto on a trcc-ncst, Hungary:' Below, a feeding group of 23, Essex, December 1962, such as may now be seen in many counties; note the dark primaries and the variations in plumage and collars {photos: Eric Hosking). Inset shows the conspicuous under-tail pattern {photo: N. J. Antoine) 2A. Starling ndgaris with . eathers re- 3 show skin >n neck and abdomen. ' 1 was infes- an epider- nite, Micro- s', red mites sus gallinac ultry fleas Hus galliuae o found to it (page 175) 2B. Head of ■ h Carduelis with waxy - g of eye- ' x infection occted, hut Id not be d(pagc 176) Plate 23. Above, typical lesions of chronic pox involving the toes on both feet of two Woodpigcons Cohmiba pa/umb/is (page 176). Below, papilloma of foot of male Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs; two of the toes have been lost (pages 176-177 and 184) BEHAVIOUR OF THE RED GROUSE erritorial aggression by a neighbouring cock or hen and this also lay result in a change of mates. When two mated cocks meet in a oundan dispute, their hens are usually some distance apart, the cocks re equally matched and the hens remain with their respective mates, lowever, if the two hens of rival cocks are near a disputed place on a i oundar), and one cock happens to be more dominant, the subordinate ock may be driven back and both hens may associate with the domin- at bird. The hens are usually passive and simply go with whichever ock displays to or chases them. Occasionally, one hen becomes den unng the dispute, gives the contact call, and may then fly awav if -nored. If her mate is not far away, he usually stops disputing with ie other cock and follows his own mate. Thus, although a cock will ten leave his hen to defend the boundary of his territory, he usually yreaks this ofl as soon as he sees or hears her flving away Keeping - s mate near him within the territory is apparently more important on ■ese occasions than defending the territory boundary. If either cock or hen flies away out of sight or hearing during a rrn tonal dispute, a change of mates often occurs. On one occasion a >ck flew away from his mate and had a boundary dispute for mutes during which he drove back a neighbouring cock and dis- ayed to this bird’s hen. In the meantime the cock’s own mate had en continually giving the contact call and looking around, and e went awa>' with another neighbouring cock which landed d displayed near her. Aggression from a hen occasionally leads to sexual display and rntorial interaction. When a hen sings spontaneously on the ground in flight, her mate stops feeding, flies at once to her and then dis- u-s. Territorial interaction may follow if a neighbouring cock also ;s towards the singing hen. DISPLACEMENT ACTIVITIES splacement activities are commonly shown by grouse in the midst of mal and agonistic activity. Hens occasionally, and cocks fre- endy,, show displacement feeding (or perhaps' ‘redirected attack -■mg rf Moynihan 1955), pecking at and sometimes swallowing )ots ot heather, but often only pecking towards the ground or the ither and not actually eating at all. Both sexes sometimes preen >w eather shaking and other comfort movements, and on rare :asions may sleep briefly. When suddenly approached by a man at se range, they occasionally crouch and show head-wagging for a ond or two before flving away. AGONISTIC BEHAVIOUR ien grouse are watchful and alert in the absence of predators this is isidered below to be a form of agonistic behaviour. Various !63 BRITISH BIRDS kinds of aggressive encounter between two or more birds are also frequent. Grouse do not allow others to come nearer than about sixty centimetres during the day or while roosting at night, and thev maintain this individual distance by briefly threatening or attacking, whether they are in flocks or not. One bird may quickly displace another from a favoured position, such as a special food source, and birds defend their territories by more prolonged threat displavs and aggressive encounters. Watchful behaviour When feeding, resting or grooming, grouse become alert and watchful if another grouse approaches, even if it is only flying over. This watchful behaviour may then change to more overt aggression, as described below. However, grouse spend much time alert and keep looking around even when no other grouse or predators are near them. Cock grouse often sit or stand in an upright alert posture on a high place with a good view, and a glance along a moor on a fine morning reveals most of the territorial cocks on the area scattered here and there on their favourite look-outs. These are usually small hillocks or big stones, but sometimes fence posts, and even trees up to 15 metres in height (Nethersole-Thompsons 1939). Each cock has several favourite places where he spends long periods in spring and where many droppings accumulate. Since the birds tend to spend more time being watchful in areas where they can see each other more easily and where more interaction occurs, this posture may be regarded as a form of agonistic behaviour, as in Partridges (Jenkins 1961). One or more grouse in a flock often become spontaneously watchful and then start flight intention movements which spread to others till eventually the whole flock may take flight. At other times the restless behaviour affects only a few birds which soon settle down again. This is probably agonistic behaviour, since it is particularly frequent in large flocks and when birds happen to land very near each other. Aggressive encounters Attack is indicated by fully erect combs, head and neck stretched straight forwards, body near the ground, neck and breast puffed out, wings tucked in, and a forward run towards the other bird, often with | bill open. Before making this forward run, the bird may briefly fan | its tail and droop its wings (fig. 4c), and sometimes it quickly swerves 1 around the other in a posture resembling waltzing during sexual y display. The less dominant postures of attack-intention are indicated t by sitting or standing in the same place, stretching the head and neck | up and forwards, and giving the kohway and kohwayo calls, bess ( threatening behaviour is indicated by slightly depressed combs, head [, 164 BEHAVIOUR OF THE RED GROUSE 1 c, . 4 . Red Grouse Lagopus 1. scoticus : (a) weak threat, with Arrow call ; (b) attack- mention with kobway call; (c) prelude to attack; (d) running forward to attack, with kohwa call teld higher, neck thinner, and head and neck turning away at times om the opponent. \\ eak threat is shown by standing high with head id neck upright and neck slightly thickened, and by the know call ig. 4a). This grades into watchful behaviour, when the combs are most if not entirely invisible, the head and neck upright, the neck .in and plumage tight. This may lead to flight intention, and the ri-ko-ko call, when the bird also bobs the front of its body, flexes its . gs, and flicks its wings and tail. Finally it mav flee by running or /ing away. A subordinate bird usually avoids being chased and attacked by .owing submissive behaviour or by fleeing. The comb is an import- it releaser for aggressive behaviour, and a submissive bird which igins to erect its combs will be attacked or threatened immediately, 'hen two birds are both threatening and one of them depresses its .mbs, the other usually relaxes also and both may then feed onlv one etre apart. 'Six types of aggressive encounter can be described: (1) brief en- unters in which one bird threatens or attacks others while main- ining individual distance or while displacing others from a favoured isition or food supply; (2) a ‘jumping’ displav which usually occurs •mmunally, involves birds of either sex and usuallv lasts several conds; and (3-6) four types of prolonged encounter— prolonged ases, facing, fighting, and walking-in-line. Most of these encounters 2 associated with territory defence and involve birds of the same sex. alking-in-line also occurs frequently outside the territories, as a mmunal display among cock grouse. 165 BRITISH BIRDS (1) Brief encounters. These last only a second or two and involve birds of either sex. Usually the birds do not come in contact, though pecking sometimes occurs. This type of encounter is most frequent when birds are in flocks, but it is also seen when a territory-owner expels an intruder. Usually the subordinate bird moves away immedi- ately after being threatened, and it may be attacked if it does not move. If both birds threaten, both may withdraw simultaneously after a few seconds, but often a more prolonged encounter ensues. (2) Jumping. This is a communal aggressive encounter involving birds of either sex and is not associated with territory defence. It is unusual in being the only type of aggressive encounter where the participants have on no occasion been observed to peck or touch each other. One bird crouches and stretches its head low and forwards, with erect or partly erect combs and sometimes with its bill pointing slightly upwards and its head wagging momentarily. It then jumps about wildly, Happing its wings or jerking out one wing at a time. This may occur when only two are present, but usually when several are together. The first to jump may land near others, which almost invariably join in, and within a few seconds three or four may be jumping together. Sometimes this activity spreads through a flock till many or all of the birds are fluttering and jumping wildly and may take flight suddenly in a frenzy of excitement. A more usual result is simply to space the birds further apart after a few seconds of display. This display is very common when some grouse are too near each other, for example when a flock has just landed, and also among family parties in early autumn. It is entirely different from the bobbing flight intention posture which also sometimes spreads through a flock and results in flight (voice 7). (3) Prolonged chases. These occur when a subordinate bird runs or flies away but still has its combs partly erect. Occasionally the chases involve pecking, and in two observed cases wounding and killing. The dominant bird may chase the other on the ground in circles up to ten metres in diameter for several minutes before the chased bird flies away. It may then chase the other in the air in circles up to 800 metres in diameter, buffeting it and forcing it to fly again every time it lands. On one occasion a cock chased an intruder 16 times in succession for over 1 5 minutes, landing far outside his territory and covering an area 1,500 metres long and 700 metres wide. These long chases resemble sexual chases, except that in the latter the cock tries to force the hen back to his territory whereas agonistic chases end as soon as the chased bird completely depresses its combs and shows no other signs of threatening behaviour. There are exceptions, however, when an aggressive bird chases another completely submissive bird whose combs are invisible. This 166 BEHAVIOUR OF THE RED GROUSE appens frequently in captivity, when submissive birds cannot escape nd one cock becomes dominant in each cage, attacking and sometimes filing other cocks and hens by pecking at their heads and removing le skin and feathers from their crowns. One cock died apparently : :om shock, without any wounds, a few minutes after being put in a age with a dominant cock that attacked it. Captive hens sometimes ill other hens in the same cage and one killed a submissive cock, but jcks generally dominate hens both in captivity and in the wild. J i 7ild cocks occasionally chase others showing submissive behaviour, ut they rarely strike them and in only one case did one wound another ird. (4) Facing. If neither bird gives way during a brief aggressive icounter, the two often face each other with combs erect, necks and .eads forwards and wings flicking. Both have their heads low near ie ground one second and high up the next, and any head movement vy one bird is usually countered immediately by the other. They lay peck at each other, and one or both may then leap back out of seeking range. One often swivels round quickly, trying to peck the fther unawares, or makes a violent sideways leap, pecking as it passes 1 Me other bird. One may give way eventually, but if neither gives ■ ay the two either move apart simultaneously or both start fighting. (5) Fighting. Two birds sometimes face each other when fighting, 1 at usually they face the same direction and lunge at each other from 1 Me side. Fighting grouse strike mainly with their bills and the front Iges of their wings, but kick with their feet when in mid-air. Most Sexual activity includes much aggression between cock and hen but little court- ip. The courtship postures resemble similar postures during threat, but are cognisable by differences in the emphasis of certain features. Preservation of the 1 lir bond is often more important to the male than defence of the territory boundary, isplacemcnt activities, including feeding, resting and preening, occur commonly ith sexual and agonistic behaviour. Aggressive encounters occur in day-old chicks, become more frequent as the >ung grow up, and culminate in the break-up of the families in autumn. Terri- ries are established in autumn by cocks threatening and fighting, and most aggres- fc encounters are associated with territory defence. Typical postures characterise c varying degrees of agonistic behaviour from attack to escape, and the comb is a rticularly important sign stimulus. Several types of aggressive encounter tween two individuals are described, and communal aggressive displays are also ;quent in flocks and where territories meet. 169 BRITISH BIRDS REFERENCES Committee of Inquiry on Grouse Disease (1911): The Grouse in Health and in Disease. London. 2 vols. Dixon, J. (1927): ‘Contribution to the life history of the Alaska Willow Ptarmigan’. Condor, 29: 213-223. Goodwin, D. (1953): ‘Observations on voice and behaviour of the Red-legged Partridge Alectoris rufa ’. Ibis, 95 : 581-614. Guhl, A. M. (1962): ‘The behaviour of chickens’. Chapter 17 of The Behaviour of Domestic Animals edited by E. S. E. Hafez. London. Host, P. (1938): ‘Forsok med opdrett av ryper’. Norges Jaeg.- og Fisk.-Forbunds Tidsskr., 67: 4-15, 31-43 and 137-144. Jenkins, D. (1961): ‘Social behaviour in the Partridge Perdix perdix’. Ibis, 103: 155-188. , Watson, A., and Miller, G. R. (1963): ‘Population studies of Red Grouse in north-east Scotland’. J. Anim. Ecol., 32: 317-376. Moynihan, M. (1955): ‘Remarks on the original sources of displays’. Auk, 72: 240-246. Nethersole-Thompson, C. and D. (1939): ‘Some observations on the sexual life, display and breeding of the Red Grouse’. Brit. Birds, 32: 247-254. Peterle, T. J. (195 5) : ‘Notes on the display of Red Grouse’. Scot. Nat., 67 : 61-64. Semenov-Tian-Shansky, O. (1959): On Ecology of Tetraonids. Moscow. (In Russian.) Simmons, K. E. L. (1955): ‘The nature of predator-reactions of waders towards humans; with special reference to the role of the aggressive, escape and brooding drives’. Behaviour, 8: 130-173. Stokes, A. W. (1961): ‘Voice and social behaviour of the Chukar Partridge’. Condor, 63: m-127. Tinbergen, N. (1948): ‘Social releasers and the experimental method required for their study’. Wilson Bull., 60: 6-52. (1953): Social Behaviour in Animals. London. Witherby, H. F., Jourdain, F. C. R., Ticeiiurst, N. F., and Tucker, B. W. (1941): The Handbook of British Birds. London, vol. 5. Wynne-Edwards, V. C. (1962): Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social Behaviour. Edinburgh. Studies of less familiar birds 127. Collared Dove By I. J. Ferguson- Lees Photographs by H. A. Pie ms, Eric Flos king, Dr. Rolf Lachner, C. P. Rose, D. A 1. Turner-Ettlinger and A. Win spear Cundall (Plates 18-21) The Collared Dove St rep tope l ia decaocto has spread so rapidly in Britain since 1955 that it cannot really rank as one of our ‘less familiar birds’. However, it is appearing in new areas all the time and so we hope that the selection of photographs on plates 18-21 will be both 170 COLLARED DOVE STUDIES )f interest to observers who know the species well and of value as an lid to identification for those who have still to hear the incessant •oo-cooo-cuk which announces its arrival in yet another district. The Collared Dove’s remarkable expansion of range north-west- yards across Europe has been the subject of a number of detailed inalyses, of which the most important are those by Fisher (1953) and itresemann and Nowak (1958). In brief, these show that as recently .s 1930, though already building up and spreading to some extent, the pecies was still largely confined in Europe to Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Vlbania and Yugoslavia; that in the 1930’s it started really pushing into Rumania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Austria; that in the 1940’s it dvanced by leaps and bounds to Poland, Germany, Italy, Switzerland nd, in the latter part of that decade, even to Holland, Denmark and ■weden (where it first bred in 195 1); and that in the 1950’s it colonised aixembourg, Belgium, eastern France, southern Norway and, spread- ig eastwards, Lithuania, Estonia and parts of European Russia south 3 Kiev and Odessa. In the 1950’s, too, it began to settle in the Iritish Isles. For some time after its colonisation of Norfolk in 1955, described by Lichardson, Seago and Church (1957), it seemed to advance only in Iternate years. Thus in 1956 it was still confined to Norfolk, but in 957 it spread to Kent, Lincoln and Moray. In 1958 Northumberland .I'as the only new county in which nesting took place, but in 1959 reeding was proved in Suffolk, Nottingham, Cumberland, Ayr and ven Dublin, and a considerable number of other counties reported the rst arrivals. It was not surprising, therefore, that in i960 it also red in Sussex, Essex, Hertford and Yorkshire — it was only remark- ale that there was not a wider spread of breeding that year. By 1961, owever, it was also nesting in Dorset, Gloucester, Cambridge, ancashire, Berwick, Midlothian and even Cornwall and Pembroke, id by 1963 it was breeding in at least 25 of the 40 counties of England, 1 four counties of Wales (Glamorgan, Pembroke, Cardigan and nglesey), in eight and probably thirteen counties of Scotland (Dum- ies, Ayr, Berwick, Midlothian, Argyll, Aberdeen, Moray, Ross and robably Wigtown, Lanark, East Lothian, Perth and Nairn) and in ■ur counties of Ireland (Dublin, Fermanagh, Wexford and Offaly), he Scottish sites include the island of Lewis (Outer Hebrides), almost e north-western limit of the British Isles. In addition, the species is now at least occurred in most of the other counties of England, Gotland and Wales. As the Irish Sea and the Minch have thus both been crossed, and ice quite a number of Collared Doves have turned up at such small ands as Fair Isle (Shetland) and St. Agnes (Isles of Scilly), it appears -ely that water is not the barrier it was once believed to be (it used 171 BRITISH BIRDS to be thought that the crossing of the North Sea was the reason why the colonisation of England did not take place more quickly after that of Holland, Denmark and Sweden). In fact, the enormous increase in Britain has surely not been due merely to the original colonisation in 1955 but also to frequent further arrivals from the Continent and in this connection it is interesting to note the recovery in Cornwall in June 1962 of a Collared Dove ringed as a juvenile in Germany the previous year (Brit. Birds, 56: 535). There seems no reason, therefore, why the species should not now spread to the Faeroe Islands and even Iceland. The suitable habitats there are much more restricted, but the Collared Dove’s great asset is its ability to live with man. In south-east Europe it is very much a bird of city centres — a common sight in the middle of Sofia or Bucharest — and, though further north it is found rather less in such places (there is still only one record for Inner London), it is everywhere essentially associated with villages, town parks, suburban gardens and farmland, particularly choosing chicken-runs to feed in. Plates 19a and 19b show single Collared Doves readily feeding with House Sparrows Passer domesticus and eating from a bowl, while plate 21b depicts no less than twenty-three foraging together on a lawn in Essex in December 1962. Flocks of up to 50 are now quite common in many counties, particularly in winter, and gatherings of up to 100 or even 150 have been recorded. In March 1964 R. E. Scott informed me that there was a minimum of 250 pairs on Romney Marsh, Kent, and that the population there was more likely to be of the order of 500 to 1,000 pairs; further immigration from the Continent may be at least partly responsible for the large concentrations now to be found in many parts of Kent. Since the species comes so readily to gardens, it presents no great problem of identification, particularly as there is no other wild bird in Britain remotely like it (the Turtle Dove S. turtur is more strikingly coloured, more delicately built and has quite a different tail pattern). When the Collared Dove first arrived in Britain, it was necessary to establish that each individual reported was not a Barbary Dove S. risoria, a rather similar domesticated form which is not uncommonly • kept in captivity or even in a free-flying state. Now, however, Collared Doves have built up to such an extent that they must surely greatly outnumber Barbary Doves in many areas. Nevertheless, it is as well to be quite certain and the magnificent study by H. A. Hems on plate 20 draws attention to the main charac- * ters of the species — the elongated shape, the blackish primaries con- trasting with the rest of the wing, the generally grev-brown plumage (paler on the head and pinkish on the breast) and, of course, the half collar of black edged with white. The Barbary Dove has the same 1 72 COLLARED DOVE STUDIES i liar but a rather different call and it is generally smaller, creamier id shorter-tailed, while its primaries are much the same colour as ie rest of the wing (though Collared Doves with worn and faded i rimaries can also show very little contrast). The features of the ( ollared Dove are also brought out on plate 18a (where it should be oted that the male is usually slightly larger and greyer than the female) id in the three pictures on plate 19, while plate 18b shows a close-up 'the head. Plate 21b gives some indication of the variation in the umage and in the conspicuousness of the collar, and the inset there ows the distinctive under-tail pattern of black and white which is try striking when the bird (lies overhead. As mentioned earlier, there is a vast literature on the species, pecially in German publications. Much of this is taken up with the cts of the spread, but there are also a number of detailed studies of . eeding biology and behaviour, of which the most important are obably those by Hofstetter (1952), Tomasz (1955) and Lachner )(>}). It would be quite impossible in the space available to attempt summarise this literature, but a few details may be of value since >is species figures in very few* reference books in this country. Breeding normally lasts from March to September or October, but the weather is mild it may begin as early as the end of January or extended into November. The pairs w'hich start first tend to ish first, but during one season as many as five broods may be ared. The nests are almost alwravs in trees, of a wide variety of :cies from lime, poplar, horse chestnut, birch and various thorns 1 fruit-trees to spruce, pine, silver fir and yew, as well as ivy. casionally, however, they are built on roofs, beams, window sills other similar artificial sites. In trees they are usually near the nk, seldom at the end of a branch, and at heights varying from six sixty feet, though normally between 15 and 50 feet. The male gathers most of the nest material, picking twdgs off the >und (or even breaking them off with beak and wfing) and taking m to the female who does most of the actual construction, -iss, roots and the inner bark of trees may be added as lining. The t is shallow like that of most pigeons and doves, but it is rather >nger than a Turtle Dove’s. Occasionally the old nest of a Turtle ve or a Woodpigeon Columba palumbns may be adapted (and, more dy, that of, for example, a Blackbird Tardus nierald). Sometimes one nest is used for every brood (being repaired and added to on I1 i occasion so that it becomes quite bulkv) and sometimes a new t is built each time. ’wo white eggs are normally laid, but in late clutches there may be Y one and three have been recorded. As wdth other members of family, the male incubates during the day and the female by night: 173 BRITISH BIRDS Tomasz found that the male sat from about io a.m. to 4 p.m. and the female for the other 18 hours. The incubation period is about 14 days and the fledging period between 14 and 21 days. The young of early broods form flocks which increase as more and more broods are reared ; thus from a beginning of only two or three pairs a flock of 20 or 30 birds is possible by the end of the season, though Lachner emphasised that many broods produce only one young and, allowing for completely unsuccessful nests, an average of one young per brood is the normal. Incidentally, Lachner gave the maximum weights of adult males and females as 250 gm. and 234 gm. respectively, adding that the males generally weigh 20-40 gm. more than the females. This vast literature on the Collared Dove is being increased all the time as more and more summaries of newly colonised regions are brought out. For example, the Nowaks (1962) have recently dealt with eastern Europe; Mathiasson (1962) estimated that by the winter of 1961-62 there were about 1,200 Collared Doves in Sweden and the range had already extended to 6o°N; and Erard (1963) showed that by 1962 the species was well-established in eastern and central France, was breeding as far west as Calvados and was even occurring occasion- ally in, for instance, Finistere and the Camargue (in France, as in Britain, the real surge began in 1959 which was clearly a year of great impetus). However, there has as yet been no comprehensive summary of the spread in Britain and Ireland, though the Scottish counties have to some extent been covered in Scottish Birds and the Irish ones in the Irish Bird Reports. The expansion in Britain has been so rapid that the details have tended to become out of date before a full account could be completed. This year, therefore, an intensive programme of anal- ysis and publication as soon as possible after the end of the breeding season is planned and for this we ask that new localities should be reported at the time to Robert Hudson, British Trust for Ornithology, Beech Grove, Tring, Hertfordshire, together with counts from established areas and records from previous years which have not yet been published in county reports. REFERENCES Erard, C. (1963): ‘Coup d’oeil sur l’extension de Strep/opelia decaoc/o (Frivaldsky) en France’. UOiseau, 33 : 238-246. Fisher, J. (1953): ‘The Collared Turtle Dove in Europe’. Brit. Birds, 46: 153-181. Hofstetter, F.-B. (1954): ‘Untersuchungen an einer Population der Turkentaube . J. Orn., 95 : 348-410. Lachner, R. (1963): ‘Beitrage zur Biologic und Populationsdynamik der Turken- taube’. J. Orn., 104: 305-356. Mathiasson, S. (1962): ‘Die Turkentaube in Schweden’. J. Orn., 103: 420-427. Nowak, A. and E. (1962): ‘Wciterc Ausbreitung der Turkentaube in Polen und Osteuropa’. J. Orn., 103: 229-235. 174 DISEASES OF SKIN AND SOFT PARTS Iichardson, R. A., Seago, M. J., and Church, A. C. (1957): ‘Collared Doves in Norfolk: a bird new to the British List’. Brit. Birds, 50: 239-246. • Itresemann, E., and Nowak, E. (1958): ‘Die Ausbreitung der Tiirkentaube in Asien und Europa’. J. Orn., 99: 243-296. fOMASZ, J. (1955): ‘Contributions to the ecology of the Indian Ring-Dove’. Aquila, 39-62: 129-143. Diseases of the skin and soft parts of wild birds By I. F. Keymer and D. K. Blackmore (Plates 22-23) ,We wish to draw attention to the frequency with which wild >irds have been reported as showing lesions of the skin, legs and bill, ^specially in recent years. Unfortunately, however, not many have \»een carefully observed in the field and few carcasses have been sent to veterinary pathologists. With the co-operation of ornithologists a ;^reat deal more could undoubtedly be learnt about these diseases, which might be of considerable interest not only to veterinarians but Iso to ecologists and conservationists. Various parts of the body may show lesions and, although a variety >f causes have been diagnosed, much remains to be learnt. For onvenience, the conditions are discussed according to the area of the - iody mainly affected. ■'kin ,oss of feathers (alopecia) combined with scaliness, encrustations and hickening of the skin usually affects the head region but also occurs lsewhere (plate 22a). On occasions it is associated with external ■arasites : epidermoptid mites of the species Microlichus avus were found 1 the skin of a Starling* by Keymer et al. (1962) and Myialges sp. on a >lue Tit by Macdonald (1963). Alopecia of the head of a Robin has been investigated by us and nother cases recorded by Soper and Hosking (1961). In both in- tances fungi were isolated from the affected areas of skin. However, : was not certain that this infection was the primary cause of the con- ition, although in the case examined by us fungal hyphae were emonstrated to be infiltrating the superficial layers of skin and the rather follicles. Keymer (quoted anonymously by Soper and losking) described extensive lesions of alopecia in a Blackbird, but ould find no cause. Favus caused by the fungus Trichophyton gallinae *Scienti(ic names of all bird species mentioned in the text are given in appendix 1 n page 179. 175 BRITISH BIRDS produces alopecia but is rare even in poultry, although it has been described in the Black Grouse by Patiala (1951) in Finland. The species most commonly affected by alopecia appear to be Black- birds and Robins. This is borne out by a number of sight records received by the editors of British Birds as a result of the note by Soper and Hosking. These cover the years 1956-61 and were submitted by P. A. Banks, P. G. R. Barbier, D. G. Bell, H. Briden, H. B. Camplin, Mrs. Anne Carney, R. J. Douthwaite, R. J. Dowsett, M. D. England, R. Frankum, M. P. Harris, A. J. Harthan, T. Kitching, J. H. Lawton, J. Lockerbie, P. B. Lowe, B. S. Nau, Major W. W. A. Phillips, N. Picozzi, H. E. Pounds, M. P. M. Richards, R. J. Salmon, P. L. Sim- monds, N. F. Stewart, J. H. Vaughan, L. S. V. and U. M. Venables, and Mrs. U. G. Wilson. The descriptions of the affected birds vary in detail and the loss of feathers ranged from small areas around the eyes or beak to complete baldness of head and neck. The species involved, with the number of each shown in parentheses, were Black- bird (18), Robin (11), Dunnock (8), Starling (5), Song Thrush (3), Great Tit (2), Blue Tit (1), Bearded Tit (1), Chaffinch (1), Whitethroat (1), Pied Wagtail (1) and Jackdaw (1). From the description given, one of the Dunnocks may have been affected by avian pox (see below). Eyelids Sinusitis and swollen eyelids causing partial blindness and excessive lachrymation are not uncommon in young Pheasants and both Part- ridges and Red-legged Partridges (Keymer unpublished). This disease is believed to be caused by Mycoplasma gallisepticum, an organism related to bacteria. Almost identical clinical signs described by Dobson (1937) in Pheasants, however, were found to have been caused by pox virus. Passerine or Canary pox also results in swelling of the eyelids or in lesions similar to those shown in the Goldfinch on plate 22b and we have also seen this condition affecting Greenfinches. Wart-like lesions of the eyelids of Woodpigeons may be caused by the pigeon strain of pox. Legs and feet Pox is a common cause of wart-like excrescences on the feet and legs, especially in Woodpigeons (Marriage and Keymer 1961); in this connection, see the Woodpigeon legs on plate 23a and the Carrion Crow legs illustrated by Poulding (i960). Keymer (1958) also gave records of this disease in the Jackdaw, Starling and ‘sparrows’ (probably House Sparrows), and he suspected the infection in Partridges (Keymer unpublished). Mercier and Poisson (1923) in France diagnosed pox in a Dunnock and it seems very likely that the interesting outbreak of disease in this species in Yorkshire in 1949 (Edwards 1955) was caused by this infection. 176 DISEASES OF SKIN AND SOFT PARTS We have examined three cases of a large unilateral papilloma of the reet of Chaffinches (see plate 23b and the note by Derek Washington elsewhere in this issue, Brit. Birds, 57: 184) and received records of three apparently similar cases, one of which had been examined by the Hanover Veterinary School in Germany (H. Krauss in litt.). These records are similar to the condition described by Emell (1930) as effecting the feet of Slate-coloured Juncos in America; he considered t to be due to previous injury. It would be interesting to ascertain 1, whether some form of dermotrophic virus is responsible, as is often the case when domestic animals are affected by warts. Wart-like growths on the legs and toes of three Chaffinches and a Sedge Warbler in 1961 were reported in notes sent to the editors of British Birds by A. W. Diamond, E. C. Dickinson, Robert J. Dowsett, D. E. Pauli and Geoffrey Webber. Another virus disease, termed ‘puffinosis’ and producing vesicles in the feet, was described by Dane (1948) and Miles and Stoker (1948) n Manx Shearwaters. Jennings and Soulsby (1956) reported a similar iisease, which they called vesicular dermatitis, in Common and Black- leaded Gulls. Cnemidocoptic mange, causing ‘scaly leg’, is not uncommon in :age-birds and back-yard poultry, especially bantams, and it has also leen described by Macdonald (1962) in a Chaffinch. A Rook reported 1 ly K. G. Spencer was examined by A. R. Jennings of the Department if Animal Pathology, Cambridge, and was found to have very severe eg mange due to Cnetnidocoptes mutans (in addition to fungal pneu- nonia). The Cnetnidocoptes mites burrow beneath the skin, causing eruptions of the scales, encrustations and excrescences of cellular debris. Injuries may sometimes be responsible for deformities of the feet ind legs and even thistles have been blamed for causing swollen hocks nd staphylococcal arthritis in Pheasants (Hole and Purchase 1931), he bacteria gaining access to the joints through abrasions in the skin. Congenital deformities are probably rare, although Keymer (quoted by -Valton 1962) believed that the foot deformities of an Oystercatcher hown in a photograph were congenital. Mandibles The subject of abnormal bills has been thoroughly investigated by Pom- toy (1962), who listed the main causes as genetic, accident and disease. The mite Cnetnidocoptes pilae commonly attacks the beak, adjacent kin and cere of Budgerigars, but we are unaware of any authentic ecords in wild birds. Woodpigeons with chronic infections of pox 'ccasionally develop deformity of the mandibles. Accumulations of 'ollen adhering to the bills of small passerines (Ash 1959 and Ash et a/. 961) might be mistaken for disease. 177 BRITISH BIRDS CONCLUSIONS Alopecia can be due to a variety of causes and it would be very interest- ing to obtain more information about it, especially regarding its incidence and geographical distribution. This should not be difficult, especially as garden birds appear to be not infrequently affected. Pox may cause lesions in a large number of species on any part of the body, but the infection is probably confined to the orders Galli- formes, Columbiformes and Passeriformes. However, the lesions may easily be confused with other conditions and a proper laboratory investigation is therefore essential in all cases. W e hope that, as a result of this summary of what is known, field observations and especially specimens will be sent to us. All sight records will be welcome and observers are asked to provide the following information wherever possible: species; sex; whether adult, immature or nestling; number of birds affected; dates seen; exact locality; description of lesions and areas of body affected; behaviour of bird; and any other relevant details. Photographs of affected birds would be particularly welcome. Dead specimens should be carefully packed in a sealed tin and sent with as much information as possible to D. K. Blackmore, B.Sc., F.R.C.V.S., Avian Biologist, Petfoods Ltd., Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. External parasites should be collected if possible, bottled and preserved in surgical spirit and sent with the carcass. On completion of the post-mortem and laboratory investigation a report will be sent free of charge to the sender. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We wish to thank P. K. C. Austwick of the Central Veterinary Labora- tory of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food at Weybridge, Surrey, for examining for fungus infection two Robins and a Blackbird referred to in the text. We are also grateful to H. I. Field, the Director of the Central Veterinary Laboratory, for allowing us to quote work carried out there by I. F. Keymer and for permission to reproduce the photographs on plates 22 and 23a. REFERENCES Ash, J. S. (1959): ‘Pollen contamination of birds’. Brit. Birds, 32: 424-426. , Jones, P. Hope, and Melville, R. (1961): ‘The contamination of birds with pollen and other substances’. Brit. Birds, 54: 93-100. Dane, D. S. (1948): ‘A disease of Manx Shearwaters (Puffin ns puffinus)'. J. Atom. EcoL, 17: 158-164. Dobson, N. (1937): ‘Pox in Pheasants’. J. Comp. Path., 50: 401-404. Edwards, G. R. (1955): ‘Excrescences about the eyes and on the legs and feet of Dunnocks’. Brit. Birds, 48: 186-187. Emell, M. W. (1930): ‘Epidermoid cancers on the feet of wild birds’. J. Am. Vet. Med. Assn., 77: 641-644. Hole, N., and Purchase, H. S. (1931): ‘Arthritis and periostitis in Pheasants caused by Staphylococcus pyogenes aureus' . J. Comp. Path., 44: 252-257. 178 NOTES Jennings, A. R., and Soulsby, E. J. L. (1956): ‘Diseases in wild birds, third report’. Bird Study, 3 : 270-272. Keymer, I. F. (1958): ‘A survey and review of the causes of mortality in British birds and the significance of wild birds as disseminators of disease’. Vet. Rec., 70: 713-720 and 736-740. , Rose, J. H., Beesley, W. N., and Davies, S. F. M. (1962): ‘A survey and review of parasitic diseases of wild and game birds in Great Britain’. Vet. Rec., 74: 887-894. ' Macdonald, J. W. (1967): ‘Chaffinch with cnemidocoptic mange’. Brit. Birds, 55 : 421. (1963): ‘Blue Tit with acarine mange’. Brit. Birds, 56: 221-222. 'Marriage, E. B. (1961): ‘Diseases amongst Woodpigeons’. Gamekeeper and Countryside, No. 764: 225-226. ■ vIercier, L., and Poisson, R. (1923): ‘Un cas d’epithclioma contagieux chez un oiseaux sauvage ( Prunella modularis)’. C. R. Soc. Biol., Paris, 89: 1196-1198. 'Miles, J. A. R., and Stoker, M. G. P. (1948): ‘Puffinosis, a virus epizootic of the Manx Shearwater ( Puffinus puffinus puffinus)’. Nature, London, 161: 1016-1017. ’atiala, R. (1951): ‘On fungus diseases in game’. Riislafieteellsid Julkaisuja, 6: 21-22. ’omeroy, D. E. (1962): ‘Birds with abnormal bills’. Brit. Birds, 55 : 49-72. ’oulding, R. H. (i960): ‘Fowl pox in a Carrion Crow’. Brit. Birds, 53: 174-175. - >Oper, E. A., and FIosking, E. (1961): ‘Fungus disease affecting Robins and other species’. Brit. Birds, 54: 289-290. Dalton, F. (1962): ‘Oystercatcher with deformed feet’. Brit. Birds, 55 : 419. Appendix 1. Scientific names Manx Shearwater Procellaria puffinus ! Slack Grouse Lyrurus te/rix . .cd-lcggcd Partridge Alectoris rufa Cartridge Perdix perdix Feasant Phasianus colcbicus 1 fystcrcatchcr Haematopus ostra/egus \ommon Gull Larus canus lack-headed Gull Larus ridibundus > 7oodpigeon Columba palurnbus udgerigar Melopsittacus undulatus arrion Crow Corvus corone 00k Corvus frugilegus ickdaw Corvus monedula •reat Tit Par us major luc Tit Parns caeruleus of birds mentioned in the text Bearded Tit Panurus biarmicus Song Thrush T urdus philomelos Blackbird T urdus merula Robin Eri/bacus rubecula Sedge Warbler Acrocephalus schoenobaenus Whitcthroat Sylvia communis Dunnock Prunella modularis Pied Wagtail Motacilla alba Starling Stumus vulgaris Greenfinch Cbloris cbloris Goldfinch Carduelis carduelis Chaffinch Fringi/la coelebs Slate-coloured Junco Junco byemalis House Sparrow Passer domes thus Notes lack-browed Albatross off Co. Cork. — Between 06.15 and 09.25 :>urs GMT on 24th September 1963 R. J. Johns, M. Shrubb, E. J. dlliams, R. J. Wilmshurst and B.A.E.M. were carrying out a routine a-watch from Pointanbullig, one of the southern points of Cape lear Island, Co. Cork. At 06.50 M.S. spotted a large black-and-white a-bird gliding towards the headland from the east. He drew the tention of the other observers to it and all were able to watch it for *79 BRITISH BIRDS about three minutes as it went past, still gliding, at a range of only about 300 yards. It was clearly an albatross and was later identified as a sub-adult Black-browed Albatross Diomede a melanophrjs. The first impressions were of a large sea-bird, slightly larger than accompanying Gannets Sula bassana and with longer and narrower wings, in shape like a huge Fulmar Fulmar us glacialis (fat-bodied, with a short, thick neck and short tail) and in colour-pattern resembling a Great Black-backed Gull Farm marinus (the upper-wing and back, from wing-tip to wing-tip, being uniformly black and the head and nape appearing wholly white). The under- wing was blackish, with a conspicuous narrow white line down the centre. Only a thin black terminal band was noted on the tail, but Sir Flugh Elliott {in litti) comments that the wholly black tail often tends to be concealed by the white under and upper tail-coverts and this makes it look as if it is merely tipped with black. E.J.W., using a X25 telescope, noted the bill as heavy and yellowish. The flight consisted of almost con- tinuous gliding with occasional desultory downward movements of the wings which did not amount to full wing-beats. The wings were never brought above the level of the body and were held straight, with only a slight decurvature from the carpal joint. The bird flew low over the water, banking and tilting like a gigantic shearwater Procellaria sp. and only occasionally rising high above the waves. The field-notes on this bird have been examined by Dr. W. R. P. Bourne, Sir Hugh Elliott, Major R. F. Ruttledge, John Warham and the British Birds Rarities Committee. The numbers of Manx Shearwaters P. puffinus, Fulmars, Gannets, Kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla and auks seen passing west during this 1 90-minute sea- watch were not unusual for late September. However, six ‘marsh terns’ (two identified as Black Terns Cblidonias niger) passing west, two Cory’s Shearwaters P. diomedea flying east and 33 Sooty Shearwaters P. grisea flying east (as well as ten flying west) were unusual, especially the flight directions of the last two species, for sea-bird movement at Cape Clear is usually predominantly westerly. On the morning of 24th September the wind was north-west, force 3-4, at Cape Clear; after heavy rain all night, there were only occasional showers during the morning and the visibility (about twenty miles) was good. A depression just south of Novia Scotia at noon on 21st September had moved quickly east and then north-east across the Atlantic, deepened and by 06.00 GMT on 24th was situated off south- east Iceland. The associated fast-moving cold front had passed through western Ireland at about 02.00 GMT. This constitutes the first record of a Black-browed Albatross in Irish waters and only the third definite occurrence for Britain and Ireland. B. A. E. MARRandJ. T. R. Sharrock 1 80 NOTES haemorrhage in trachea of dead Red-breasted Merganser.— On 7th December 1962, on the bank of Staines North Reservoir, Middle- . ex, we found a drake Red-breasted Merganser Mergus serrator which tad apparently been dead for a day or two. With the aid of Dr. : i. I. Jones it was dissected and was found to have a greatly distended rachea. When this was opened, a large blood clot was revealed, "he cause was considered to have been a bacterial or virus infection i esulting in a haemorrhage and the bird had probably died from sphyxia. The crop was empty, but the gizzard contained unidentifi- ble semi-digested matter and a quantity of grit particles approximately mm. in diameter. There was no sign of nematodes or worms of ny sort. The syrinx and lungs appeared to be normal. A little 1 lood in the oesophagus had probably trickled there from the trachea. S. E. Crooks and J. H. Jones ihelducks breeding in Shropshire. — At the end of May 1963 J.M.L. ad R.E.S. found a pair of Shelducks Tadorna tadorna on one of the attlement ponds at the Allscott Sugar Factory, near Wellington, hropshire; they seemed attached to a particular area and it was lought possible that they might stay to breed. In June and early jly one was seen regularly on its own, but no search for a nest was lade for fear of disturbing the sitting bird. On 15th July E.J.P. 1 .w the female with eight small ducklings which appeared to be only a w hours old. Eight young were recorded up to 25 th July by G.W. id L.D., but there were only five on nth August and this number as further reduced to three by 17th August when, however, R.E.S. w them in flight. They were last seen by E.J.P. on 1st September, r which time they were quite strong on the wing. This appears to be the first record of Shelducks nesting in Shropshire id it is also one of the furthest inland in the British Isles. J. M. Langford, R. E. Simister, E. J. Peele, G. Wood and L. Durtnall reat Bustard in Norfolk. — A female Great Bustard Otis tarda was und dead by Mr. F. W. Perowne’s gamekeeper at South Creake, urfolk, on 28th March 1963, having evidentlv been killed as a result striking overhead wires. The specimen is now preserved in the flection of birds at Norwich Castle Museum. This is the first :ord of a Great Bustard in Norfolk since 1894 and the first in the itish Isles since one in Shetland in May 1936. M. J. Seago [As this is the first British record for 27 years of a species which is :adily becoming scarcer in FLurope as a whole, it is interesting to note 1 8 1 BRITISH BIRDS that there had been a remarkable influx of Great Bustards in Belgium some weeks earlier. C. Joiris, A. Rappe and P. Devillers ( Le Gerfaut, 53 : 323-333) have described how a flock which varied in size from 13 to 16 birds was seen at Beigem (Brabant) from 9th February to 7th March 1963 and there was also an unconfirmed report of eight others at Watervliet (Flanders) on 23 rd February. Apart from a single bird in November 1956, these were the first Great Bustards recorded in Belgium since 1940. Their occurrence was considered to be due to the exceptionally severe weather during the winter of 1962/63 and it should be noted that the one in Norfolk appeared soon after the end of that prolonged cold spell.— Eds.] Curious behaviour of two Woodcocks. — At about 10 a.m. on 30th April 1963 I was driving along by Lake Vrynwy, Montgomeryshire, when the strange behaviour of two Woodcocks Scolopax rusticola caused me to stop. They were about twenty yards away from me on the road, which is some fifteen feet wide at that point, and about two feet from the grassy verge. Both were facing the far side of the road and one was immediately behind the other. They were moving very slowly in a half-crouching position with their heads thrust straight forward — one step and a long pause, then another step and another long pause, and so on. When they reached the centre of the road they stopped and stood up. The leader turned and moved alongside the other, so that they were then side by side and facing in opposite directions. They stood in this position for about a minute, quite still except that the one which had been in front was fluffing out its side feathers. This bird then turned and took up its position ahead of the other once more, after which they resumed their slow march. In all, they took over five minutes to cover approximately thirteen feet of road from the time I first saw them until they reached the opposite verge and disappeared behind a pile of lopped branches. They had taken no notice of the car. I approached nearer on foot and located them on the far side of the pile of branches, apparently probing for food. They then saw me and flew away. R. E. Forrest Rook and Hooded Crow hanging upside down from wires. — The note by R. V. A. Marshall on a Rook Corvus frugilegus somersaulting on a wire (Brit. Birds, 54: 121-122) prompts me to record two similar incidents. In October 1962, while watching a number of Rooks on the North Slob, Co. Wexford, my wife and I saw one of them alight on an electricity supply wire and then turn over backwards until it was suspended upside down by its feet. It remained in this position for 182 NOTES : rveral seconds, then let go and dropped down some distance before pening its wings. It flew around and then repeated the whole . erformance a number of times, once holding a small shell which it id picked up in its beak. Some Jackdaws C. monedula which were so present did not seem to take too kindly to the exhibition and tacked the Rook once or twice while it was hanging upside down. Six months later, on iBth April 1963, 1 was driving near Garrick-on- air, Co. Tipperary, at about 8 p.m. when I saw some twenty Hooded rows C. corone cornix in and around a field beside the road. As they ere making a lot of noise and appeared agitated, I stopped my car id then noticed a bird suspended from overhead electric wires which ossed one end of the field. Through binoculars I could see that it as a Hooded Crow and that it was hanging head down and holding 1 to one of the wires by its feet. A few seconds later it let go, r ropped a short distance and then flew up into a tree near-by. Alexander C. Baird ung of White’s Thrush. — The Handbook says of White’s Thrush urdus dauma\ ‘. . . has characteristic melodious piping call-note, ascribed by T. Blakiston and H. Pryer as Bullfinch-like’. In the ’ >parent absence of any description of the song in the western litera- irre, it is worth quoting a translation by D. D. Harber of the account r N. A. Gladkov (1954, in The Birds of the Soviet Union, edited by G. P. cementiev and N. A. Gladkov, vol. 6): ‘Its song is peculiar. The ale utters from time to time a melancholy whistle. In between, it ves a low, rather squeaky warbling. The whistle is audible at a /eat distance, sometimes more than a kilometre, but the warbling n be heard only at very close range (Yudin 1952). Teplova (from e Pechora) points out the resemblance between the “song” of White’s inrush and the whistle of the Pygmy Owl Glaucidium passerinum. The lging male usually sits on the summit or the upper branches of a r :ge tree which rises above the rest of the forest. In giving its histle the bird turns its head first in one and then in another direction, aking it very difficult to determine its location.’ Thus it would ;em that The Handbook’s description of the ‘call-note’ refers, in fact, the song. Interestingly enough, the Field Guide describes the 'gmy Owl’s song as ‘Bullfinch-like’. My own description of the song of a White’s Thrush sound-recorded Japan ( Japanese Bird Songs, vol. 2 — a 10-inch 33^ r.p.m. disc. No. / 520, side A, eighth recording, published by the Victor Co. of Japan) ‘a drawn-out, pure whistle uttered, at different pitches, at about c-second intervals; each whistle starts imperceptibly, comes to a ak of loudness and slowly dies away’ (the quiet warbling referred to 183 BRITISH BIRDS in the Soviet description is not audible on this recording, possiblv because the microphone was not near enough). Jeffery Boswall Unusual growths on feet of Chaffinches. — In the years 1962 and 1963 I recorded three Chaffinches Fringilla coelebs , all in Surrey, with a lesion affecting one foot in each case. The first, an adult male, was trapped in a mist-net by R. Rolfe and myself at Earlswood sewage- farm on 2nd November 1962; it was hanging near the top of the net, caught by the overgrown hind claw of the affected foot, and the lateral toe was missing. The second, also a male, was seen by my wife and myself in our garden at Redhill from 12th to 24th December 1962. The third, again an adult male, was caught in a drop trap in the same garden on 13th March 1963 ; one foot was affected by the lesion shown on plate 23 b, where it can be seen that the anterior and medial toes were missing. The first and last of these birds were sent to D. K. Blackmore and I am most grateful to him for carrying out post-mortem examinations. In February 1962 he had received another affected Chaffinch which had been caught by a cat near Exeter, Devon, and he reported that the lesions were similar in all three cases, resembling a highly keratinised papilloma involving the skin of the whole foot and lower metatarsus. Foot lesions of this kind on two Slate-coloured Juncos Junco hyemalis and a Bronzed Grackle Ouiscalus qttiscula in America were recorded by M. W. Emell (1930, J. Am. Vet. Med. Assn., 77: 641-644) as epidermoid cancers; he stated that this condition had been found to be quite prevalent and he suggested previous injury as a possible cause. All three Chaffinches which were examined — two from Surrey and one from Devon — are briefly referred to in the paper on ‘Diseases of the skin and appendages of wild birds’ by I. F. Keymer and D. K. Blackmore elsewhere in this issue (Brit. Birds, 57: 175-1 79), but my own observations may be worth recording in greater detail because the occurrence of three individuals so affected in a limited area might suggest a local outbreak and because I was able to form an impression of the extent to which they were handicapped. The two which were seen feeding in the garden spent most of their time hopping on the sound foot and using the other occasionally as if to regain balance. The bird caught at the sewage-farm was kept in an aviarv for a few days before it was sent for examination. It preferred standing on the ground and on large-diameter perches where, however, it used both feet. It was very reluctant to enter the cover planted in the aviary and on the few occasions it did so was invariably found caught up by its overgrown hind claw. Derek Washington 184 Requests for information Dck Doves in Scotland. — Around parts of the Scottish coast apparently pure 3ck Doves Colitmba livia can still be found. In other places mixtures of Rock dvcs and domestic pigeons occur. Associated factors may include the stocking sea-cliffs from ancient dovecotes which became ruinous from the 18th century iwards. Anyone who is able to cover a few miles of coast anywhere in Scotland, eluding the islands, and to count the pigeons of each type, is invited to write for a cstionnaire to Raymond Hewson, 170 Mid Street, Keith, Banffshire. ceding Golden Plovers in Britain and Ireland. — Dr. D. A. Ratcliffe is studying t : breeding biology and distribution of the Golden Plover Cbaradrius apricarius in itain and Ireland and would be grateful for details of localities where the species sts, or presumably nests, on the scale of the ten-kilometre squares of the National r -id. Information for Ireland would be particularly welcome. Comments on resent numbers and any recent changes would be valuable, as it appears that there 'S been a decline in some areas during the last few decades. Please send any evant information to Dr. D. A. Ratcliffe, 2 Pepys Way, Girton, Cambridge. tutus of the Wryneck in Britain.— A further enquiry into the status of the Wry- eck Jynx torquilla in Britain is being carried out this year by the British Trust for nithology, with a view to establishing whether or not the decline in numbers has mtinued since the original five-year survey during 1954-58 {Bird Study, 10: 112-132). 1958 only 65 individuals or pairs were recorded in the whole country and a mere r pairs were proved to breed, so it is important that every single record should be 1 Llected. Observers are asked to report to their county recorders as quickly as sssible any Wrynecks they may see or hear in 1964 and to look for nest sites, wrynecks stop calling immediately the clutch is completed and so the cessation of ' ling, especially in the second half of May, means that the search for a nest should •n be intensified rather than abandoned. Where the county recorder is not own, observations should be sent to the organiser of the enquiry, R. E. F. Peal, (Creighton Avenue, London, N.io. News and comment Edited by Raymond Cordero r pidly growing R.S.P.B. membership. — The achievements of the Royal Society the Protection of Birds in encouraging and maintaining the renewed nesting of :h species as the Avocet and Osprey, and its steady campaign of publicity, includ- : ; new films annually, arc proving again the truth of the adage that nothing suc- ds like success, for November 1963 saw the enrolment of the Society’s 20,000th mber. This figure represents a rapid growth in recent years, yet on reflection 000 members in a country with a population of some 50 million people noted their broadly sympathetic attitude towards wild birds seems very low. Surely aembership of 100,000 should be possible? The worthiness of the R.S.P.B., and of several other causes, is not in dispute, and the support they receive in the form of membership, and thus of assured finance, >ften disappointing. Of course, one of the great attractions of bird-watching has vays been that, apart from the initial outlay on binoculars and identification oks, it can be pursued very cheaply. The total demands of subscriptions to local, ional and even international organisations can therefore appear rather formidable, 185 BRITISH BIRDS but the need for funds for the preservation of our avifauna has never been greater. So many dangers are looming large, from ill-sited development and oil pollution to the agricultural revolution and the catastrophic impact of toxic chemicals. In the cases of some birds of prey it may indeed already be too late. It cannot be too strongly stressed, therefore, that if the bird-watcher wants to have birds, not only for his children and grandchildren but even for himself, then he should support as strongly as he possibly can all those bodies now closely engaged in combating, in their various ways, this constant and accelerating erosion of our wildlife. Sound-recording competition. — The B.B.C. and the Council for Nature, who have already jointly sponsored natural history film competitions, now announce a competition for recordings of natural sounds of British wildlife. There will be five classes — four for individual bird, mammal, insect and amphibian species, and one for atmosphere. Prizes will be 25 guineas for the best entry in each class and 10 guineas for the runner-up. Full information about the competition, entries for which must be received by the B.B.C. Natural History Unit by 1st September 1964, may be obtained from the unit at Broadcasting House, Whiteladies Road, Bristol 8, or from the Council for Nature, 41 Queen’s Gate, London, S.W.7. B.T.O.’s Director of Research. — The British Trust for Ornithology is to appoint a Director of Research. He will be responsible to Council for the direction and co-ordination of all research from population to migration studies (including the nest record and ringing schemes) and will keep in close touch with other organisa- tions engaged in similar work. The initial appointment will be for five years. New warden for Bardsey. — A new warden has been appointed for Bardsey Bird Observatory. He is G. H. Evans, who has studied birds in several areas abroad, including Borneo and Africa. Stuart Smith Memorial Fund. — The Manchester Ornithological Society suffered a grievous loss by the death of Dr. Stuart Smith last year, and to commemorate his association with the Society — Dr. Smith was a founder member, its first chairman and later its president — it is now starting a fund to provide a more comprehensive library of modern ornithological literature in the A. W. Boyd Memorial Observa- tory, as well as a plaque within the building. The appeal is being made on these modest lines because the committee feels that a large and ostentatious memorial would be quite out of keeping with the spirit and outlook of Smart Smith. All donations should be sent to L. P. Samuels, c/o Henry Erin & Co., 11 Albert Square, Manchester 2. Forthcoming events. — A reminder of two important meetings during April which have already been detailed in these pages : the International Working Conference on Birds of Prey and Owls at Caen, France, from the 10th to the 12th, and the Annual Conference of the British Ornithologists’ Union at Southampton from the 17th to the 20th. Recent reports By I. J. Ferguson- Lees (These are largely unchecked reports, not authenticated records) This summary covers January and February 1964, together with a few belated observations from December 1963 which did not reach us in time to be included in the previous one (Brit. Birds, 57: 48). 1 86 RECENT REPORTS RARER SPECIES have already mentioned an American Robin T urdus migrator ius on St. Agnes . Isles of Scillv) in December, but in that connection it is interesting to learn that two i rale Brown-headed Cowbirds Molotbrus ater landed on a ship oft Newfoundland i n 15 th December and remained aboard until the 21st when they took off to the k orth-east at a point only 215 miles from St. Kilda (Outer Hebrides) and 228 miles l :om north-west Ireland. At the same time, too, what seems possibly to have been Pied-billed Grebe Podilymbus podiceps was watched and filmed at Blagdon Reser- oir (Somerset) on 22nd December; and soon afterwards, on 1st January, there was drake Surf Scoter Melanitta perspiiillata off Southerness Point (Kirkcudbrightshire), hen, in addition to the usual scattering of Snow Geese Anser caertdescens which lay or may not have been escapes (these included a blue-phase bird at Fairburn Ings, orkshire, on 9th and 10th January), one other American vagrant was a Killdeer baradrius vuci ferns, the first since 1959, at Egginton sewage-farm (Derbyshire) from 1 9th February to at least 15th March: it is interesting how many of the dozen or so . cords of this species in Britain and Ireland have been in the period Deccmbcr- >; pril. Other rarities were few. The Red-breasted Goose Bran/a rttficollis at Slimbridgc Gloucestershire) stated on into February' and a Lesser White-fronted Goose laser erythropvs also appeared there; in addition, there were at least two Lesser i flute-fronted Geese, an adult and an immature, on the Acle Marshes (Norfolk) late December and January'. What was at first identified as a male White-headed >iuck Oxyura leucocepbala at Hamilton (Lanarkshire) for some weeks from 25th December proved to be a partial albino Wigeon Anas penelopc. A White Stork iconia ciconia at Yarmouth (Isle of Wight) from 7th to 9th December was almost ::rtainly the one which was seen at various places in Dorset from September to i inuary after it had apparently escaped from Poole Park at the end of August. Mediterranean Black-headed Gulls Larns melanocepbalus were reported in Sussex, ent and Co. Durham. A Snowy Owl Nyctea scandiaca was identified in the Moor- ots (Midlothian) on or about 16th February' and there were unconfirmed reports this species in Suffolk and Surrey. A Chough Pyrrbocorax pyrrbocorax on Hilbre land on 1st February' was the first in Cheshire since 1887; unfortunately it was in an naciated condition and was blown into the sea and drowned. WINTER VISITORS le winter was otherwise generally rather uneventful, with a continuation of the ecture given in the last summary. There were a few hard-weather movements of sapwings Vanellus vane Hus, Skylarks Alanda arvensis, thrushes and finches in nuary and February whenever the weather became colder or there were temporary Is of snow, but these were generally on a very small scale compared with those of her recent y'ears. Redwfings T Urdus Hiatus remained ‘scarce’, ‘extremely scarce’ or most completely absent’ in most districts and this presumably confirms the very - ?h death rate of the British wintering population in early' 1963. Fieldfares pilaris, on the other hand, showed an interesting influx in the last few days of nuary and the first week of February, when arrivals were commented on in various ices from the north of Scotland to the Channel coast. For example, there was a ■ ck of a thousand on the Iftalvergate Marshes (Norfolk) on 2nd February, and 26th January a total of between 3,500 and 4,000 was estimated in a single large Id near Stour Provost (Dorset). ' Snow Buntings Pleciropbenax nivalis and Shore Larks LLremopbila alpestris con- ued to be widely reported on the cast coast and there were several more Shore rks on the west side, in Lancashire and Cheshire; on 9th February two Shore rks were even reported in Co. Wexford. Lapland Buntings Calcarius lapponicns 187 BRITISH BIRDS wintered in unusual numbers in Norfolk — for example, 30 on the Halvergate Marshes and 60 near Breydon Water in early February — and there were smaller parties in Cheshire and Kent. Waxwings Bombycilla garruliis were still scattered about the country from Aberdeen and Fife to Norfolk and Kent and from Lanca- shire to Hereford, Gloucester, Wiltshire and Glamorgan, but the numbers were generally very small (most reports involved less than live and few more than fifteen) and most stayed only a day or two (often subsisting on rotten apples in the absence of berries); in late February and on 3rd March, however, there were flocks of 21-23 and about 18 in Co. Dublin. Rather more Great Grey Shrikes Lanins excubitor than usual included a number in various Scottish counties, a scattering down the cast coast of England and odd ones inland in Derbyshire, Shropshire and Surrey. Short-eared Owls Asio flammeus were widely commented on in inland as well as coastal counties. Bewick’s Swans Cygnus columbianus were even more widespread in the last ten days of December than was suggested in the last summary, for herds of 26, 43 and 74 and a number of smaller parties were seen then at various places in Yorkshire and a widespread scatter in Midland and East Anglian counties included herds of 32 and 50 in Nottinghamshire. In January and February there were up to 60 at Minsmere (Suffolk), up to 63 at Eye Brook Reservoir (Leicestershire), up to 120 in the area of the Ouse Washes (Cambridgeshire) and Earith (Huntingdonshire), and on 25th February at least 60 on Curry Moor (Somerset); smaller numbers occurred in many counties from Northumberland south to Kent, Hampshire, Gloucester, Hereford and Shropshire. OUT-OF-SEASON MIGRANTS, DISPLAY AND NESTING There were a number of reports of wintering Chiffchaffs Pbylloscoptis collybi/a in January and February (and what may possibly have been new arrivals in Somerset and Hereford at the beginning of March), but surprisingly few Blackcaps Sylvia a/ricapilla compared with other recent winters; perhaps the latter are overlooked when not forced by hard weather to resort to bird tables. Wintering Common Sandpipers Tringa bypoleucos were quite widespread in England from Kent to Northumberland and Hampshire to Lancashire. Little Stints Ca/idris minuta were seen in Kent and Hampshire in January and February and five Curlew' Sandpipers C. testacea in Hampshire in January, and the wintering Avocets Recurvirostra avosetta included two as far north as Alnmouth (Northumberland) at the end of December and one at Malltraeth (Anglesey) from 28th December into February. Most surprising of out-of-season summer visitors was a Swallow Hirimdo rustica over the Ribble estuary (Lancashire) on 9th January. The first Wheatear Oenan/he oenantbe of the spring was seen on Hilbre Island (Cheshire) on 1st March. The generally mild weather of December and January resulted in an unusual volume of song from Skylarks, Great Tits Pants major, Robins Eri/hactts ritbectda Dunnocks Prunella modularis. Song Thrushes Turdus ph'tlomelos, Mistle Thrushes T. viscivorus , Chaffinches Fringilla coelebs, Yellowhammers Ember i^a ci/rinella and other resident species. In late January, too, Great Crested Grebes Podiceps crista Ins, Short-eared Owls and Mallards Anas platyrhynchos were displaying. Rooks Corvus frugilegus. Starlings Sturnus vulgaris and House Sparrow's Passer domesticus were building, a Great Spotted Woodpecker Dcndrocopos major in Lancashire was work- ing steadily on the excavation of a hole and, apart from the not so abnormal laying of Ravens Corvus corax in the West Country, nests and eggs of Blackbird T. merida and Partridge Perdix perdix were reported in Leicestershire and of Pheasant Phasianns colchicus in North Wales. Long-tailed Tits Aegithalos caudal us. Tree- creepers Ccrtbia familiaris and Goldcrests Regains regains were more in evidence in February than at any time in the spring of 1963 and there w'crc quite a few reports of the welcome reappearance of Wrens Troglodytes troglodytes. 188 HI RD WATCHING CALLS FOR THESE ATTRIBUTES IN BINOCULARS ★ LIGHTNESS OF ★ WIDE ANGLE WEIGHT OBSERVANCE ★ MAXIMUM LIGHT ★ CLARITY OF TRANSMISSION VISION e for 16-page illustrated lure on binoculars he WRAY has them all •CULAR MANUFACTURERS FOR SO YEARS WRAY (OPTICAL WORKS) LTDBROMLEYKENT SMALL ADVERTISEMENTS 121- for 3 lines (minimum) ; 4f for each extra line or part thereof. For the use of a Box Number there is an extra charge of If. Assistant for R.S.P.B. Scottish Office. Young man, preferably 25-30, required as Assistant to the Scottish Representative of the R.S.P.B. Salary between £800 and £1,000 according to qualifications and experience. Particulars obtainable from George Waterston, 21 Regent Terrace, Edinburgh 7. Suffolk. Hill Cottage, Westleton, near Saxmundham — the perfect centre for Minsmere, Walberswick marshes, heaths and woodland. Excellent bird library. Food good. Terms reasonable. Apply (Miss) M. S. van Oostveen. Tel: Westle- ton 245. North Norfolk coast. Houseboat for sale, three bunks, etc. Perfectly situated bird- watching; isolated spot adjacent beach. Box AL142. EDOM ON Eim Catalogue on request WHELD0N & WESLEY LTD Lytton Lodge Codicote, Hitchin, Herts A Mecca for birdwatchers at the C airngorm centre. Craigellachie Guest House (full board). Craigellachie self-contained flats. Craigellachie self-contained chalets. Craigellachie-Speyside caravan site. Bro- chure from Mrs. A. J. Tully, S.R.N., Craigellachie House, Aviemore, Inverness- shire. Kyle & Glen Minicoaches. To ornithologi- cal societies: make up a small party and we will show you the varied wildlife and spectacular scenery of N Scotland. Direct transport to Handa from Inverness. For details of our Highland safaris write to D. C. Hulme, Muir of Ord, Ross-shire. For sale. British Birds , vols. 50-54, unbound; perfect condition; £4 1 0s. C. M. Walker, 5 Castle Terrace, Sleaford, Lines. Zoological Section Aves 1962 Record This indispensable biblio- graphy, compiled by Lt.-Coi. W. P. C. Tenison, D.S.O., is an annual list of ornithological literature in all parts of the world. Full references are given with authors and titles, and they are indexed under species, subjects and countries The latest issue covers over 2,500 articles and books pub- lished mainly in 1962 and is obtainable, at a cost of 21s. (including postage), from Luxury 4-berth caravan. Woodland glade near Cley and Salthouse, Norfolk. Mrs. Ruggiero. 14 Sherbourne Drive, Windsor, (tel: 61783). The Zoological Society of London REGENT’S PARK LONDON, N.W.I 5 APR 1964 Notice to Contributors tish Birds publishes material dealing with original observations on the birds of tain and western Europe, or, where appropriate, on birds of this area as observed other parts of their range. Except for records of rarides, papers and notes are rmally accepted only on condition that the material is not being offered to any -icr journal. Photographs (glossy prints showing good contrast) and sketches are fcomed. Proofs of all contributions are sent to authors before publication. After publication, 25 separates of papers are sent free to authors (two or more hors of one paper receive 15 copies each); additional copies, for which a charge nade, can be provided if ordered when the proofs are returned. Papers should be typewritten with double spacing, and on one side of the sheet y. Shorter contributions, if not typed, must be dearly written and well spaced. vJotes should be worded as concisely as possible, and drawn up in the form in i ich they will be printed, with signature in block capitals and the writer’s address mrly written on the same sheet. If more than one note is submitted, each should on a separate sheet, with signature and address repeated. certain conventions of style and layout arc essential to preserve the uniformity itiny publication. Authors of papers in particular, especially of those containing ttfematic lists, reference lists, tables, etc., should consult the ones in this issue as a de to general presentation. English names of species should have capital iials for each word, except after a hyphen (e.g. Willow Warbler, Black-tailed dwit), but group terms should not (e.g. warblers, godwits). English names are se used in The Handbook of British Birds, with the exception of the changes listed in ish Birds in January 1953 (46: 2-3). The scientific name of each species should underlined (but not put in brackets) immediately after the first mention of the ■ ; >lish name. Subspecific names should not be used except where they are vant to the discussion. It is sometimes more convenient to list scientific ics in an appendix. Dates should take the form ‘ist January 1964’ and no ter, except in tables where they may be abbreviated to ‘ist Jan.’, ‘Jan. ist’, or ■ a ‘Jan. 1’, whichever most suits the layout of the table concerned. It is particu- 1 1 requested that authors should pay attention to reference lists, which otherwise »se much unnecessary work. These should take the following form: :ker, B. W. (1949): ‘Species and subspecies: a review for general ornitholo- ists’. Brit. Birds, 42: 1 29-1 34. •herby, H. F. (1894): Forest Birds: Their Haunts and Habits. London, p. 34. ious other conventions concerning references, including their use in the text, uld be noted by consulting examples in this issue. ablcs should be numbered with arabic numerals, and the title typed above in style used in this issue. They must either fit into the width of a page, or be gned to fit a whole page lengthways. All tables should be self-explanatory. figures should be numbered with arabic numerals, and the captions typed on a irate sheet. All line-drawings should be in indian ink on good quality drawing ' er (not of an absorbent nature) or, where necessary, on graph paper, but this t be light blue or very pale grey. It is always most important to consider how 1 drawing will fit into the page. The neat insertion of lettering, numbers, ws, etc., is perhaps the most difficult part of indian ink drawing and, unless he had considerable experience of this kind of work, an author should seek the of a skilled draughtsman. Recently published books available from WITHERBY’S BOOKSHOP Birds’ Nests and Eggs ( Instructions to Young Ornithologists V) by C. J. O. Harrison. Illustrated. Publication on 6th April. 15s. Birds of the Atlantic Islands, Vol. I, by D. A. Bannerman. 84s. The Birds of the British Isles, Vol. XII, by D. A. Bannerman and G. E. Lodge. 63s. A Study of Bird Song by Edward A. Armstrong. 17 plates and 335 pages. 45s. Scotland’s Eastern Coast by Lesley Scott-Moncrieff. A guidebook from Berwick to Scrabster. 41 photographs. 25s. A Sailor’s Guide to Ocean Birds by Ted Stokes with illus- trations by Keith Shackleton. Atlantic and Mediterranean. 6s. The Handbook of British Mammals edited by H. N. Southern. The first complete handbook of British mammals to be pub- lished in this country. Written by members of the Mammal Society of the British Isles, edited by H. N. Southern and illustrated mainly by Robert Gillmor. 512 pages, 55 text figures, 60 photographs. 37s. 6d. Wildfowl in Great Britain edited by G. L. Atkinson-Willes. A complete survey of distribution and habitats. 14-page colour section from paintings by Peter Scott. 28 half-tones, 60 line drawings and 364 pages. 45s. The Birds of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight by Edwin Cohen. 16 plates of photographs, and line maps and drawings in the 270 pages of text. 30s. Pictorial Encyclopaedia of the Animal Kingdom by V. J. Stanek. 16 colour plates and over 1,000 remarkable photo- graphs. Magnificent value. 25s. Bird Migration ( Instructions to Young Ornithologists III) by Robert Spencer. A comprehensive introduction to the sub- ject. 9 plates of photographs and 13 figures. 12s. 6d. Animal Ways and Means by Eric Roberts. A book for the younger reader concerning the more unusual behaviour of animals, including birds and insects. Illustrated. 15s. Please address all enquiries to The Manager, Witherby’s Bookshop 61/62 Watling Street, London, F..C.4 or telephone City 5405 ALL BOOKS SENT POST FREE Printed in England by Diemer & Reynolds Ltd., Eastcotts Road, Bedford Published by H. F. & G. Withcrby Ltd., 61/62 Watling Street, E.C.4 British Birds Principal Contents 2 ^ APR 1964 PURCHASER Protecting ground nests from cattle J. T. Hendriksma (with one plate) Little Ringed Plovers in Britain during 1960-62 E. R. Parrinder More examples of the best recent work by British bird-photographers (with eight plates) Notes Reviews Letters News and comment Recent reports Obituary: Ralph Chislett, M.Sc., F.R.P.S. (1883-1964) Vol. 57 No. 5 May 1964 THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE British Birds AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY JOURNAL Editors Stanley Cramp, I. J. Ferguson-Lees, P. A. D. Hollom, E. M. Nicholson Photographic Editor Eric Hosking Editorial Address 30 St. Leonard’s Avenue, Bedford ‘News and Comment’ Rarities Committee Raymond Cordero D. D. Harber Rohan Lodge, Wadhurst Park 1 Gorringe Road Contents of Volume 57, Number 5, May 1964 Page Protecting ground nests from cattle. By J. T. Hendriksma (plate 24) . . 189 Little Ringed Plovers in Britain during 1960-62. By E. R. Parrinder . . 191 More examples of the best recent work by British bird-photographers. Photographs by Keri Williams, Dr. R. K. Murton, Dr. D. A. P. Cooke, Harold R. Lowes, Harold Platt, C. P. Rose, Morley Hedley, Graham F. Date, William S. Paton, Richard Coleman, Dr. A. N. H. Peach and Arthur Gilpin (plates 25-32). Text by Eric Hosking . . . . . . 199 Notes : — Another large movement of Cory’s Shearwaters off Co. Cork (P. A. Wright, J. T. R. Sharrock and H. M. Dobinson) . . . . . . . . . . 200 Immobility saving Mallard from dogs (H. T. Lees) . . . . . . 202 Tawny Owls feeding young on fish (Keri Williams) (plate 25) . . . . 202 Tawny Owl attacking Fox in winter (Andrew Paterson) . . . . . . 203 House Martins nesting on new buildings (P. N. Humphreys) . . . . 203 Blackbird and Song Thrush sharing a nest (C. T. Oakley) . . . . 204 Unusual song and behaviour of Whitethroat (Eric V. Rogers) . . . . 204 Reviews: — The Birds of the British Isles, vol. XII, by David A. Bannerman; illustrated by George E. Lodge. Reviewed by R. K. Cornwallis . . . . . . 205 The Birds of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, by Edwin Cohen. Reviewed by P. A. D. Hollom 208 Letters: — The North Atlantic population of the Great Skua (R. F. Dickens; D. G. Andrew) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • • • 209 Canada Geese in Ireland (Hugh Boyd) .. .. .. .. .. 21 1 The field identification of Tawny and Richard’s Pipits (D. D. Harber; L. Hailing Sorensen, E. Kramshoj and N. Hesselbjerg Christensen; and Peter Davis) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. •• 211 News and comment. Edited by Raymond Cordero . . . . . . 216 Recent reports. By I. J. Ferguson-Lees . . . . . . . . . . 218 Obituary: Ralph Chislett, M.Sc., F.R.P.S. (1883-1964) (plate 33) .. .. 219 Annual subscription £2 6s. (including postage and despatch) payable to H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Wading Street, London, E.C.4 Some outstanding species of ELEPHOTOLENSIUS HANIMEXIA for orniphotophiles ! I photographers! You will agree that the dard lens on your camera has its limitations specially in nature photography where it is : difficult, but so rewarding, to get close-up shots. These excellent lightweight telephoto lenses from HANIMEX will bring your subject in close-up. With a 300 mm. lens 50 ft. away becomes 8 ft. and with a 400 mm. lens 130 ft. becomes 16 ft. HANIMEX 300 mm telephoto lens A superb lens, particularly suitable for wild life and other nature photographers, giving six times magnification. Metal construction, f 5.5 with pre-set diaphragm. Focusing range 25 ft. to infinity. £29 1 0s Od complete with leather case i iigh quality lightweight lens particularly mble for fast action shooting where eight h s magnification is needed. Fitted with heavy i tripod bushing. Metal construction. .with manual pre-set diaphragm. Depth of I indicator. Focusing range from 30 ft. to i ity. 33 1 0s Od complete with leather case HANIMEX 400 mm telephoto lens TAMR0N 400 mm telephoto lens Remarkable value. Light-weight construction. V^eighs only 19 oz. Eight times magnification. f7.5 with click-stop diaphragm. Focusing 30 ft. to infinity. Depth of field indicator. £19 19s Od complete with leather case All lenses are supplied with thread mounts to fit Pentax, Edixa, Pentacon, Praktika, Yashica and Contax S S.L.R. cameras. These fitted mounts are interchangeable with adaptors to fit Topcon, Exakta, Minolta, Miranda, Nikon, Mamiya, Zenith and Leica cameras at only £2 2s Od extra. Adaptor for Canon £5 5s Od extra. Adaptor for Petrie £2 7s 6d extra. Illlllllllllllllllllllllllll!llllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll You can rely on HANIMEX cellence :he complete range of HANIMEX lenses at your photo dealer, or write for a leaflet to: HANIMEX (UK) LTD • 42 LOWER MARSH • LONDON SEI Recently published books available from WITHERBY’S BOOKSHOP Birds of the London Area by the London Natural History Society. A revised edition with a new set of excellent illus- trations. 42s. The Shell Gardens Book. 320 pages of brilliant and original writing on gardens. Illustrated with 12 double-page colour plates, 120 photographs and 38 line drawings. 21s. Birds’ Nests and Eggs ( Instructions to Young Ornithologists V) by C. J. O. Harrison. Illustrated. 15s. Birds of the Atlantic Islands, Vol. I, by D. A. Bannerman. 84s. The Birds of the British Isles, Vol. XII, by D. A. Bannerman and G. E. Lodge. 63s. A Study of Bird Song by Edward A. Armstrong. 17 plates and 335 pages. 45s. Gardens of England and Wales. Those open to the public under the National Gardens Scheme. Illustrated Guide 1964. 2s. 6d. Scotland’s Eastern Coast by Lesley Scott- Moncrieff. A guidebook from Berwick to Scrabster. 41 photographs. 25s. The Handbook of British Mammals edited by H. N. Southern. The first complete handbook of British mammals to be pub- lished in this country. Written by members of the Mammal Society of the British Isles, edited by H. N. Southern and illustrated mainly by Robert Gillmor. 512 pages, 55 text figures, 60 photographs. 37s. 6d. Wildfowl in Great Britain edited by G. L. Atkinson-Willes. A complete survey of distribution and habitats. 14-page colour section from paintings by Peter Scott. 28 half-tones, 60 line drawings and 364 pages. 45s. The Shell and BP Guide to Britain edited by Geoffrey Boumphrey. A complete guide to all the counties of Eng- land, Scotland and Wales. 936 pages, 32 pages of maps, heavily illustrated. Exceptional value. 30s. Bird Migration ( Instructions to Young Ornithologists III ) by Robert Spencer. A comprehensive introduction to the sub- ject. 9 plates of photographs and 13 figures. 12s. 6d. Please address all enquiries to The Manager, Witherby’s Bookshop 61/62 Watling Street, London, F..C.4 or telephone City 5405 ALL BOOKS SENT POST FREE m & British Birds Vol. 57 No. 5 May 1964 Protecting ground nests from cattle By J. T. Hendriksma (Plate 24) uiesland abounds in birds, partly because it is not nearly so nsely populated as the rest of the Netherlands and partly because 0 or more of its total area is covered by water. During the war, ivwever, the eggs of waders were a coveted food and numbers fell nsiderably. After 1945, therefore, local societies for bird protection :re established in several towns and villages and now more than ,,000 out of a population of 475,000 people are members of such .ganisations, whilst some 50 reserves with a total area of 6,300 acres ve been established throughout the province. Fifteen of the largest reserves have a combined area of about 3,200 rces and in these the breeding birds are counted as accurately as ssible each year. The numbers of breeding pairs of waders on these een reserves during 1960-62 were as follows: i960 1961 1962 Lapwing Vanellus vanellus 607 610 726 Black-tailed Godwit Limosa limosa 654 629 75° Redshank Tringa totanus 72 71 181 Oystercatcher Haematopus ostralegus 45 67 120 Snipe Gallinago gallinago 39 58 7° Ruff Philomachus pugnax 6 1 1 9 should be added that the nests of Redshank, Snipe and Ruff are not tally all found. lattle graze on the reserves and our records show that, if no pre- itions are taken, these animals tread on an average of about 50% of der nests. With young cattle, in fact, the proportion is often 189 BRITISH BIRDS considerably higher and there can even be total destruction. Our solution has been to cover the nests with protectors of the kind illus- trated on plate 24. As the two photographs there show, these consist of a frame of four iron bars with barbed wire wound round them. The bars are at least three-eighths of an inch thick and the legs about two feet apart; the legs are pushed at least one foot into the ground and the top is about two feet above the nest. Protectors are put over nests a few days before cattle are let into a pasture. Excellent results have been obtained with these protectors and nests covered by them are comparatively seldom trampled. Most waders pay little or no attention to the structures, though Redshanks have some difficulty in getting used to them and it must be noted that we have had very little experience with Ruffs. If an individual bird proves awkward, the iron frame is first placed some distance away and then gradually moved up each day. In 1962 the protection society at Grouw put out no less than 255 of these protectors and 199 of the nests (78%) hatched successfully; of the remainder, 19 (7^%) were still crushed by cattle, 10 (4%) were deserted and 27 (io|%) were unsuccessful for other reasons such as the eggs not hatching or being destroyed by predators. It should be added that the protectors do not appear to attract the attentions of Carrion Crows Corvus corone and Magpies Pica pica as predation does not occur any more often than at uncovered nests. One Black-tailed Godwit was mortally wounded by the wire and, though this was an exceptional case, the barbed protectors are quite awkward to carry across fields and ditches, particularly in any number; cattle are also sometimes scratched by the barbs. In 1963, therefore, the first experiments were made with protectors lacking the wire and the results seemed to be very satisfactory. If barbed wire is not used, the protectors have to be rather flatter, for cattle can otherwise still crush the nests with their hooves or noses, but this also has its advan- tages as they are then less conspicuous. The protectors with the barbed wire on them cannot be any flatter than suggested in the des- cription at the top of this page or there would be a real danger of injuring the birds. It goes without saying that a lot of work is involved in the finding of nests and the siting of protectors, but the results show that it is well worth while. We have seen that as low a proportion as may be crushed by cattle when the protectors are in position, while the previous figure used frequently to be as high as 50% or even 75%. Asa result of the system of reserves and nest protectors the stock of some species of waders in Friesland has considerably improved. This is partic- ularly the case with the Lapwing and the Black-tailed Godwit, and the latter has probably doubled its numbers since 1945. 190 ittle Ringed Plovers in Britain during 1960-62 By E. R. Parrinder his paper records the increase and spread of the Little Ringed • over Cbaradrius dubius in Britain since the last report on its status arrinder i960) and discusses the rate of increase since the first nesting 1938. INCREASE FROM I 9 5 9 TO 1962 1959 about 98 pairs of Little Ringed Plovers were located in 21 - iglish counties. By 1 962 the summering population had increased by % to just under 160 pairs (see table 1). One further county was , cupied; in i960, while flying over Norfolk, previously the only astal county between Yorkshire and Sussex in which nesting had not .en proved, Flt.-Lt. D. Wright saw a group of gravel pits which he -ipected had not been investigated by ornithologists. When these s:s were visited in July two pairs of Little Ringed Plovers were found, e with small young. The site was a fresh excavation, but there are ler workings adjacent, now unsuitable, where it is possible that :tle Ringed Plovers may have bred in former years ( per M. J. Seago d A. E. Vine). Although Norfolk was the only new county, there were considerable tensions within the existing breeding range and the number of sites :d increased by 5 5% between 1959 and 1962. A westwards expan- n brought the re-occupation of Staffordshire in i960, when breeding :urred for the first time since 1952, and of Cheshire and Gloucester- re in 1961, for the first time since 1954 and 1955 respectively. At northern end of the range, the number of pairs in Nottinghamshire reased from two in 1959 to 13 in 1962 and in Yorkshire from ten to In 1963, outside the period under review, Little Ringed Plovers ;ted for the first time north of the latitude of York in Yorkshire and another northern county which, as egg-collectors are still active, is : being disclosed for the time being. n 1959, 70% of the summering pairs were in counties approximately ith of a line from the Welland to the Severn; in 1962, although the nber of pairs summering in this area increased, the proportion of total dropped to 59%. West of the counties where breeding occurred, one or two were a on passage in Wiltshire in i960 and 1962; in Dorset in 1962; in nerset in all three years; in Worcestershire in 1961 ; in Herefordshire 960 and 1962; in Shropshire in i960 and 1962; and in Lancashire in BRITISH BIRDS Table i. Pairs of Little Ringed Plovers Cbaradrius dubius summering in Britain during 1959-62, with history of nesting in each county The Bedfordshire figure for i960 has had to be interpolated owing to lack of detailed observations 1959 i960 1961 1962 History Hampshire 2 — — I Nested occasionally since 1952 Sussex I I - - Nested annually 1949-60 Kent 7 9 Nested most years since 1947 Surrey 5 6 10 13 Nested most years since 1950 Essex 9 D II 14 Nested annually since 1947 Hertfordshire 7 8 6 4 Nested 1938, 1944, 1948 and annually since 1953 Middlesex 4 7 5 I Nested most years since 1944 Berkshire 7 4 7 6 Nested most years since 1947 Oxfordshire 2 2 2 3 Nested most years since 1954 Buckinghamshire 3 5 I 6 Nested occasionally since 1949 Suffolk I I - - Nested occasionally since 1948 Norfolk - 2 6 4 Nested since i960 Cambridgeshire 6 5 6 7 Nested annually since 1952 Bedfordshire 7 (7) IO 7 Nested 1951 and annually since 1956 Huntingdonshire 3 3 3 6 Nested 1952 and annually since 1957 Northamptonshire 5 4 2 3 Nested most years since 1953 Gloucestershire - - 2 3 Nested occasionally since 1953 Warwickshire 5 6 7 IO Nested since 1959 Staffordshire 2 2 4 Nested 1952 and annually since i960 Lincolnshire 5 3 II 5 Nested annually since 1950 Leicestershire 3 3 4 3 Nested annually since 1955 Nottinghamshire 2 12 8 D Nested annually since 1956 Derbyshire 4 4 5 5 Nested 1950 and annually since 1956 Cheshire - - 2 6 Nested 1954, 1961 and 1962 Yorkshire IO 1 1 14 18 Nested annually since 1947 Totals 98 120 H9 157 RATE OF INCREASE Little Ringed Plovers were first reported breeding in Britain at Tring, Hertfordshire, in 1938. There was then a gap until 1944, when two pairs nested in Hertfordshire and one pair in Middlesex. Berkshire was occupied in 1946 and Essex and Kent in 1947. The colonisation of Yorkshire also began in 1947 and seems likely to have been due to a further westward invasion from Europe rather than a spread up from the south. By 1950 about 30 pairs were summering in England; 80% of these were in eight counties south of the Welland-Severn line and the other half-dozen were in Lincolnshire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire. Six years later, in 1956, the total number of pairs had increased to 74. of which 74% were in fourteen counties south of the Welland-Severn and 26% in six counties to the north. After a further six years, in 192 LITTLE RINGED PLOVERS DURING 1960-62 1 00 °o O O ^ ^^r^^.^^vo^iOU^^Ovo^»OlOtO'0'OvO ^OOcT'OOnQ^O' Ov Q\ o CT' ^ ^ 9* 7^ ^ O' O 2, 59% of the approximate total of 1 57 pairs were in fifteen southern nties and 41% in eight northern (see fig. 1). ince 1948 the average annual rate of increase has been approxim- y 15%. Boyd (i960, pp. 573-374) stated that this figure, used in junction with records of the output of fledged young per pair, was sistent with the adult death-rate of 35% calculated from ringing irns. It is interesting, therefore, that the annual rate of increase e 1948 for the eight northern counties has been more than double for the southern counties. This trend still continues; between *93 BRITISH BIRDS 1959 and 1962 the annual rate of increase in the south was 13% and in the north 30%. It seems unlikely that the adult death-rate, or the disturbance factor at nesting sites, is very different at the northern localities and the reason for the greater rate of increase may be that westward immigration from the Continent has continued longer, or to a greater extent, into the northern than into the southern counties. Another factor is the human one that familiarity breeds lack of interest in searching for and recording new sites, especially in areas where Little Ringed Plovers are well established. Apart from Norfolk, no new counties have been occupied in the south since 1954; in the north, on the other hand, ornithologists have had the stimulus of recording a spread to three new counties and the re-occupation of two others. The nature of the sites — working gravel pits where conditions may change and cause a shift to new excavations, older gravel pits which may become overgrown or filled, and reservoirs and sewage farms where breeding is dependent on the water level — makes it easy for birds to be overlooked and it is probable that some pairs breed undiscovered: this is most likely to happen in areas where Little Ringed Plovers have nested for many years and so lost their rarity value. SITES The total number of individual sites occupied has increased in a similar pattern to the number of breeding pairs: the average annual increase since 1948 has been about 12%. Again, the rate of increase in the northern counties has been more than double that in the south. As well as increasing in total, there is a large annual turnover as sites, especially gravel pits and reservoirs, become unsuitable and new ones are occupied. Unfortunately, the data are not enough to measure this turnover, but the extent of it may be judged from the fact that ten of the twelve gravel pits in the London Area where nesting was proved between 1944 and 1950 were occupied for one or two years only; at the other two the rapid growth of willow saplings displaced the birds after three and four years respectively. Gravel pits are still the most numerous of the habitats which the Little Ringed Plover appears to regard as suitable in Britain. Other sites include sewage farms, reservoirs and adjoining wasteland, brick pits, excavated land by building sites, ash lagoons at power stations, factory and colliery waste areas, open-cast coal mining sites, and shale or slag in the vicinity of flashes caused by mining subsidence. About 90 individual sites were recorded in 1962. Of these, perhaps 60 or 70 were gravel pits — a small proportion of the 1,400 pits which, according to the Handbook of the Sand and Gravel Association of Great Britain, were being worked in i960. Of course, many pits 194 LITTLE RINGED PLOVERS DURING 1960-62 e unsuitable, because they are dry, or steep-sided without a feeding jge, or overgrown, or for other reasons. But it is certainly true that ere are many pits unoccupied by Little Ringed Plovers which are distinguishable from occupied pits and it is unlikely that the annual te of increase is held up by a lack of suitable sites. The abundance of rtificial’ sites in England is no doubt one of the reasons why there is 1 ily one report — -from the River Trent in Derbyshire in 1950 — of sting on a river shingle bed, a favourite habitat in other parts of the ; orld range. Another reason may be that few of our rivers have ry extensive shingle areas and none so large as, for example, the j ione. Nevertheless, H.O. Bunce {in lilt.) considers that most of the nnine dale streams from the Tees down to the Aire might provide ge enough areas of shingle; most of them have breeding pairs of , vstercatchers Haematopus oslralegus. It might well be worth searching ' c Little Ringed Plovers by the Pennine streams and by other shingle- nked rivers, especially in areas, including Wales and Scotland, where ificial sites are scarce. The number of artificial habitats has increased greatly since Little nged Plovers first nested in Britain. In particular, the production of id and gravel for making concrete, for building and road construc- n, increased by over 200% between 1944 and 1962 and much of this .s obtained from new excavations. The map (fig. 2) of the location sand and gravel pits in 1962 shows that, except to the north of its . :sent range, the Little Ringed Plover is now breeding in all the main . ivel extraction areas. This is further confirmed by the gravel oduction figures given in a regional analysis published by the Min- ty of Public Building and Works {Sand and Gravel Production, 1961- 62, H.M.S.O., 1963); in 1962 less than 14% of the total gravel iduction in England and Wales was outside the counties where tie Ringed Plovers were breeding. The only counties with an ireciable gravel production where nesting had not occurred by 1962 re Lancashire, Northumberland and Durham and these, together :h parts of Wales where gravel production rose by over 100% in 32, seem to be the most likely areas for Little Ringed Plovers to onise in the future. Gravel production is also increasing in the ottish Lowlands and, as Little Ringed Plovers breed in much more rtherly latitudes on the Continent, they may well spread into Scot- he excavations provide suitable habitats. n 1962, 63% of the gravel extracted in the counties where Little lged Plovers were breeding was south of the Welland-Severn fine 1 the same area held 59% of the summering pairs of Little Ringed >vers. Unfortunately, the number of cubic yards excavated, upon ich the gravel production figures are based, does not measure the >portion of pits suitable for breeding, nor, indeed, are gravel pit:; the *95 BRITISH BIRDS only habitat, so the apparently close correlation between the above figures must not be stretched too far. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the continued success and spread of the Little Ringed Plover has been aided, in this country as in western Europe, by the concomitants of the vast building programme following the war. NESTING SUCCESS The Little Ringed Plover is now so well established that, except in areas where it is extending its range, a close watch is rarely kept on individual nests and many county reports contain little or no informa- tion on hatching and fledging success. Some fail to give even the minimum information required for this report on the number of sum- mering pairs and the number of sites. Boyd ( loc . cit.) has pointed out the need for research into the dynamics of wader populations, not least from the aspect of conservation, and especially the necessity for careful breeding censuses, including determination of the number of young fledged. The Little Ringed Plover should be one of the most suitable waders for such studies in England, although a good deal of time and patience would be required: the suggestion might appeal more especially to ornithologists in areas recently colonised. Although there is insufficient information to analyse the nesting success of the Little Ringed Plover in England in detail, there is con- siderable evidence that hatching and fledging, and therefore probably the annual rate of increase, are badly affected by the interference and disturbance, human and otherwise, which occurs at most of the breed- ing sites and especially at gravel pits, reservoirs and sewage farms. Many clutches come to grief and many chicks fail to reach the free- flying stage. For example, of seventeen clutches laid by nine pairs in Essex in 1955 only eight hatched and it is probable that less than twenty young flew; one pair nested four times, each time unsuccessfully. More recently, in 1962, four pairs in Huntingdonshire laid at least seven clutches, but only seven chicks hatched and of these only three fledged. Some of the principal causes of failure are shown in the following analysis of 50 instances of disturbance upsetting nesting attempts: Flooding or wet weather 1 5 Lorries, excavators and workmen 12 Suspected robbery by collectors (9) or children (1) 10 Predators ' 9 Filling by soil or rubbish tipping 4 It is not possible to separate deliberate flooding (as at sewage farms or reservoirs) from bad weather effects, but only four failures in the sample were specifically related to weather and there is no evidence 196 LITTLE RINGED PLOVERS DURING 1960-62 Fig. 2. Sand and gravel pits in Britain in 1962. The hatched line marks the northern and western limits of the breeding range of the Little Ringed Plover Cbaradrius dubius, and the disconnected line from the Welland to the Severn the arbitrary division discussed in the text. Many of the pits shown are not suitable for nesting (drawn by Robert Gillmor, with permission, from a map issued by the Sand and Gravel Association of Great Britain ) *97 BRITISH BIRDS that rainfall, or temperature, is a significant factor. Predation by egg- collectors still continues despite the theoretical protection afforded by the 1954 Act. The other predators concerned were rats Rat/us spp., Kestrels Valeo tinnunculus and, mentioned most often, Carrion Crows Corvus corone. It seems clear that the degree of disturbance to which the nesting sites are subjected is the most likely factor limiting the rapidity of increase and that the rate of increase would be even less than 1 5 % per annum but for the remarkable tolerance of disturbance shown by Little Ringed Plovers and their persistence in laying repeat clutches. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to the following editors of local reports and others who have supplied the information upon which this paper is based and patiently answered my questions: G. A. Arnold, R. H. Baillie, L. Baker, R. G. Barnes, K. Barrett, T. H. Bell, E. Blezard, Miss H. J. Brotherton, H. O. Bunce, E. Cohen, P. R. Colston, J. Cudworth, A. Dobbs, R. Felton, J. Field, A. W. Goodin, M. Goodman, F. C. Gribble, R. A. O. Hickling, F. J. Holroyde, F. Horner, D. C. Hulme, H. T. Lees, Miss R. F. Levy, L. Lloyd-Evans, J. Lord, A. T. Macmillan, J. R. Mather, Dr. R. K. Murton, D. F. Musson, W. H. Payn, G. A. Pyman, Mrs. M. C. Radford, R. J. Rhodes, E. M. Rutter, B. L. Sage, M. J. Seago, F. R. Smith, K. G. Spencer, J. Stafford, R. G. O. Stephenson, C. M. Swaine, J. H. Taverner, C. F. Tebbutt, A. D. Townsend, G. E. S. Turner, C. M. Veysey, A. E. Vine and A. F. G. Walker. I also wish to thank the Sand and Gravel Association of Great Britain for kindly giving permission for the reproduction of fig. 2 from its published map of the location of sand and gravel pits. It must be added that these pits are private property and that permission to visit them should always first be obtained from their owners. SUMMARY The status of the Little Ringed Plover Cbaradrius dubius during 1960-62 is given year by year for each of the 25 counties in which it has bred. In 1962 just under 160 pairs bred, an increase of 60% since 1959. The proportion of pairs nesting north of a line from the Wash to the Severn increased from 30% in 1959 to 41 % in 1962. A summary is given of the pattern of the increase and spread since the first breeding in 1938. The average annual rate of increase has been approximately 15%. The spread has been aided by a parallel increase in the number of ‘artificial’ habitats, especially gravel pits, as a result of the boom in building. At the same time the rate of increase has probably been held back by the high degree of disturbance to which such sites are subject. REFERENCES Boyd, H. (1962): ‘Mortality and fertility of European Charadrii’. Ibis, 104: 368-387. Parrinder, E. R. (i960): ‘The Little Ringed Plover in Great Britain during 1957' 59’. Brit. Birds, 53: 545"5 5 3- 198 More examples of the best recent work by British bird-photographers (Plates 25-32) tis issue contains the fifth annual selection of contemporary >rk by British bird-photographers (cf. Brit. Birds, 53: plates 25-32; : plates 27-34; 55 : plates 32-40; and 56: plates 27-34). The aims of s series should now be widely enough known, but in brief they are keep in one place a permanent record of the progress of this aspect ornithology, to illustrate the work of as many photographers as ssible, to encourage newcomers as well as to show examples of the est results of the old hands, and to give readers an opportunity of :ing the best of the pictures which normally fall outside the scope of s journal. ' We had a wide choice this year and, in fact, had to reject several : lich we should have liked to use if there had been more space. We rmally try to select different species from those chosen the previous ir, but we felt bound to include Harold R. Lowes’s really fine and eresting picture of a Buzzard Buteo buteo and its young (plate 27a); ■ te the sharp focus on the adult in the centre with food in its talons, i the differing ages of the three young. Similarly, Graham F. te’s quite excellent Whinchat Saxicola rubetra (plate 30) simply had be selected in spite of the fact that this species was also featured last ir; it should be added that the work of this young photographer has : t previously appeared in the series. Three other young photographers are also represented in this year’s action, two of them for the first time. Unlike Buzzards and W’hin- its, some of the really common British birds are hardly ever photo- phed and not at all well even then. That alone would be sufficient justify the selection of Richard Coleman’s unusual shot of a House irrow Passer domesticus bathing (plate 31b), but this picture also phasises the value of photographing birds away from the nest in lations which illustrate behaviour and display. Even more unusual veri Williams’s male Tawny Owl Strix aluco with a fish in its bill ite 25 and pages 202-203). This photographer is now producing eptionally fine results and, at a time when so many seem to have t the skill of black-and-white photography and simply take 3 5 mm. our transparencies, it is good to know that there are some among rising generation who still use larger cameras to such effect, lliam S. Paton’s Coal Tit Pams ater (plate 3 ia) is another example of nnical excellence by a young photographer — but no newcomer as is now represented for the third year in succession. 199 BRITISH BIRDS Several other pictures in this selection were also obtained away from the nest. Dr. D. A. P. Cooke showed considerable ingenuity in getting high-speed flash photographs of Storm Petrels Hydrobates pelagicus in flight at night on Shetland ; the one reproduced here (plate 26b) was taken at 1 a.m. A little farther afield C. P. Rose stalked Ptarmigan Lagopus mutus in Iceland and secured a fine portrait of one in white plumage in June (plate 28); this can hold its own with any of the series on this species which was published in this journal in 1957 (Brit. Birds, 50: plates 17-24). Ducklings are always attractive, but breeding Shelducks Tadorna tadorna are notoriously difficult to approach and so Dr. R. K. Murton’s photograph of a female leading her young away from the nest-hole (plate 26a) is a real achievement. Another aspect of bird photography which is often not exploited to the full is the identification of food brought to the nest. The Tawny Owl by Keri Williams is a case in point, but in the present series we also have Morley Hedley’s Treecreeper Certhia fat?iiliaris (plate 29) and Dr. A. N. H. Peach’s Grey Wagtail Motacilla cinerea (plate 32a) as two examples of the possibilities where insects are involved. While some photographers prefer to work at ground level, others enjoy the challenge of constructing hides high in trees or on mountain sides. Plarold Platt is one of the latter and in July 1963 he tackled a pair of Kestrels Falco tinnunculus nesting at the top of a pine; his results are superb and the one included here (plate 27b) shows particularly well the pattern of the male’s back, wings and tail. Some photographers often fail to obtain the best effects through lack of care in ‘gardening’ the surroundings of the nest and such people should study Arthur Gilpin’s Redpoll Carduelis flammea (plate 32b) ; the foliage has been tied back to obtain a clear view of the nest, but it has been done in a res- trained and artistic way which at the same time enables it to be replaced afterwards. Eric Hosking Notes Another large movement of Cory’s Shearwaters off Co. Cork. —An account of a spectacular sea-bird movement off Cape Clear Island, Co. Cork, on 10th August 1962, which included 157 Cory’s Shearwaters Pr ocellar ia diomedea and twelve Great Shearwaters P. gravis , has already been published (Brit. Birds, 56: 189-190). On 14th July 1963 an even more remarkable movement took place off Cape Clear Island. Between 10.40 and 20.40 GMT a total of approximately 200 Cory’s Shearwaters, 300 Great Shearwaters, one Sooty Shearwater P.grisea, 20,000 Manx Shearwaters P. puffinus, 1,800 Fulmars Fulmarus glacialis, 1,500 Gannets Sula bassana, 1,300 Kittiwakes Kiss a tridactyla and three Great Skuas Catharacta skua were seen passing 200 NOTES ;st off the tip of Blananarragaun by A. J. Gerrard, A. D. Pearson, . . F. Seddon and P.A.W.; small numbers of auks and Common i oters Melanitta nigra were also noted. Unlike those which took part the 1962 movement, the Great Shearwaters were stopping to feed d this led to concentrations of up to a hundred off-shore at times, l five occasions Great Black-backed Gulls Laras marinus were seen attack Great Shearwaters from behind just when they had caught hes, ducking them by landing feet-first on their heads and then iking off with the prey. The Cory’s Shearwaters were mainly pass- ; singly or in small parties and tended to fly faster without stopping feed. This sea-bird passage also differed from the 1962 one in that no : crels were seen, though the first two of the autumn appeared the xt day and about 300, including 257 Storm Petrels Hjdrobates agicus and twelve Leach’s Petrels Oceanodroma leucorrhoa, were :orded on 18th July (later, too, the autumn became particularly good : petrels at Cape Clear and a total of 4,768 had been observed by October). The numbers of other species seen on 14th July were • t particularly remarkable, though Manx Shearwaters, at about >00 per hour, were above the average for the month as a w-hole 343 per hour, based on 48 hours’ sea-watching). The differences in the composition of the 1962 and 1963 movements .ke it worth comparing them in greater detail. The weather situa- n preceding the 1962 movement has already been described. The S3 movement came as a deep depression (984 millibars) centred off ithern Greenland at noon on 12th July moved quickly eastwards, : associated fronts entering western Ireland at about 00.00 GMT on h July. By 10.40 GMT, when the sea-observations began, the id was south-wTest force 5-6 at Cape Clear Island and sea-mist had .uced visibility to about eight miles. Both the weather situation 1 the large numbers of Great Shearwaters suggest a more westerly irce for the 1963 birds than for those in 1962, wThen Biscay wras >ught to be the probable area of origin. n the note on the 1962 movement, two of us suggested that Cory’s ;arwaters might prove to be regular in small numbers off Cape ar Island. Although the large movements of 10th August 1962 1 14th July 1963 were probably exceptional, this view wras confirmed the occurrence of several more Cory’s Shearwaters off Cape Clear ing the autumn of 1963 : one on 15th July (A.J.G., A.D.P., M.F.S., t.W.), one on 1st August (P.A.W.), at least four on 23rd August out twenty observers), two on 24th August (C. Bowser, G. R. pkins, J. R. Hopkins, M. H. Terry), three on 23rd September J. Johns, B. A. E. Marr, M. Shrubb), twro on 24th September J.J., B.A.E.M., M.S., E. J. Williams) and one on 30th September 201 BRITISH BIRDS (D. L. Clugston, R.J.J., B.A.E.M., R. J. Wilmshurst). The only other Great Shearwaters were four on 15 th July and one on 23rd August, though a total of seventeen unidentified Great/Cory’s Shear- waters were also seen during the autumn. The descriptions of all these birds and those on 14th July have been examined by Dr. W. R. P. Bourne and Major R. F. Ruttledge. P. A. Wright, J. T. R. Sharrock and H. M. Dobinson Immobility saving Mallard from dogs. — -The following observation may be of interest in connection with the note by Dr. N. Tinbergen on ‘Bullfinch escaping from cat by “playing dead”’ ( Bri t. Birds, 55: 420-421), though it is possible that the bird concerned in this case was stunned rather than consciously ‘playing dead’. On 3rd January 1962 a flooded gravel-pit at Shard End, Birming- ham, was completely frozen over and a flock of about fifty Mallard Anas platyrbynchos was standing in the centre of the ice. While I was watching, two mongrel dogs ventured cautiously on to the ice and, finding it safe, proceeded to give chase. The ducks appeared to be weak from starvation (they cannot have found much food in the preceding week of freezing conditions) and, instead of taking to the air, they tried to escape by a zigzag mixture of weak flight and running. The ice was particularly smooth and both they and the dogs found co-ordinated leg movements difficult. After about two minutes one drake Mallard became separated from the flock and was buffeted and rolled over by the dogs, though not apparently bitten. This bird then lay quite motionless, stretched out on its left side with head tilted back and feet off the ice, whereupon the dogs quickly lost interest in it. Over a minute after they had departed, however, I was surprised to see it struggle to its feet, shake itself and flutter off to join the flock. H. T. Lees Tawny Owls feeding young on fish. — In April 1963 I found the nest of a pair of Tawny Owls Strix aluco in an old oak at Penderyn, Brecon- shire. It contained two eggs, one of which hatched on 30th April and the other on 1st May. On 9th/ioth May I spent the first of a number of nights in a hide which I had erected at the nest for photo- graphy; the female Tawny Owl brooded the young continuously and the cock paid four visits. On the 1 4th/ 1 5 th I found that there was now only one chick. On the 1 8th/ 1 9th the female was still brooding the single chick while the male brought food, but at 4 a.m. she left the nest for about 20 minutes and returned with a very large Brown Rat Rattus norvegicus, the head and body of which alone must have been ten or twelve inches long; this meal lasted ten minutes and in the morning all that remained was the head. 202 NOTES It was on 2jth/26th May that I first saw the male Tawny Owl come i.ick with a small fish and he brought a second before midnight; soon ter 4 a.m. the female returned with a Blackbird Turdus merula. On e 29th/3oth the male twice brought a fish to the nest and one of these as a small Trout Salmo trutta which I was able to photograph as the >ung bird held it in its bill; the female paid only one visit that night, ith what seemed to be a Field Vole Microtus agrestis. On ist/2nd me both adults brought fish, the male two and the female one: plate shows the male arriving at the nest with a Miller’s Thumb Cottus bio. The fact that I saw no less than seven fish brought to the nest shows at this pair of Tawny Owls, and particularly the male, were taking is prey quite regularly, although, apart from Brown Rats, Field oles and two Blackbirds, I also recorded shrews Sorex spp., Moles 1 1pa europaea , a House Sparrow Passer doniesticus and a Meadow Pipit nthus pratensis and so they were evidently quite catholic in their diet, ae fish were probably from a stream about half a mile awav. The andbook does refer to Tawny Owls taking fish, but this may well : the first time that it has been photographed. Keri Williams iwny Owl attacking Fox in winter. — At 3.30 p.m. on 7th January 64 I was watching a dog Fox Vulpes vulpes drinking at a pond near sby, Yorkshire, when, without any warning, a Tawny Owl Sirix . ico suddenly swooped down and attacked it. So far as I could see, owl did not actually hold on to the Fox, but rather hovered over and raked it about the head with its claws, all the time uttering a high- :ched, vibrant kree-ee. The immediate reaction of the Fox was to .g the earth and this it did for about ten seconds before running away toss the open field (instead of along the hedgerow as might have en expected). The owl followed, still screaming and diving at it. : no time did the Fox offer any resistance. Although I have heard of Tawny Owls attacking cats at night, dog Fox is rather larger and the happenings described above took ice in reasonably good light. The attack was entirely unprovoked d it seems highly unlikely that the owl would have had a nest in nuary. Andrew Paterson ouse Martins nesting on new buildings. — The editorial comment t the readiness with which House Martins Delichon urbica take over w buildings and bridges as breeding sites (Brit. Birds, 57: 82) prompts ; to record the following. The Cold Mill of the Spencer Steel Works Newport, Monmouthshire, was completed only in 1961. The terior wall of this building is 88 feet high and the flat roof has an erhang of five feet. In 1962 House Martins were observed to be 203 BRITISH BIRDS nesting under the overhang, on the ends of the supporting roof- girders, and in 1963 there were no less than sixteen nests, all on the north side of the building. It seems worth adding that the birds appeared to feed extensively among the warmer sections of the steel works, such as the cooling towers and sinter plant, where ascending currents of warm air were evidently attracting insects. P. N. Humphreys Blackbird and Song Thrush sharing a nest. — On 9th April 1962 I came across an egg of a Song Thrush Turdus philomelos lying on the lawn in a garden at Biddenham, Bedfordshire. In a bush near-by was a nest which, to my surprise, contained two Blackbird T. merula eggs and a single Song Thrush egg, to which I added the one from the lawn. On 10th April there were three eggs of each species and by the 1 2th the Blackbird had laid a fourth. From the 9th to the 15 th the eggs were sometimes being incubated by a female Blackbird and at other times by a Song Thrush, but from the 16th onwards only the Song Thrush was seen. By the 30th two of the Blackbird eggs and one Song Thrush egg had hatched. The other Song Thrush eggs hatched later, but the remaining Blackbird ones did not. Unfor- tunately, I was unable to visit the nest after 2nd May. It is interesting that a mixed nest should have been successful at least to the stage of small young and that the eggs took about twenty days to hatch instead of the normal 13 or 14. C. T. Oakley Unusual song and behaviour of Whitethroat. — On 23rd May 1962 my attention was attracted by the song of a warbler in an area of mature oak and beech near Harpsden, Oxfordshire. It was loud and con- tinuous and I could not identify it, but during the next few weeks I saw the bird on a number of occasions in the same place. In appearance it exactly resembled a female Whitethroat Sylvia communis. Its identifica- tion as a Whitethroat was supported by H. M. Dobinson, Robert Gillmor and J. T. R. and E. Sharrock, who all heard and saw it well, but everyone agreed that its song was quite abnormal. When first heard it was probably louder than the song of any other local warbler. I noted it as consisting of three short whistling notes, slightly descend- ing, followed by a short trill, the whole phrase lasting just over a second and delivered at intervals of five seconds for as long as ten minutes at a time. H. M. Dobinson described it as ‘a rapid descent of the scale with a brief flourish, the total time being about two seconds’ and he noted that, although it was repeated with almost no variation within any one ten-minute song period, there was often a slight differ- ence from one period to the next. Sometimes the trill was replaced by a short double whistle which might have been uttered by a Sedge 204 te 2 5 . Tawny Owl Strix aluco with fish, Breconshire, June 1963 (Keri Williams) (pages 199-200 and 202-203) Plate 26a Slid ducks Tadoniti tadorna Suffolk I unc u/13 ! R. K. Urn-ton) Pea t e 2 6 b Storm Petrel Hydrobafes pelayicus Shetland | une 1963 (D. A. P. Cooke) Plate » Buw« Bnteo I*. Dcnrtj june " ( I hirotd R- Plate 1 Kesti I Pico tin’" H Che| | unc ij ( / Infold 4 ' wr1. ^LJ I Jr A ir;#* v • fwS Plate 29. Treecreeper Cer/bia familiar is by nest, Yorkshire, May 1 96 2 (Murky Hi Plate 28. Ptarmigan Lagopus mutus in white plumage, Iceland, June 1963 (C. P. Rose) Plate 31A Coal Tit Pams a/cr Ayrshire January 1963 'Ham S. Paton) E ■ ntra 1 Da/e) Plate 3 m 3use Sparrow 'sser domesticns bathing Somerset August 1963 L hard Coleman) Pi. ate 3 2 a. Grey Wagtails Motacilla cinerea, Sussex, May 1962 (A. N. H. Peach) Plate 32B. Redpoll Carduelis flammea , Yorkshire, May 1963 ( Arthur Gilpin) REVIEWS Warbler Acrocephalus schoenobaenus. At other times the whole song . ecalled that of a Willow Warbler Phylloscopus trochilus. When . elivered in flight from tree to tree it was more varied but still loud nd still quite unlike the flight song of a normal Whitethroat. At the same time its behaviour was unusual. It seldom descended k elow a height of about twenty feet above ground and it would often : ng for ten minutes or more from a dead twig forty feet up on the [dge of the canopy of a large beech. Not once was it seen to hawk or flies, but it used to pick insects from the undersides of the leaves. : was seen to visit a nest in low cover near the trees, but no mate /as observed and no eggs were laid. On or about 20th July it moved some 200 yards north along the belt tf trees and, though it was still seen feeding from oak leaves fifty /jet above the ground, it then began to make more excursions into low lover. The song also developed during July and gradually became •.lore like that of a normal Whitethroat, but in mid- August it was still possible to pick out this individual from the many other Whitethroats mging in the area. Eric V. Rogers Reviews The Birds of the British Isles. Volume XII: Stercorariidae> Tlcidae, Rallidae, Tetraonidae and Phasianidae. By David A. annerman. Illustrated by George E. Lodge. Oliver & Boyd? dinburgh and London, 1963. 443 pages ; 31 colour plates. 63s. 11 the years 1938 to 1941 The Handbook of British Birds came out a ilume a year at a guinea a volume. It was at that time the most imprehensive and up-to-date account of the birds of any country in ite world and it had a profound impact on British ornithologists; it ay fairly be said, indeed, to have laid the foundations of modern •nithologv, and not in Britain alone. Since the war there has been spate of books about birds, but the only one in this country that can irly claim to rival The Handbook in scope is Dr. Bannerman’s great ork which now, at the end of ten years, is brought to completion. In mgratulating the author on reaching the end of his colossal task, and reviewing this twelfth volume, it seems fair to pose the question: .s this work had an impact on modern ornithological thinking in any ay comparable with that made by The Handbook in the late thirties ? The twelfth volume deals with the skuas (unavoidably left over from >lume XI), auks, rails and game-birds. It also contains three pendices, a comparative list compiled by Dr. W. F. H. Nicolaisen bird names in Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic, and an index to the hole work. Two of the appendices deal with the species that have 205 BRITISH BIRDS been added to the British List since the publication of The Handbook ; the third gives Dr. Bannerman’s comments on the Hastings Rarities. The account of each bird starts with a section on identification. The author has not attempted to reproduce The Handbook’s very detailed descriptions of plumage and structure, confining himself instead to often elegantly phrased word-pictures of appearances in the field. Adult birds are clearly described, but the treatment of juveniles and immatures is sometimes a little perfunctory. Towards the end of last year I received a somewhat smelly postal packet containing the corpse of a juvenile Moorhen that a lady had picked up in a Lincoln street and been unable to identify. Had she consulted Dr. Banner- man’s book in her attempts to discover what it was, she would have found no description of the juvenile plumage in the section on Moor- hen identification and she would have had to read through a further eight pages of general matter before she came across any mention of it. The would-be identifier of birds is, however, so well served today by specialist books of less avoirdupois that this is only a very minor criticism. There follow sections on local distribution and distribution abroad. Here Dr. Bannerman has put his encyclopaedic knowledge and world- wide contacts to excellent use and these sections are, without doubt, a major feature of his work and an outstandingly important contribution to ornithology. For migrants there is an additional section summaris- ing modern knowledge and making full use of the results of ringing. The real pith of the book, however, is contained in the final sections for each species under the title ‘Habits’. Dr. Bannerman’s own word for these is ‘essays’ and this properly describes them, for they are readable in a way that more succinct accounts of bird behaviour in other reference books are not. This leisurely approach has something of the nineteenth century spirit about it, but the essays are wholly of the twentieth century in their comprehensive use of, and quotation from, the literature. This extraction of the literature is not confined to work published since The Handbook and it is, indeed, one of the features of the book that the author has made full use of the writings of an earlier age. In his introduction to the first volume Dr. Bannerman stated his intention of telling ‘a plain tale about our island birds’. In this he has more than succeeded; the tale is not only plain but full, accurate and wide-searching, and written in a clear and concise prose that is a pleasure to read. It is no disrespect to the author to say that one of the most valuable features of the work is the use he has made of authoritative contribu- tions from the pens of specialists. These are so numerous that in a review of even only one volume it is impossible to name all the dis- tinguished ornithologists who have thus enhanced the value of the 206 REVIEWS oook. But in volume XII four essays from Professor V. C. Wynne- [ Edwards on the ‘dispersal and pelagic distribution’ of the four species )f British skuas can hardly be allowed to pass without a special word of :ommendation. What is, perhaps, surprising is to find the book so strongly marked ; oy the author’s own individuality. One might have expected a I Handbook refurbished and brought up to date, but it is by no means imply this. It is firmly based on The Handbook, but throughout the eader is conscious that here is Dr. Bannerman telling him his own plain tale’ in his own manner. At times this leads to some uneven- ness of treatment. Where something interests the author, this is : :;one into at length. The account of British breeding colonies of ’uffins occupies six pages, for example, as against eight lines in The Handbook. The world distribution of the Moorhen, by contrast, described in some detail in The Handbook, is dismissed by Bannerman i /ith the statement that ‘it is so universally distributed that to give etails would be both tedious and unnecessary’. This unevenness may tt times detract from its usefulness as a reference book, but greater niformity would almost certainly have denied us some of the more • ascinating excursions into byways which caught the author’s special incy. A much advertised feature of the work is the collection of paintings y the late George Lodge. These have been greatly praised and it is, lerefore, with considerable diffidence and in full knowledge of my wn lack of qualification as an art-critic that I dare to comment a dversely on some of them. Judging them purely as portrayals of irds I find that in all too many of them the painter, in striving after :ather-texture, has made the whole plumage appear much looser lan one sees in real life. I have also felt critical in certain cases about le way in which bills are set into heads and about the look of some of le eyes. The best (notably the raptors and game-birds, for which Ir. Lodge was especially known) are, of course, lovely pictures, but I innot help wondering just how valuable is a collection of paintings ke this in which, for the most part, only adults in breeding plumage :e shown. I hope that this review has made it plain that this work contains an nmense amount of information that is of the greatest value and I ow return, therefore, to my opening question: has it had an impact on lodern ornithological thinking in any way comparable with that made y The Handbook in the late thirties? I have conducted a private poll nong my ornithological friends and rather sadly am forced to conclude lat it has not. My sample was in no way scientificallv controlled but id, n fact, range from comparative beginners through to some of the >p amateurs. Of some forty people only three actually owned the 207 BRITISH BIRDS book; several had consulted it about particular problems; but to the majority it was just a name or something that they had glanced at in book-shops. Professionals, who have more ready access to it in libraries, tell me that they consult it frequently, especially to obtain references to the literature and for the sections on distribution. This is a pity and in no way reflects the merit of the book. The trouble is, of course, that most people with any serious interest in birds have managed to afford the five volumes of The Handbook, but they find thirty-six guineas for the twelve volumes of this additional work just too much. This review can do nothing to set that right, but I hope it may lead some who might otherwise not have done so to consult it in a library when any ornithological problem confronts them. They will be unlucky if they do so in vain. R. K. Cornwallis The Birds of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. By Edwin Cohen. Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh and London, 1963. 278 pages; 16 plates. 30s. The bulk of the book is devoted to a systematic list of the birds of the county. This contains some 325 accounts ranging from two or three lines to as many pages. The plan is to summarise what J. E. Kelsall and P. W. Munn said about each species in The Birds of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (1905), make a comparison of the present status with that summary, give a selection of interesting or significant records from the annual reports of the Hampshire Field Club up to 1961 and, where available, add extracts from Col. R. Meinertzhagen’s unpublished notes. In addition, about sixty pages are occupied with articles by various authors on the geology and botany of the county and on the birds of half a dozen separate areas. The last convey a much more vivid impression of these areas, and of the density and variety of the birds which inhabit them, than is possible in the main list. One of the outstanding items in the systematic list is the recording of the breeding of the Firecrest, perhaps for the first time in Great Britain. In 1962 six singing birds were located and, later, fledged young were watched being fed in three localities. In 1961 four singing males and at least one female had been seen in one area, but no proof of nesting obtained. It seems that twenty or more species may have decreased in Hamp- shire and the Isle of Wight, while about two-thirds this number have probably increased. The Bittern, which has nested once or twice in the past twenty years, ‘may soon be a regular breeder’. Brent Geese are said to have increased tenfold from 1952-53 to 1957-58, but no more recent information is included in spite of the fact that for some species details are given up to mid-1962. The Kestrel has declined 208 LETTERS ind in the New Forest in 1961, with only fourteen pairs, it was out- lumbered by both the Sparrowhawk and the Hobby, as well as by the 3uzzard, of which about 35 pairs nested that year. Among waders, :he regular wintering during the past ten years of a few Little Stints is lotable, but there have been no mid-winter records of the Stone Curlew. As in East Anglia, the latter species has shown itself able to jreed successfully on cultivated land. Curlews have spread con- iderably during the past thirty years and now nearly fifty pairs breed n the New Forest. Little Terns have suffered from coastal disturb- 1 nee, but a colony of Sandwich Terns has come into existence during ; he past ten years and more recently several pairs of Roseate Terns >ave bred. Passerines which have decreased include the Wheatear, he Yellow Wagtail and the Meadow Pipit. It would be interesting o know what changes have occurred in Alice Holt Forest since 1947 . yhen A. F. Mitchell counted 5 5 singing male Blackcaps, 90 Garden Warblers, 120 Whitethroats, 276 Willow Warblers and 139 Chiffchafts. In contrast to the complete reassessment of Sussex records recently . ndertaken by D. D. Harber and G. des Forges, the author tends to repeat nearly everything which has occurred in print on the birds of Tampshire and the Isle of Wight and, as a result, he has included a umber of doubtful records even though he often expresses lack of .lith in them; this does not seem a satisfactory method. On the ther hand, he has omitted a number of apparently good records. Totes of unusual incidents which might just as well have taken place utside the county as in it, and which are unlikely to be recorded nywhere else, are not generally found in a work of this sort, and the uthor’s policy of including them has resulted in some trivialities. The book is well produced, has a good sketch map and, containing iuch useful information not available elsewhere, will be required by vervone interested in Hampshire birds. P. A. D. Hollom Letters The North Atlantic population of the Great Skua irs, — In his review of ‘Birds in Ireland during 1960-62’ (Brit. Birds, 5 7 : -10) D. G. Andrew commented (p. 4) that ‘the North Atlantic popula- on of the Great Skua Catharacta skua has increased by at least a factor f ten during the present century’. Surely this statement, and his iference that the recent vast increase in sightings of this species off te coast of Ireland is a direct result of such a population growth, are oth in need of some qualification. The increase in sightings is probably due just as much to larger umbers of observers on the coast, to the greater proportion of time 209 BRITISH BIRDS now spent in sea-watching, and to such fortuitous factors as the right kind of observers being at the right place on days when there are large- scale movements of sea-birds. For example, at Spurn Bird Observa- tory, Yorkshire, we now recognise the kind of conditions in which we can confidently expect to see skuas passing. While the increase in sightings would be consistent with the tre- mendous increase in the numbers of Great Skuas breeding in the British Isles, it is by no means certain that there has been a general increase in the North Atlantic population. During three recent summers I have visited the two sandar (fluvio-glacial plains) in Ice- land where it was formerly estimated that about five-eighths of the world population of the Great Skua bred, and it is clear that these colonies are now much reduced. Dr. Finnur Gudmundsson said in 1954 {Natturufraedingurinn, 24: 132-136): ‘It is even likely, although this cannot be proved, that the Great Skua population of the coastal plains in S. Iceland has increased considerably since trawling started off S. and S.E. Iceland shortly before the turn of the century. This increase seems to have continued up to about 1930. From then on, according to the statements of farmers on both sides of Skeidararsandur, a marked decrease of the population of that area has become very conspicuous .’ Gudmundsson put the Breidamerkursandur population at 1,500 pairs. In 1952 A. J. Clissold and a party from Durham University found about 850 (successful) pairs. In 1961 and 1963 there were probably fewer than half this number. It appears from the figures given by L. S. V. and U. M. Venables ( Birds and Mammals of Shetland, 1955) that the increase in Shetland began in the late twenties and early thirties — about the time that there was a switch from a rising to a falling population in Iceland. The increase in the British Isles may not even balance the tremendous reduction in numbers breeding in Iceland. I am concerned, therefore, that D. G. Andrew’s statement about a ten-fold increase should not go unchal- lenged to be used at some future date as an argument in favour of removing protection from what is, in global terms, still a rare (and magnificent) bird. R. F. Dickens Sirs,- — I was not aware of the recent decrease in southern Iceland and it is most useful to have this recorded in the British literature. It is not clear how this decrease relates to (a) the increase that almost cer- tainly took place in Iceland earlier this century or (b) Dr. Gudmund- sson’s estimate of the Iceland breeding population in 1954 at around 6,000 pairs (as quoted by Dr. D. A. Bannerman in his The Birds of the British Isles, vol. XII, p. 5), but it may well be that I was over-optimistic in assessing the increase that has taken place in the North Atlantic population of the Great Skua since 1900. Of course I agree that the 210 LETTERS crease in the Irish records of this species is due primarily to more tensive observation. I would have thought that I had made this ear in the review. I am far less happy about the moral that Mr. Dickens would draw r>m this state of affairs. The Great Skua may be a magnificent bird, it it is also certainly a destructive one and on its breeding grounds is a positive nuisance to the human communities from whom we esume to expect a measure of tolerance. It seems to me both un- stable and unrealistic to continue to give it the benefit of strict otection in areas such as Shetland where its numbers are already i maturally high. D. G. Andrew Canada Geese in Ireland :-:s, — It is unfortunate that in his admirable account of ‘Birds in :land during 1960-62’ {Brit. Birds, 57: 1-10) D. G. Andrew has rpetuated an error which originated in the Irish Bird Report for i960, ecording the occurrence of two small-sized Canada Geese on the orth Slob, Co. Wexford, in the winter of 1960-61, the Report attribu- l to me the opinion that ‘they were of either the race B. c. parvipes or erni\ The taxonomy of Branta canadensis has provoked more controversy . in clarity and I do not wfish an Irish typographer to add to it. ere is no race taverni, even in Ireland. The bird I saw seemed best fit the description of B. c. taverneri Delacour. Hugh Boyd The field identification of Tawny and Richard’s Pipits s, — In his paper on ‘The identification of the larger pipits’ {Brit, ds, 56: 285-292) Kenneth Williamson quoted I. C. T. Nisbet and C. Smout to the effect that the normal note of the Tawny Pipit thus campestris on autumn migration is a ‘sparrow-like chirrup’ and t this is ‘not unlike’ the call of Richard’s Pipit A. novaeseelandiae ' ardi . In order to check these statements I have analysed the criptions of the calls given in all the records of these two species ich have been accepted by the Rarities Committee of British Birds the five-year period 1958-62. Taking Tawny Pipit records first, I find that, excluding a very few -s where the bird was silent or where no serious attempt was made describe the call or calls, descriptions are given of the calls of 41 ividuals, six of them in spring and 3 5 in autumn. Needless to say, ways in which the calls were noted down differ widely, but despite they all fall into three distinct types : () A drawn-out note variously written as %eep, tsweep, tsweet , etc. s call, which I will refer to as tsweep, is often described as ‘like that . Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava' . 21 1 BRITISH BIRDS (2) A monosyllabic cheuk, tcheu , chip, cbup, etc. This call, which I will refer to as cbup (the version which occurs most frequently), is sometimes described as being like that of a Tree Sparrow Passer montanus. (3) A disyllabic chirrup , chee-iverp, etc. This call, which I will refer to as chirrup, is sometimes described as ‘sparrow-like’ and often as more musical than the other notes. Of the six spring birds, one uttered t sweep only, one tsweep and chup, two tsweep and chirrup, and two chirrup only. Of the 3 5 autumn birds, eight called tsweep only, four tsweep and chup, one tsweep and chirrup, one all three, 14 chup only, five chup and chirrup, and two chirrup only; in other words, tsweep was heard in autumn from 14 birds, chup from 24 and chirrup from only 9. Thus the last, far from being typical of autumn migrants, appears to be the call least heard at that time of year. The most commonly used autumn call seems to be chup. The Richard’s Pipit calls relate to eight individuals only. I will list all of these: (i) ‘ tchreep . . . much louder and harsher than a Tawny Pipit’ ; (ii) ‘shreep or schriip . . . loud with a peculiar metallic ring — can only be compared with reep and cheep of House Sparrow P. domesticus' ; (iii) ‘a somewhat House Sparrow-like cheep but much louder, harsher and with considerable carrying power . . . began with a grating element and changed pitch slightly . . . certainly quite unlike the Tawny Pipit call’ ; (iv) ‘ruup’ ; (v) ‘ ruup-ruup ’ ; (vi) ‘a distinctive harsh explosive mono- syllabic treep of more grating quality than other European pipits ... a harsh rasping scree’; (vii) ‘a harsh keep’ ; and (viii) ‘shreep . . . long shreep, short chip or chirrip ’. It seems obvious that all these accounts refer to the same call, that normally given by this species. Though this call, like the chirrup of the Tawny Pipit, is sometimes described as ‘sparrow-like’ and though it may even be written down in the same letters as the Tawny Pipit’s note, it will be noted that it never strikes the observer as in any way ‘melodious’; on the contrary, it is thought of as ‘harsh’ and ‘rasping’ and often as ‘very loud’. Those of us who know both species in the field are aware that it is, in fact, quite a different note from that of the Tawny Pipit. A few words, in conclusion, on the separation of these larger pipits in the field by ‘jizz’. I ha-fre seen only two Richard’s Pipits (both very well and for quite a long time in each case), but these struck me as differing from the many Tawny Pipits I have encountered, not only by the striking erectness of their carriage but also by their bulky appearance. While the Tawny Pipit may justly be compared with a wagtail in stance and shape, Richard’s Pipit can well be likened to a Skylark Alauda arvetisis in bulk and size. Until someone who knows it in the field can show that Blyth’s Pipit A. godlewskii (which, after all, 212 LETTERS considered by some — for example, the leading Russian systematists — be merely a race of the Tawny Pipit) can also have such an extremely c ect, bulky appearance (apart from other differences), I shall remain I eptical about the possibility of serious confusion between these two rds in the field by experienced observers. D. D. Harber :s, — According to Kenneth Williamson’s paper on ‘The identification the larger pipits’ (Brit. Birds, 56: 285-292) the possibilities of separat- y Richard’s Pipits An thus novaeseelandiae richardi and immature . .wny Pipits A. campestris in the field are very limited. Since this is ntrary to our information, we should like to draw attention to rtain points. The call note of Richard’s Pipit given in The Handbook, r-r-riiiip , is a otation from H. Gatke’s Die Vogelwarte Helgoland (1891). It poears from the original German edition, as well as from the English nslation Heligoland as an Ornithological Observatory (1895), that Gatke t ew both species very well. The Tawny Pipit was a regular though her scarce visitor to Heligoland during May and August; Richard’s lit was a regular visitor, especially during September and October, .d in some years the numbers collected and observed amounted to feral scores. In his book Gatke gave much information on Richard’s ' fit, including the following account of its call-note : ’he call-note of this bird is described very differently in different works : chay -degli — zirp, or ziepp — being some of the sounds which it is said to resemble. ' recording to my own experience, extending over more than fifty years, during * /hich time thousands of these birds have come under my notice, this call-note c onsists of a loud, rapid and harshly ejaculated r-r-riiiip, sounding, in the case i f young birds, almost like r-r-reep ; this is confirmed by the local name of this ird, which is derived from its call-note. ... As the bird flies almost always at a ood height, and its extremely original call-note is audible at a great distance, it etrays its presence to the shooter while still far away. . . . ere is no explicit statement that the call of Richard’s Pipit differs m that of the Tawny Pipit, but we are unable to see why Gatke •uld have emphasised the peculiarity of this note unless it was racteristic of Richard’s Pipit alone. n fact our own experience confirms this. In Denmark and southern eden, where most of our observations have been made. Tawny its are local breeding birds and they may also be regularly met with migration at certain localities. Each one of us has observed res of Tawny Pipits and we agree that the only call-note we have rd (apart from the song and alarm-notes at the nest) is a moderately d cheup, which at times becomes a faintly disyllabic cheul-p and at er times a more musical chuip. The last faintly recalls a Yellow gtail Motacilla flava, but in all cases confusion is more likely with a 2I3 BRITISH BIRDS modest, liquid call from a House Sparrow Passer domesticus and we have even almost overlooked a Tawny Pipit on this account. This call is entirely different from the higher-pitched notes of Rock, Meadow, Tree and Red-throated Pipits A. spinoletta, pratensis, trivialis and cervinus. We have heard it from migrating Tawny Pipits in spring and autumn, from adults and immatures alike, from birds on breeding grounds in Scandinavia, Austria and France, and once from a wintering bird in Iraq. Our experience of Richard’s Pipit is unfortunately limited to a single individual observed by E.K. near Falsterbo on 18th and 19th October 1963; it appeared unusually large for a pipit, almost the size of a Corn Bunting Emberi^a calandra, and its flight call was an extremely loud r-r-reep. Very similar descriptions have been given in several published Scandinavian records of Richard’s Pipit (e.g. V ar Eagelvarld, 15: 128 and 206, and 19: 339; and Dansk Orn. Foreti. Tidsskr., 54: 41). We are well aware of the shortcomings of rendering bird voices by letters, especially since these are pronounced in different ways by people of different nationalities. Nevertheless, we feel bound to conclude that the call-notes of Richard’s and Tawny Pipits differ so much that they are of great use in the field identification of these species. We believe that some of the apparent controversy over call-notes can be traced back to the use of the word chirrup. Lastly, turning to the question of measurements, the fact that there is a considerable overlap in the figures for Richard’s and Tawny Pipits does not necessarily mean that the two species will appear the same 1 size in the field. This is perhaps best illustrated by considering another case: it can be seen from The Handbook that the measurements of the Yellowhammer E. citrinella and the Corn Bunting are not very different and likewise overlap, yet the latter looks much larger in the field. We believe, therefore, that Richard’s Pipit will appear con- spicuously large to observers familiar with the Tawny Pipit. Inciden- tals, their measurements are very similar to those of the two buntings. L. Halling Sorensen, E. Kramshoj \ andN. Hesselbjerg Christensen Sirs, — As mentioned in Kenneth Williamson’s paper on ‘The identifi- j cation of the larger pipits’ (J3r/V. Birds , 56: 285-292), I have had a certain amount of experience of Richard’s Pipit Antbus novaeseelandiae on hair Isle, having seen a total of twelve to fourteen individuals, some of which stayed for several days and one for at least a month. A few personal comments on the field-characters of this species may there- | fore be of help to those who are faced with the problem of distinguish- ing Richard’s from juvenile Tawny Pipits A. campestris , although I should emphasise that my experience of the latter species is less recent, 214 LETTERS ie only one I have met since 1951 having been an adult on 6th June 963. However, skins of both species were kept on Fair Isle and used : intervals for demonstration. I do not really have a great deal to add to Williamson’s remarks and > my own comments quoted in his paper, but the following is a 1 eneral summary of the features which I have found to be characteristic f Richard’s Pipits on Fair Isle (presumably all birds of the Siberian >rm A. n. richardi) : (1) The generally dark appearance with various tones of warm and irk brown in the upper-parts and wings and with a warm brown wash 1 the flanks (although there is some variation in colour). Young awny Pipits are greyer on the upper-parts and have grevish-sandy inks. (2) The stout, heavy-looking, almost thrush-shaped bill. The awny Pipit's is finer and more tapering, like that of other pipits. (3) The long and heavily-built legs and feet, which seem dispro- >rtionately large for the size of the bird. They are generally rather ile pinkish-brown in colour, though sometimes with an almost orange it; at very close range it is occasionally possible to see the long rk-like hind claw. The legs of the Tawny Pipit seem to me much ore in proportion to the size of the bird. I have seen both species company with Rock Pipits A. spinoletta and, while the Tawny peared much the same size, Richard’s was considerably taller. (4) The heavy, almost drop-shaped spots on the breast. My ipression of the juvenile Tawny Pipit’s breast-markings, derived ainly from skins, is that they are narrower, less conspicuous streaks. (5) The dark triangular spot on each side of the throat, which is ite conspicuous in life. I have not seen any reference to its existence the Tawny Pipit and it is certainly not prominent in skins. (6) The pure white outer tail-feathers contrasting strongly with the ■ rk brown inner feathers as the bird flies away. In the Tawny Pipit s contrast may be less marked (this was certainly true of the 1963 •d on Fair Isle), since the outers are creamv- or huffish-white. (7) There is a possible difference in habitat-preference, since chard’s Pipits on Fair Isle usually inhabit rough, tussocky, over- Dwn pasture or damp ground with sedges which give plenty of low ver. Tawny Pipits seem to prefer very open ground with a wide Id of vision. '8) The Fair Isle Richard’s Pipits have given only one basic call, th minor variations. On my first encounter with the species, on 5t September 1957, I noted: ‘Call loud, explosive, somewhat reminis- it of House Sparrow Passer domesticus but more wheezy; very harsh -reep (with the emphasis on the second syllable)’; and on seeing the d again next day: ‘The first syllable or half-syllable of the call is 215 BRITISH BIRDS rather quieter, and not heard at all at a distance (or given without prefix at times?)’. While observing a party of three birds on 8th October 1959, I noted the calls as ‘ reep , loud and strident’. On many subsequent occasions I have heard every gradation from the disyllabic che-reep through r-reep (with the r rolled in true Scots fashion) to the monosyllabic reep , all from birds at very close quarters. In my experience the call is frequently given, almost invariably as the bird is flushed and at intervals of seldom more than 15-20 seconds during flight. It is always loud and carries over a considerable distance. A bird trapped on 18th October 1961 called repeatedly in the catching- box of the Haa trap (it was self-caught and this was the first intimation of its presence), while two mist-netted in company on 20th October 1962 called often both before capture and after release. In these cases, of course, the possibility of Blyth’s Pipit A. godlewskit was eliminated by laboratory examination. The only call of the Tawny Pipit at Fair Isle in 1963 was noted as a quiet chu-up, with a slight emphasis on the first syllable. Presumably this is the ‘sparrow-like chirrup’ mentioned in the literature, though the resemblance did not strike me at the time. Peter Davis News and comment Edited by Raymond Cordero Important victory in toxics battle. — The acceptance by the Government of its Advisory Committee’s recommendation that the use of aldrin, dieldrin and hepta- chlor should, with some exceptions, be banned in agriculture, horticulture, home gardens and food storage will be welcomed by all those who care for wildlife. Although a complete ban on chlorinated hydrocarbons has not been achieved, the decision represents a signal triumph for those naturalists and other scientists who have so carefully been building up a mass of irrefutable evidence. The growing seriousness of the toxics danger is illustrated in the fourth report of the Joint Committee of the British Trust for Ornithology and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds on Toxic Chemicals. This is entitled The risks to bird life from chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides and covers the period from September 1962 to July 1963. No less than 304 of 333 birds and 42 of 46 samples of eggs so far analysed of those sent in during the period contained varying quantities of chlori- nated hydrocarbon pesticides. Garden and insectivorous birds, such as Black- birds and Song Thrushes, head the list of species involved, but there has been a wonying increase in the number of casualties amongst Great Crested Grebes, Herons and other birds which feed in flowing and standing water, and the report also includes a tragic table of birds of prey, in which owls of four species are only too well represented. Two new R.S.P.B. reserves. — The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has announced that two new reserves have been acquired and that negotiations for another, as yet unnamed, arc nearing completion. The two new additions are Leighton and Storrs Moss, near Camforth, Lancashire, and Ramsey Island, near 216 NEWS AND COMMENT t. David’s, Pembrokeshire. The first, which has been leased from Mrs. Reynolds f Leighton Hall, is known as the best reed-marsh in northern England; Bitterns reed and many wildfowl, including Whooper Swans, winter there. The warden to be John Wilson, a local ornithologist. Ramsey Island, acquired by arrange- ment with the owner, K. P. Allpress, is about two miles long by a mile wide, covers : )out 650 acres and has spectacular cliffs rising to 170 feet on the western side. : reeding birds include Razorbills, Guillemots, Kittiwakes, Herring Gulls, Choughs, 1 uzzards and Ravens, and, until their recent decline. Peregrines. Curlews, Short- 1 red Owls and Merlins have been known to nest. J. C. Dunn, the tenant of the land farm and a keen naturalist, has been appointed honorary warden. 1 ach Leven National Nature Reserve. — Loch Leven in Kinross, the most signifi- nt inland area for wildfowl in Britain, has been declared a National Nature Reserve the Nature Conservancy as a result of an agreement with the owner. The ature Conservancy now has thirty National Nature Reserves in Scodand, covering : total area of 173,900 acres anger game-bird close-seasons. — Because the recent severe winters have pitted stocks of Red Grouse, the close season in Northern Ireland has been .tended, with the result that shooting will now begin on 1st September instead of cs traditional 12th August. Shooting of Pheasants in Northern Ireland cannot iw start until 1st October, as it has been found that so many local young birds . : still very immature on the former date of 1st September. Meanwhile, the Gamekeepers Associadon of the United Kingdom has asked the ime Secretary to restrict the Partridge shooting season from 15 th September to s3t December, instead of from 1st September to xst February', in an attempt to ceck the rapid decline in stocks — a decline which, in the opinion of the Associadon, ght well bring about the extinction of the species in Britain. rds and woodlands. — A new Forestry Commission Leaflet on Birds and Woodlands 00. 47, price 2s. from H.M.S.O.) is a splendidly readable guide, as might be expec- 1 . from the pen of Dr. Bruce Campbell. He concisely defines a woodland bird, ■ -.cribcs the bird life of various types of woodland and ends by suggesting that r r ‘new’ forests should be given attractive bird populations by the introduedon of h species as the Goshawk ("which he claims has the strongest case) and the Con- ■ rntal woodpeckers. ‘It is hard to believe,’ he says, ‘that to bring Crested Tits m Holland to the y'oung forests of East Anglia would result in anything but a r.rming and perhaps useful addition to their bird life.’ What a pity, however, t the otherwise excellent photographic illustrations in the booklet should include : of two Buzzards in flight which give the appearance of having been super- posed on the background. ' e birds of Tees-side. — The name Tees-side conjures up a picture of a great ustrial complex of steel, engineering and chemical works. Yet it is also an i iting ornithological area, as The Birds of Tees-side by P. J. Stead reveals, for it ers not only an extensively built-up region, but also wooded valleys, tidal nnels, freshwater marshes and saltings, beaches and dunes, mud-flats, cliffs and ■Is. Industrialism has naturally resulted in the loss of many species over the '! 1 1 decades, and Bran Sands, for example, only ten years ago teeming with waders ducks, now lies deserted, effluents having killed the shellfish and animal life. :re have been a few compensations, such as the colonisation by House Martins ome new housing estates, but the increase in House Sparrows and Starlings and •■Stimatcd doubling of the gull population in the last fifty years is doubtful rccom- sc for the loss of the Pochard and Tufted Duck as nesting species, the reduction 217 . BRITISH BIRDS in the numbers of the Skylark (although this is still probably the most common breeding bird). Meadow Pipit, Yellowhammer, Greenfinch, Dunnock, Com Bunting, Snipe and Redshank, and the extinction of the Reed Warbler. Some Kestrels, on the other hand, have adapted to breeding on slag heaps and derelict buildings, while in 1959 six pairs of Kittiwakes reared young on the window ledges of an abandoned warehouse. The Birds of Tees-side is published by the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham and Newcastle upon Tyne, and is available from the Hancock Museum, Newcastle upon Tyne 2, price 10s. 6d. Recent reports By I. J. Ferguson-Lees (These are largely unchecked reports, not authenticated records) This summary covers March and thus follows on immediately after the one in our April issue {Brit. Birds, 57: 1 86-1 88). THE EARLY SU M MER- V I S ITO RS As already mentioned (57: 188), the first Wheatear Oenanthe oenanthe was seen on Hilbre Island (Cheshire) on 1st March. Apart from a ‘flock’ near Sheffield (York- shire) on the 7th, there were then no further reports until one at Egginton (Derby- shire) on the nth and one at Portland (Dorset) on the 13th. More widespread arrivals seem to have begun on the 1 5 th — surprisingly because this was a day of cold, sleet and snow in many areas. In spite of the unfavourable conditions, small numbers appeared then in a number of south coast counties and as far north as Lancashire. During the following five days there were reports from Devon round to Norfolk, and in Lincolnshire and Glamorgan soon afterwards. Even so, there were no real falls until the 27th and 28th (including, for example, about 40 at Hengistbury Head, Hampshire) and, with March going out on a wintry note, numbers were still well down by the end of the month. A similar picture emerges for the Chiffchaff Phylloscopus collybita. Apart from odd ones which had either wintered here or possibly crossed from northern France at the end of February, this species did not start to arrive in southern England until 15 th March. In the course of the following week there was a thin scatter in southern England and south Wales and as far north as Yorkshire, but, again, it was not until the 27th that many counties reported their first ones and concentrations of a dozen or more were seen. With the March Wheatears and Chiffchafls came a number of Black Redstarts Phoenicurus ochruros , odd Firecrests Regains ignicapillus and Stone- chats Saxicola torquata and, on the east coast, a small arrival of Continental Robins Erilhacus rubecula, but these species were also scarcer and later than is sometimes the case. On the other hand, the first Garganey Anas querquedula were certainly on the early side. The earliest were two males and three females at Fclmcrsham (Bedfordshire) on nth March and in the next eleven days a number of others were reported in eight or nine counties as far north as Derbyshire and Durham. The only other species to arrive in any numbers in the first three weeks of March was the Little Ringed Plover Charadrius dubitts which began to be reported in or near breeding areas from the 15th onwards. As usual, the last ten days of March saw the first stragglers of another dozen or so species. Ring Ouzels Tardus torquatus were reported in Hampshire from the 2 1 st and Essex and Kent from the 22nd. Odd Swallows Hirundo rustica were seen in Kent from the 20th, Hampshire from the 22nd and Devon from the 29th. 218 OBITUARY: RALPH CHISLETT (1883-1964) fter singles in Kent and Breconshire on the 21st and 22nd, there were quite a few 1 md Martins Riparia riparia from the 26th onwards, particularly in western England d Wales. A few Redstarts Phoenicurus phoenicurus began to arrive in south-east igland and East Anglia from the 24th, as they now seem to do every year, and .ere was a scattering of Willow Warblers Pbylloscopus trocbilus from the 25th, 1 Jefly in the southern half of England but including a small fall of six at Bardsey aernarvonshire) on the 29th. There seemed to be rather more reports of Blackcaps Sylvia atricapilla from about c z 2 1st, but, though one or two may have crossed from France at this time, the nerally inland distribution suggested that they were mostly ones which had : ntered here; a female ringed in Surrey on the 22nd was described as ‘in good imp condition’. Sandwich Terns Sterna sandvicensis were seen in ones and twos s several areas from Suffolk to Hampshire and round to Caernarvonshire during 25th to 28th and the first Common or Arctic Terns Sterna birundo or macrura ppeared as far north as Yorkshire in the last two days of the month. Other early ivals included a Turtle Dove Streptopelia turtur on South Walney (Lancashire) on : 26th, a Sedge Warbler Acrocepba/us seboenobaenus at Felmersham (Bedfordshire) the 27th, a Tree Pipit Antbus trivialis at Rowney Warren (Bedfordshire) on the : :h, and a Reed Warbler Acrocepbalus scirpaceus at Murston (Kent), a Yellow isgtail Mo/acilla flava at Wyboston (Bedfordshire) and a Whinchat Saxicola rubetra (.Gibraltar Point (Lincolnshire), all cn the 30th. MISCELLANY ten the Avocets Recurvirostra avosetta begin to return to this country in the second t f of March, odd ones are more and more frequently recorded on other parts of 1 cast coast, along the south coast and even inland, and this year such wanderers I luded four at Somcrton (Oxfordshire) on the 23rd. Oxfordshire had an earlier prise on the 15 th when a Spoonbill Platalea leucorodia was seen on the Glouccster- rce border near Taynton and, three weeks later, another inland report of this cies involved no less than five near Ilchester (Somerset) on 6th April. Parities were almost non-existent during March. The Killdeer Charadrius ferns at Egginton (Derbyshire) (57: 187) remained until the 20th. Single Cranes . \a lorn is grus were reported in Hertfordshire and Kent, the latter probably a relic last autumn’s invasion (57: 43-44). Ferruginous Ducks Aythya nyroca were 1 at Hoveringham (Nottinghamshire) on 3rd March and at Butterlev Reservoir Ogston (Derbyshire) during 3rd-8th. Three Snow Geese Anser caerulescens, orted as immatures, appeared at Gibraltar Point (Lincolnshire) on the 21st. 1 )nc winter visitor which was still attracting a lot of attention in March was the vick’s Swan Cygnus columbianus\ sizeable herds of up to 50 or so were reported arious parts of the country and, in particular, the first fifteen days of the month > duccd quite abnormal numbers in Cheshire, including a flock of a hundred flying over Prestbury on the 10th. Obituary Ralph Chislett, M.Sc., F.R.P.S. (1883-1964) E death of Ralph Chislett in Northallerton Hospital on 1 a February, 1964, at the age of 80, was a grievous blow to Yorkshire ithology, of which he had been a pillar for so many years, le was born at Rotherham on 2nd June 1883 and practised there as a rtered accountant until he retired in 1945. He joined the Yorkshire BRITISH BIRDS Naturalists’ Union at the beginning of the century, but it was in the field of bird photography that he first made his mark. As long ago as 1922 he received the medal of the Royal Photographic Society and a year later was awarded his Fellowship. For nearly fifty years he was one of the most valued and distinguished members of the Zoological Photo- graphic Club, being its efficient secretary from 1931 to 1946 and later its President. His photography took him all over Britain and to remote parts of the Continent in days when a journey to Lapland was a major undertaking. In 1932 he published his first book. Northward Ho for Birds, which described some of these trips and included many of his photographic masterpieces. But, although he retained to the end a lively and deeply appreciative interest in the affairs of the R.P.S. and the Z.P.C., his photographic activities really ceased before he left Rotherham. Even before retiring he concentrated to an increasing extent on the work of the Y.N.U. He was President in 1939, and Secretary and then Chairman of its Ornithological Section for a total of over twenty years; he also edited its annual Ornithological Report for a similar period up to 1959. In 1952 his wide knowledge bore fruit in his second book, Yorkshire Birds. He had been a member of the British Ornithologists’ Union since 1923 and he joined the British Trust for Ornithology when it was founded in 1937, acting as one of its Regional Representatives for Yorkshire right up to his death. In his later years, however, his greatest love was probably Spurn Bird Observatory, of which he was one of the founder members in 1946 and Chairman from then until the end of 1962. When Spurn peninsula was acquired by the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Trust in 1959 he became Chairman of the Management Committee and held this office to the end. Annually, accompanied by his wife, he used to stay at the Observatory for weeks on end — watching, trapping, ringing and analysing. In 1958, in collaboration with G. H. Ainsworth, he pro- duced his third book, the first part of Birds of the Spurn Peninsula. Thus R.C., as he was known to his contemporaries (while the less respectful younger generation referred to him as ‘Chis’), became the personification of Yorkshire ornithology and in 1963 Leeds University conferred on him an honorary degree in recognition of his work. Everything he did was hallmarked by care and accuracy. He was at once a devastating critic and an extraordinarily generous counsellor to whom nothing was too much trouble, whether friend or stranger was involved, if he thought its cause worthwhile. Those meeting him fot the first time were often shaken by his forthright manner, but under- neath was a warm heart and a strong sense of justice. He is already sadly missed and we extend our deepest sympathies to his widow Lilian, for so long his devoted companion. J-A' 220 i. 3 5 • Thc late Ralph Chislctt (1883-1964) (pages 219-220) {photo: John Armitagt ) New. . . Revolutionary ZEISS Binoculars Eric Hosking using his Zeiss binoculars for bird watching Specially designed for spectacle wearers Mr. Eric Hosking, F.R.P.S., M.B.O.U., the celebrated ornithologist, says: 7 am more than pleased and delighted with my 8 x 30 B Zeiss binoculars and have found them invaluable now that / have to wear spectacles all the time’. With these new Zeiss binoculars the user— even when wearing spectacles — has the advantage of a field of view many times larger than that normally obtained when using binoculars with spectacles. This has been achieved by the use of an entirely new eyepiece unit. Like all the latest Carl Zeiss binoculars, the new 8 x 30 B is also fitted with the unique Zeiss tele-objective system which gives improved performance with smaller size. For full details of the unique Zeiss range and the name of your nearest stockist, please write to the sole U.K. importers: egenhardt Degenhardt & Co. Ltd Carl Zeiss House 20/22 Mortimer Street London, W.l LANgham 6097 (9 lines) Notice to Contributors British Birds publishes material dealing with original observations on the birds of Britain and western Europe, or, where appropriate, on birds of this area as observed in other parts of their range. Except for records of rarities, papers and notes arc normally accepted only on condition that the material is not being offered to any other journal. Photographs (glossy prints showing good contrast) and sketches arc welcomed. Proofs of all contributions arc sent to authors before publication. After publication, 25 separates of papers are sent free to authors (two or more luthors of one paper receive 15 copies each); additional copies, for which a charge s made, can be provided if ordered when the proofs are returned. Papers should be typewritten with double spacing, and on one side of the sheet inly. Shorter contributions, if not typed, must be clearly written and well spaced. Notes should be worded as concisely as possible, and drawn up in the form in vhich they will be printed, with signature in block capitals and the writer’s address dearly written on the same sheet. If more than one note is submitted, each should je on a separate sheet, with signature and address repeated. Certain conventions of style and layout are essential to preserve the uniformity >f any publication. A.uthors of papers in particular, especially of those containing ystematic lists, reference lists, tables, etc., should consult the ones in this issue as a ;uide to general presentation. English names of species should have capital nitials for each word, except after a hyphen (e.g. Willow Warbler, Black-tailed Sodwit), but group terms should not (e.g. warblers, godwits). English names are hose used in Tht Handbook of British Birds , with the exception of the changes listed in British Birds in January 1953 (46: 2-3). The scientific name of each species should e underlined (but not put in brackets) immediately after the first mention of the English name. Subspecific names should not be used except where they are elevant to the discussion. It is sometimes more convenient to list scientific ames in an appendix. Dates should take the form ‘1st January 1964’ and no ther, except in tables where they may be abbreviated to ‘1st Jan.’, ‘Jan. 1st’, or ven ‘Jan. 1’, whichever most suits the layout of the table concerned. It is particu- irly requested that authors should pay attention to reference lists, which otherwise ruse much unnecessary work. These should take the following form : ucker, B. W. (1949): ‘Species and subspecies: a review for general ornitholo- gists’. Brit. Birds, 42: 1 29-1 34. 7itherby, H. F. (1894): Forest Birds: Their Haunts and Habits. London, p. 34. arious other conventions concerning references, including their use in the text, iould be noted by consulting examples in this issue. Tables should be numbered with arabic numerals, and the title typed above in c style used in this issue. They must either fit into the width of a page, or be signed to fit a whole page lengthways. All tables should be self-explanatory. Figures should be numbered with arabic numerals, and the captions typed on a parate sheet. All line-drawings should be in indian ink on good quality drawing ■Pet (not of an absorbent nature) or, where necessary, on graph paper, but this ust be light blue or very pale grey. It is always most important to consider how ch drawing will fit into the page. The neat insertion of lettering, numbers, tows, etc., is perhaps the most difficult part of indian ink drawing and, unless he * ^ad considerable experience of this kind of work, an author should seek the 1 of a skilled draughtsman. The pick of the world's great instruments on 14 days’ free trial SEND FOR NEW ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE CHARLES FRANK LTD. 67*75 Saltmarket Glasgow C.l. Phone. BELL 2106/7 Est. 1907 Britain’s greatest stocks of New, Used and Ex-Govt. Binoculars, Telescopes and Navigational Equipment. LEITZ TRINOVID 10x40 Revolutionary in design, this new featherweight binocular is unbeliev- ably compact. Its performance is positively brilliant and at £69 19s. 6d. it is well worth the money. JAPANESE BINOCULARS If they are good, they can be very, very good and we have selected certain models which we can recom- mend with the utmost confidence and which we market under our own name: 8 x 30 centre focus and coated £12 10s. 10x50 centre focus and coated, , . £18 10k* ' ••Vo F* ; 6x30 ARMY BINOCULARS An excellent general-purpose binocu- lar of good performance, which will stand up to a great deal of rough usage (cost approximately £20) £7 15s. Od. For wildfowling or when extremely high light transmission is required, we would suggest the Canadian Naval 7x50 binocular at £24 or the new Russian 7x50 at £16 16s. Od. Both glasses are exceptionally good and iti would be difficult to decide which is j the better buy. The West Zone i Zeiss 8x50 is possibly the ‘ideal’ I wildfowling glass and it is available at l £96 18s. Od. i New ROSS BINOCULARS 10 x 40 Ross Solaross. This is probably the best buy in the Ross Solaross range and we would be inclined to think that it repre- sents the best value obtainable today in a British glass of good quality. It is beauti- fully balanced and streamlined, weighs only 26 oz. and is fairly compact with a height of 6£ in. We are supplying with this bino- cular a first quality English-made hide case. Inclusive cost £19 19s. Od. Where high power is required, we would suggest the Ross 16x60 at £32 8s. 8d. with hide case. TELESCOPES We have a host of models from which I to choose and can recommend thei following: Ex-Admiralty 16x60 single-draw < micrometer focusing, £5 18s. 6d. i Pocket 3-draw telescope, magnifies- i tion 25x: an excellent auxiliary toj your binoculars £2 2s. Od.i Nickel Supra 15 to 60 x • a tremen-ti dous advance in portable telescope! design £36 12s. Od.f The Charles Frank PANCRATICl 30 x to 55 x £7 17s. 6d. t The Charles Frank 22x OG 50mm.| PRISMATIC with tripod, £22 lOs.Od.) Accredited agents for ROSS, BARR & STROUD, WRAY and ZEISS (both East and West Zones) From Russia, we have a MAKSUTOV I triple turret telescope of fantastiel power and performance. Wt. 32 lb- price £250. Oecails on request. Printed in England by Diemcr & Reynolds Ltd., Eastcotts Road, Bedford Published by H. F. & G. Withcrby Ltd., 61/62 Watting Street, E.C.4 — yO ^ S ' * ‘ ' ' British Birds Principal Contents Observations in Hampshire and Dorset during the 1963 cold spell J. S. Ash Studies of less familiar birds: 128 — Slender-billed Gull D. I. M. Wallace, F. Roux and others (with five plates) Notes Reviews 7 11 JN 1964 PURCHASED News and comment Recent reports THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE British Birds AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY JOURNAL Editors Stanley Cramp, I. J. Ferguson-Lees, P. A. D. Hollom, E. M. Nicholson Photographic Editor Eric Hosking Editorial Address 30 St. Leonard’s Avenue, Bedford ‘News and Comment' Rarities Committee Raymond Cordero D. D. Harber Rohan Lodge, Wadhurst Park 1 Gorringe Road Wadhurst, Sussex Eastbourne, Sussex Contents of Volume 57, Number 6, June 1964 Page Observations in Hampshire and Dorset during the 1963 cold spell. By Dr. J. S. Ash .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 221 Studies of less familiar birds: 128 — Slender-billed Gull. Photographs by F. Roux, K. Weber and H. Hafner (plates 34-38). Text by D. I. M. Wallace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 Notes: — Houbara Bustard in Suffolk (H. E. Axell) . . . . . . . . . . 247 Turnstones searching for food in roof gutters (Bernard King) .. .. 250 Surface-skimming by Long-tailed Skua (R. J. Sandison) . . . . . . 250 Field-characters of the immature Mediterranean Black-headed Gull (R. H. Charlwood and I. J. Ferguson-Lees) (plates 39-40) .. .. 250 Unusual albino gull photographed in Yorkshire (G. E. Holloway) (plate 41) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 252 Pairing of Reed Warblers from same brood (G. L. Webber) .. .. 253 Song Thrushes feeding on periwinkles (O. D. Hunt; and C. J. Stevens) 253 Reviews : — Animal Species and Evolution, by Ernst Mayr. Reviewed by Dr. W. H. Thorpe .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 254 Birds of the Atlantic Islands, vol. I, by David A. Bannerman. Reviewed by Dr. E. A R. Ennion .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 256 News and comment. Edited by Raymond Cordero .. .. .. .. 257 Recent reports. By I. J. Ferguson-Lees .. .. .. .. .. 259 Annual subscription £ 2 6s. (including postage and despatch) payable to II. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Watling Street, London, E.C.4 A Study of Bird Song EDWARD A. ARMSTRONG \ . . fulfils a need felt by general zoologists and ornithologists alike .... Perhaps the most original chapter in the book is the last, on bird song as art and play .... serves to quell the doubts that amateurs may have about a scientific approach to bird song, as well as providing facts and ideas to those already committed to studying animal vocalizations. On both counts A Study of Bird Song serves a valuable function, for which bird-watchers and biologists alike can be grateful." British birds Illustrated 45s net Birds & Woods W. B. YAPP *• • • an original and stimulating book in which the approaches of plant and animal ecologist are blended .... well worth the attention of all who take a serious interest in our native birds." Scottish birds '■ • . will help to rekindle interest in the ecological approach to bird- watching, which has recently tended to concentrate on the more glamorous study of migration." countryman Illustrated 35 s net Oxford University Press tours for naturalists FRANCE— THE CAMARGUE 12 days by air, rail and coach £58 Departure August 29th YUGOSLAVIA— METKOVIC 15 days by air £68 Departure September 5th RUMANIA— DANUBE DELTA 15 days by air £99 Departure September 12th Academy Travel Ltd 26 BLOOMSBURY WAY, W.C.I Telephone : HOLborn 2417 (3 lines) EOOICS ON ztm Catalogue on request WHELDON & WESLEY LTD Lytton Lodge Codicote, Hitchin, Herts BIRD WATCHING CALLS FOR THESE ATTRIBUTES IN BINOCULARS ★ LIGHTNESS OF WEIGHT ★ WIDE ANGLE OBSERVANCE ★ MAXIMUM LIGHT TRANSMISSION ★ CLARITY OF VISION The WRAY has them all Write for 16-page illustrated brochure on binoculars f BINOCULAR MANUFACTURERS FOR 50 YEARS WRAY (OPTICAL WORKS) LTDBKOMLEV KENT British Birds V ■» MM Observations in Hampshire and Dorset during the 1963 cold spell By J. S. Ash INTRODUCTION Very many hirds died during the cold spell of early 1965 and, sad and unfortunate though this was, a large supply of potentially interest- ing biological material was made available. An examination of such material provides information on minimum survival weights, differen- tial mortality and resistance to cold of the two sexes, the incidence of disease and parasites, and whether there are factors influencing survival under adverse conditions. This paper summarises observations made at that time in a relatively small part of central southern England on the borders of Hampshire and Dorset; it concerns the area between Fordingbridge and Cran- borne, extending to the coastal zone around Poole Harbour and Studland. A few notes from other localities are included. Much of it is based on the examination of a total of 332 dead birds of 46 species, many of which were aged, sexed by dissection, weighed and measured. They were also examined for disease and endoparasites and some were submitted for toxic chemical analysis, but these results will be published elsewhere (Ash and Sharpe in press). There have been few similar surveys: I have discussed relatively small samples in the cold spells of 1954 and 1956 (Ash 1957); Harris (1962) examined a large number of corpses on Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire, in January 1962; Jones Since Dr. Ash’s paper is primarily concerned with weights and racial determinations, we believe it merits separate publication from the main analysis of the 1963 cold spell which is being prepared by H. M. Dobinson and A. J. Richards, for the latter will deal chiefly with the general effects of that period over the country as a whole rather than with these specialised aspects (see Bri/. Birds, 56: 228-229; and 57: 42). This main analysis is now in draft and awaits only the completion of certain regional summaries which arc due to appear in county reports. We hope to publish it in an enlarged issue in the late autumn (probably October). — Eds. 221 BRITISH BIRDS (1962) confined himself to a study of one species, the Fieldfare, of which many died in Anglesey in January 1962. The sections which follow include a general summary of the effects of the cold spell in the area concerned (though for many species there is little or no information), racial determinations in a few particular Table 1. Maximum day and minimum night temperatures ( C) at Fordingbridge (Janu only) and Hurn, Hampshire, 21st December 1962 - 6th March 1963 The Fordingbridge site is sheltered from easterly winds ; Hurn is in a frost hollow, but it is nea the coast than Fordingbridge and this no doubt accounts for the higher day and lower nij temperatures. The mean figures for December and March at the foot of the table are limited the duration of the extreme cold; in other words, the December mean is taken from the 22nd ; the March mean to the 5 th. The total duration of the cold spell was 74 days and during t period the maximum and minimum means at Hurn were 1.1 C and —3.9 C December January February Marc HURN HURN FORDINGBRIDGE HURN HURJ Date Max Min Max Min Max Min Max Min Max ISt -0.3 -0.8 -0.5 -t-5 — 0.1 -2.8 2nd —0.2 — 2.1 -0.5 -0.5 — 0.8 -7-2 3rd 4th tr*\ N o d 1 — 1.2 — 2.1 -O.5 O — 1.0 -2.7 — 0.1 0.8 CO C i/'-n rt* 1 1 5th 0.5 -4.8 0.5 0 1.2 — 0.0 6th 2.3 -t-3 0.5 — 1.0 3.6 — 2.0 7th 0.2 — 2.6 -0.5 — 3-2 2.8 1.6 8th 1. 1 -5-2 0.5 -44 34 —2.7 9 th 10th p p 00 -4-3 -2.4 -0.5 — 1.0 -3-2 — 6.5 2.4 1.6 O.9 — 0.2 nth — 2.2 -6.8 -3.2 - — 10.4 1. 1 O 1 2th -4.6 — 10.4 — 6.0 - — 10.4 2.8 -0.9 I^tll -3.6 -12.5 -3.8 -8.3 5.0 — 1.8 14th 1.9 -7.6 1.8 -8.7 3-t 1.0 15 th 1.2 — 10.2 -0.5 -8.3 2-5 1.2 1 6th i-7 -4.2 1.2 -2.7 0.9 0.2 17th — 0.8 -6.3 — 1.0 — 6.0 2.0 -2.7 18th — 1.2 -7-2 -3.8 -44 3-4 — 5-7 19th — 2.1 -5.8 -4.4 -5-5 0.2 -t-5 20 th —0.4 -6.3 -i-5 — 6.0 t-7 — 2.1 2 1 St 8.7 4-5 — 1. 1 -54 — 1.0 -9-3 3-° — 2.6 22nd 2-7 ■ — 2.6 — 1.6 -10.7 -2.7 — II. O 3-9 -t-3 23rd 24th 0 0.2 -3-1 — 6.2 1. 1 -0.5 -13.4 “i t-3 — 2.2 — 10.4 -9.8 3.6 t-3 -5-3 — 4.6 25th 0.5 -5-4 -3-5 — II. 2 — 1.0 -8.7 4-5 — 7.8 26th 0.7 -8.6 4.4 -n. 7 2.8 -3.8 5.0 — 6.2 27th 1.4 0.1 3-7 -2.4 34 1.2 6.3 — 2.0 28th 0.2 — 0.2 3-t -4-3 2.8 1.8 6.4 — 0.8 29 th — 0.1 — 1.6 2.7 1.2 2-3 0.5 30 th 0.3 —2.1 2.0 -0.4 1.8 — 2.2 31st 2.0 0.3 1.0 -3.2 0.5 — 2.2 Mean 0.8 —2.9 0.2 —5.7 —0.6 —4.8 ♦Scientific names are given in appendix 2 on page 241. -2.8 5.0 7.6 8.9 7-i 7.8 ii*5 7-3 222 X963 COLD SPELL IN HAMPSHIRE AND DORSET cases, and a discussion of weight losses; the weights of the birds found dead are analysed in detail in table 4 on pages 234-236, which also gives normal weights wherever possible, while their wing- lengths are summarised in appendix 1 on page 240. Some birds, particularly waders, had been partly or wholly eviscerated by scaven- gers, so that sexing was then impossible; these corpses and any others which were incomplete were, of course, not weighed. Dates refer to when bodies were found and do not necessarily bear any relation to when birds died. It was fortunate for many species that there was a great abundance of certain natural foods in this winter of 1962-63. If the cold had occurred without the heavy snowfalls which made a lot of this food unavailable (particularly seeds, beechmast, acorns and fallen apples), survival would undoubtedly have been much greater. Even so, various thrush species certainly benefited from the profuse crops of wild berries, although these soon disappeared. There was little evidence of spectacular mass-movements, such as were observed in the cold weather of December 1961. In 1962-63 the migration was more protracted and probably most of it occurred in the anticyclonic weather ahead of the first heavy snowfalls; this would largely pass unnoticed high against the blue sky or at night. As the hard weather affected most of western Europe, except the southern tip of Iberia, it is doubtful whether many of the migrants fared much better than those which stayed behind. However, in this connection, K. D. Smith {in litt.) observed large arrivals of such birds as Lapwings, Golden Plovers and gulls in Morocco at the beginning of the cold spell; being on the south side of the depressions which brought the snow to Europe, north-west Africa received one of the wettest periods on record and thus provided ideal conditions for many species. In southern England the cold set in on 22nd December 1962 for a period of several days and nights of intense frost until the night of the 29th/ 30th when there was heavy snow and drifting in a south-east gale. Unusually cold conditions with occasional further snowfalls persisted until the thaw set in on 5 th/6th March 1963. Temperatures seldom rose above freezing for long, although there were several periods when the cold was rather less intense. Much of the snow persisted throughout the period. In all, the cold spell lasted for 74 days (table 1). NOTES ON SPECIES One Great Crested Grebe was found dead in the middle of a snow- covered field on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire; others died on the coast. Herons virtually disappeared, either through death or emigration, early in the period; several bodies were reported, but none was received for examination. 223 BRITISH BIRDS The surface-feeding ducks which remained inland were in remark- ably good condition, and this was commented on by several people who shot them. Those in Poole Harbour suffered more, and most of them left when the area froze over. Genuine wildfowlers responded extremely well to the appeal to refrain from shooting them, but ‘pot- hunters’ took a heavy toll of these and other wildfowl. A very thin Shoveler was found dead on 27th January. Diving ducks also did not appear to be greatly affected and unusual numbers occurred on local streams and rivers and in Poole Harbour. Exceptionally large num- bers of some species were reported, including, for example, 600 Goldeneye and 400 Scaup in Poole Harbour, and a flock of 100 Goosan- ders (as well as other smaller groups) on the River Avon at Fording- bridge where there had been only one record in the previous eleven years. Two dead Common Scoters in Poole Harbour on 27th January and 3rd February were both in poor condition and two thin dead Velvet Scoters were reported in the same locality by other observers. Scoters may have suffered because of the heavy mortality of shore crabs Carcinus. At least 2,500 Shelducks congregated in Poole Harbour and many died there; many of the dead were trapped in the ice and carried out to sea with the tide after the thaw. Flocks of grey geese, mostly White-fronts, were seen almost daily ; they resorted to unusual places to feed, such as a field of rape and a roadside cress-bed, and ‘pot-hunters’ stated that birds they shot were in poor condition. No unusual numbers of black geese occurred. Single Whooper Swans on a small inland pool and in Poole Harbour appeared to be ailing. Most shoot-owners distributed food for wild game-birds and un- doubtedly this greatly helped both them and other species. Even so, their ability to burrow down through snow to underlying food suggests that they are not particularly adversely affected by either cold or snow cover. It is significant that the only ones picked up were sick. Apparently healthy Partridges were paired by 1 3th February. Figures from the National Game Census (Middleton 1964) show that, on average, there was a 20% decrease in the breeding population of partridges in Britain in March 1963 compared with March 1962, but, except in the area of the Cotswolds, where many deaths were reported during the cold spell, this reduction is considered to have been due to the poor survival rate of young birds in the summer of 1962. Numbers of Coots increased greatly both inland and in Poole Harbour. Individuals trapped inland seemed to be in a good physical state, but severe conditions on the coast caused the death of some there; a few of the latter were surprisingly heavy. The large wintering flocks of Lapwings in the Avon valley water- meadows and on the chalk downlands moved on before the end of the 224 1963 COLD SPELL IN HAMPSHIRE AND DORSET year. A very few lived out the cold spell on cress-beds. Large cold-weather movements and local concentrations occurred at Port- land Bill, where many weak individuals were shot by irresponsible gunners; the only dead ones came from there. Small numbers were returning to thawed out places inland as early as 18th February. Ringed Plover numbers in Poole Harbour were very low, presumably as the result of an efflux, and large flocks of Golden Plovers moved out with Lapwings before the end of the year, this being noted particularly at Portland Bill. Both Snipe and Jack Snipe moved on in the early days of the cold spell. Local concentrations occurred in unfrozen areas, such as cress-beds, where many were shot. No dead ones were found. Woodcock, however, were probably affected as badly as any species. Many sportsmen reported very large bags and the National Game Census (unpublished) shows that, as in 1961-62, there were clearly exceptional numbers of winter visitors before the cold spell. Weak and starving Woodcock were reported from many unusual sites in towns and villages. Large numbers congregated in coastal areas such as Poole Harbour and Portland Bill where probably few survived. Most coastal flocks of Curlews moved on, but many weak Black- tailed Godwits were seen in Poole Harbour in January and, when only four or five of the wintering flocks of 400+ remained there after the ice broke up in early February, it was assumed that the majority had died. The remains of several others besides those examined were found. Only one or two Black-tailed Godwits were reported in March, when they are normally very evident. An estimated 90-95% of the hundreds of Redshanks wintering in I Poole Harbour had gone by early February and it could be assumed that all were dead. The remains of many were found besides those examined. A few survived inland, where they occur in winter on cress-beds and similar places during hard weather only. The sample of corpses examined included 64 immatures and 24 adults, a ratio of 2.7:1. Many of these could be sexed and among the immatures were 26 males and 18 females, while the adults included 9 males and 7 females, ratios of 1.4:1 and 1.3:1 respectively. Most of the Spotted Redshanks wintering in Poole Harbour moved on early in the cold spell, but a few remained and survived. Knots there increased to 100+, but only three deaths were reported. Three Avocets were present in the same area before the cold spell and one stayed throughout, at least until the thaw. Gulls generally fared well, though there was a vast reduction in the numbers coming inland to feed. A large concentration of up to 20,000 fed on the enormous quantity of dead sub-littoral organisms (such as Carcinus, Crepidula, E/isis, Nereis and Cardium) in Poole Harbour 225 BRITISH BIRDS and Studland Bay ; on 4th February freshly dead Ensis were lying a foot deep in places on the shore and it was estimated that there were literally millions of them. However, Common Gulls were reported to be very weak at a Poole tip, where they were being knocked down by refuse lorries. Tens of thousands of hungry Woodpigeons were shot or died of starvation; for example, about 3,000 were shot in a 20-acre crop of kale near Fordingbridge. On Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, 70 were found dying in if hours’ searching on nth January and literally thousands were dead or dying by the 17th (reminiscent of toxic seed- dressing mortality at its worst). Large numbers were also killed by cars when they sought exposed road surfaces in an apparent quest for grit; for instance, 47 were found freshly dead in a quarter-mile stretch of the A.338 near Fordingbridge on 25th January. Many died at night whilst at roost; at Cranborne about 30 were found frozen to the branches of one oak tree, as if they were still sleeping. After the initial mortality, which may have amounted to about 90% of the popu- lation in this area, the survivors appeared to thrive; periods of slow thaw apparently exposed sufficient acorns and other food for these birds in conditions of reduced competition. Stock Doves were probably not affected to the same extent. Some were shot with the large numbers of Woodpigeons, but apparently in a smaller proportion to their relative numbers (see Ash, Ridley and Ridley 1956). Over 50 survived in one area by utilising Pheasant feed-rides. A pair w’ere in display-flight at Fordingbridge on 18th February. Barn Owls appeared to be greatly reduced but only one was found dead. Green Woodpeckers also seemed to be much scarcer after the thaw. The large wintering flocks of Skylarks on the chalk downs moved on early in the cold spell. Big concentrations occurred at some coastal localities (for example, 2,000+ at Portland Bill), but only a very few survived inland. Rooks were little affected and Long-tailed Tits were reduced to a small extent only. However, Wrens virtually disappeared inland early in the cold spell and none was seen alive after mid- January, though survival was much better closer to the sea; there was a strong suggestion that some died directly as a result of low tempera- tures, and not necessarily through shortage of food. Mistle Thrushes suffered badly and early on in the cold spell. They died even when there was a plentiful supplv of fallen apples, which they ate readily (though some local birds, identified by rings, were too weak to feed). Low temperature in itself appeared to be the vital factor. Inland only three live birds were seen after the end of January, but one of these was singing on 17th February. It was noticeable that Song Thrushes were much more adversely affected early in the cold 226 1963 COLD SPELL IN HAMPSHIRE AND DORSET spell than Blackbirds, but they apparently moved out on a large scale and most of the bodies came from the coast. Those that remained inland survived better than Mistle Thrushes and one was heard singing well on 13th February and subsequently. Although a very large number of Blackbirds died, the heaviest mortality appeared to be amongst adult males in open country (perhaps territory-holding residents). Most survivors were close to human habitations, and it was again apparent that Blackbirds were able to fend for themselves better than Song Thrushes (cf Ash 1957). At one time, in a small orchard at Fordingbridge, up to 200 were feeding on apples dug out from overlying snow; even so, some of these died. Fieldfares fed on wild berries and fallen apples, but all moved on before the end of December; no bodies were found. The Redwing picture was similar, except that a very few remained inland and a few bodies were found; none was seen alive inland after about 10th January, until one feeding on fallen holly berries on 19th February. Not one of the wintering Stonechats on heathland, on downland (few only) and in coastal areas could be located after early January; no bodies were found. Dartford Warbler numbers on local heaths had been considerably reduced in the much less severe weather of January 1962 (cf. Tubbs 1963). Soon after the first heavy fall of snow in the present cold spell it became evident that most of the remainder had gone. During March only four or five could be found in the whole of Hampshire and Dorset, and all these were near the coast. In each winter it seemed that a heavy fall of snow at night was responsible for their disappearance, this presumably smothering them as they roosted. At first Goldcrests appeared to survive well inland, but after a day of freezing rain in mid-January when every twig was coated with ice, none was seen alive in woodland areas. As with Robins, however, some of the country population appeared to move in close to human habitations, and these garden birds were frequently heard singing from 2nd February. The small population of Meadow Pipits wintering inland on farm- land, on cress-beds and in wet valleys dwindled during the cold spell and, although no corpses were found, only one live one could be located on 16th February. Although obviously pressed for food, the few Pied Wagtails seen during the hard weather appeared to be thriving close to human habitations and farm buildings; their aggressive habits at the bird-table ensure that they obtain more than their fair share. Of five Great Grey Shrikes known to be wintering in the area before the cold spell, three inland could not be found after the snow had cleared but two near the coast were present throughout the period. Although locally there were large concentrations of Greenfinches round stacks, and a few in gardens and poultry farms, it seemed that 227 BRITISH BIRDS many had moved on; only two were found dead. Goldfinches are always few in number in this area during winter and these left at the beginning of the hard weather; only odd ones were seen in the first three weeks of January and then none. The wintering population of Linnets was probably lower than normal in any case — there were not the usual large flocks in the kale fields — and most moved on early in the cold spell. The very few remaining seemed to weaken rapidly and none was seen alive inland after the middle of January; no corpses were found. Before the hard weather began, up to about 40 Crossbills were wintering in the area of my garden near Fordingbridge and some were still singing regularly when the first snow fell, but they then dis- appeared (though odd ones were seen until the end of the first week in January). However, observers elsewhere reported the species throughout the cold spell. There had been large numbers of Chaffinches feeding on the abun- dant beechmast, but many of these apparently moved on. Those remaining settled in areas such as gardens, stacks and Pheasant feed- rides, where there was an available food supply, and appeared to thrive successfully; they returned to the beechmast as soon as it was un- covered. Although song normally begins in early January, it was surprising to hear Chaffinches singing from 4th February when many birds of other species were still dying. Bramblings wintering with Chaffinches and feeding on beechmast mostly moved on, but small numbers remained throughout the cold spell in the same way as Chaffinches; others returned to inland areas on 17th and 18th Feb- ruary. Reed Buntings feeding round the shores of Poole Harbour early in the cold spell had dwindled considerably by the time the big freeze-up was over. The following species were apparently unaffected by the cold (those in italics have additional comments in the succeeding paragraph): Red-throated Diver, Little Grebe, Cormorant, Shag, Teal, Mute Swan, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel, Hen Harrier, Pheasant, Water Rail, Moorhen, Oystercatcher, Grey Plover, Turnstone, Bar-tailed Godwit, Green Sandpiper, Dunlin, Sanderling, Tawny Owl, Short-eared Owl, Kingfisher, Carrion Crow, Jackdaw, Magpie, Jay, Great Tit , Blue Tit, Coal Tit, Marsh Tit, Willow Tit, Nuthatch, Treecreeper , Robin, Rock Pipit, Starling, Bull- finch, Yellowhammer, Cirl Bunting, Corn Bunting, House Sparrow and Tree Sparrow. Red-throated Divers were present in exceptionallv large numbers on some parts of the coast. Even where there was no artificial feeding, Pheasants fared well on the abundant supply of natural foods beneath the snow. Water Rails and Moorhens thrived along the banks of swifter-flowing rivers and on cress-beds. In Poole Flarbour Oyster- catchers wintered in several hundreds, Grey Plovers remained in 228 1963 COLD SPELL IN HAMPSHIRE AND DORSET normal numbers, Turnstones increased and fed on dead sub-littoral organisms, about 200 Bar-tailed Godwits survived successfully, and there was an increase of thousands of Dunlins and many Sanderlings. At least five Green Sandpipers overwintered successfully inland. Tawny Owls were frequently heard calling at night during the very worst weather. Jays apparently had an ample supply of accessible acorns. In mid-February Marsh Tits and Treecreepers were the birds most often seen in deciduous woodlands ; many Great Tits were singing from 6th February onwards and Marsh Tits from 1 8th February. Near the end of the cold spell I examined twenty nest-boxes in my garden near Fordingbridge: most had been used as roosting sites and there were no corpses in them. The majority of the countryside Robins appeared to move in close to human habitations where they seemed to thrive, but even those left in exposed sites also apparently survived; song was first resumed on 9th February. Starlings were singing throughout and even bathing frequently during the very coldest weather; the very large wintering population moved on, but the numbers frequenting built-up areas apparently increased and were mostly dependent on man for food. Many Yellowhammers (including a flock of 60 on 1 2th February) and Cirl Buntings fed round stacks and particularly on seeds put out for stock. Corn Buntings frequently occurred in areas where they are not normally seen. The wintering population of Tree Sparrows was very small in 1962-63. ICELANDIC BLACK-TAILED GODWITS AND REDSHANKS There was sufficient useful material among the dead Black-tailed Godwits and Redshanks collected in Poole Harbour and adjoining Shell Bay, Dorset, to make a special study of the races involved. The Icelandic forms of both species were recognised and are discussed below. On the other hand, the five Redwings examined during the cold spell were all of the nominate Continental race T. /. iliacus. Black-tailed Godivit Salomonsen (1935) showed that the Icelandic form of the Black-tailed Godwit islandica is separable from the nominate Continental form limosa by its shorter bill (sex for sex) and he gave the following figures : islandica , ££ 76-85 and $$ 85-100; limosa , <$<3 83-99 anc^ 9? 101-121. Witherbv et al. (1938-41) quoted the same figures for islandica, but extended the range for limosa : <£$ 82-107 and 9$ 104-126. Information on the wing length of islandica is sparse. William- son (1958) stated, ‘The wing-length range appears to be much the same in the two races, except that 29 islandica are perhaps a trifle bigger than Continental.’ The wing lengths of $$ islandica were given by Hachisuka (1927) as 217-230 and by Salomon- 229 BRITISH BIRDS sen as 210-228, but Witherby et al. put a considerably higher upper limit on $9 limosa with 215-240 (although it should be added that they did not apparently recognise islandica as a valid race). This suggests that $$ limosa may have longer wings than $$ islandica. There is even less information on male wing-lengths, beyond Williamson’s statement quoted above. Table 2. Measurements of Black-tailed Godwits Limosa limosa from Poole Harbour and Shell Bay, Dorset, January and February 1963, showing which could be assigned to the Icelandic race islandica on bill length Measurements are in mm. and weights in gm. Salomonsen (1935) gave the bill length of this race as 76-85 for males and 85-100 for females (as against 83-99 and 1 01-12 1 for the corresponding sexes of nominate limosa') Sex Bill Wing Weight Locality Date Definite islandica $ IOO 221 ? Poole Harbour 27.1.63 d 77 209 ? Poole Harbour 27.1.63 d 79 206 ? Poole Harbour 27.1.63 d 79 204 ? Poole Harbour 27.1.63 d 78 202 D3-9 Poole Harbour 27.1.63 ? 97 217 224.2 Poole Harbour 27.1.63 d 80 213 201.5 Poole Harbour 27.1.63 ? 96 222 233.2 Poole Harbour 27.1.63 $ 94 216 23 I. O Poole Harbour 27.1.63 $ 97 213 ? Shell Bay 28.1.63 ? IOO ? ? Shell Bay 28.1.63 ? 93 223 p Poole Harbour 3.2.63 Probable islandica d 89 198 ? Poole Harbour 27.1.63 d 84 202 150.4 Poole Harbour 27.1.63 Indeterminate d 82 209 ? Shell Bay 28.1.63 d 82 205 180.0 Poole Harbour 3.2.63 Damaged by scavengers d ? 208 ? Poole Harbour 27.1.63 ? 96 225 ? Shell Bay 28.1.63 d ? 201 ? Poole Harbour 27.1.63 During the 1963 cold spell 19 Black-tailed Godwits were found dead in Poole Harbour and Shell Bay between 27th January and 3rd February, and a summary of their measurements is given in table 2. These figures show that the 19 birds included twelve definite and two probable islandica', two more were indeterminate, while the last three could not be adequately examined because they had been partly eaten by scavengers and were either eviscerated or decapitated. 230 1963 COLD SPELL IN HAMPSHIRE AND DORSET During the last few decades Black-tailed Godwits have wintered in large numbers in Ireland and parts of England. Morley and Price (1956) did not know from where these populations were drawn, but the findings of Williamson and Ruttledge (1957) showed that some of those in Ireland, and probably the great majority there, have been islandica. More recently, Vernon (1963) examined a number of speci- mens in various museums and demonstrated that 34 of these could be assigned to islandica ; of these 34, 29 were from various parts of Britain and Ireland and, though most were passage birds obtained in April, May, August, September or October (among them one from Dorset), they included winter records from Carmarthen and Hampshire. The data in table 2 now confirm that the wintering range of islandica extends to Dorset and further research will no doubt show that other wintering areas in England are also occupied by this race. The measurements of the bills and wings of the nine males in the first three sections of table 2 have been plotted graphically in fig. 1 . From this and the table it will be seen that the wings of islandica can be as short as 202 and probably as little as 198 (this latter measurement was doubly checked). None of the $$ wings in table 2 falls outside the known range of 210-230. WING 225-1 220 - 215 - 210 - 205 - RANGE OF ISLANDICA RANGE OF LIMOSA RANGE of OVERLAP (S/ 1963 OORSET 9 RECORDS 200 — 1 95 70 1 T 75 80 1 r 85 90 T 95 1 1 1 100 I0S HO BILL Fig. 1. Bill and wing lengths of nine male Black-tailed Godwits Limosa limosa from Poole Harbour and Shell Bay, Dorset, January and February 1963, plotted against the normal ranges of the Icelandic race islandica and the Continental race limosa. Measurements arc in mm. and the normal ranges are based on Salomonsen (1935) and Withcrby et al. (1938-41) 231 £ .a C3 ~ Si K w> : of c l Of v V, O C ^ H M CO ~ p C\ S vo O M ^ co VO r- VO CO Tf D ^ y m Z PO § r t N ffl v-s CQ hi | G hi vo b M O M VO VO Tf vo B] VO 0 M 2 ° N ef% N r- ^ VO oi h» c\ • ►— • rrs Vs oo 1 ^ ON M r-~ N | M POi l/“S «*N | hi Nf 24$.° I N N M I M n- i i N | M I - I I I I I I M -p O ,-v N *} so rr\ (/) Tj ^ V V II S 2£d 1963 COLD SPELL IN HAMPSHIRE AND DORSET Redshank Three races of Redshank occur in Britain. These are the British britannicus, the Icelandic robusta and the nominate Continental totanus. Ogilvie (1963) was able to list only two winter recoveries (both February) of Continental-ringed Redshanks in England and he con- cluded that very few Continental Redshanks visit Britain. There is thus no evidence that nominate totanus winters here on any large scale and Salomonsen (1954) found from ringing recoveries that this race moves to the Mediterranean region and north Africa. Some britan- nicus stay here throughout the year (Witherby et al. 1938-41), though much of the British-bred stock emigrates south as far as Portugal (Ogilvie 1963); and the wintering range of robusta includes Britain (Williamson 1958). It thus seems safe to conclude that Redshanks found dead in the 1963 cold spell were probably either britannicus or robusta and that there was little likelihood of any totanus occurring in the series. A total of 96 Redshanks were found dead in Poole Harbour and Shell Bay between 27th January and 3rd February. Of these, 93 were measured and 63 could be sexed on dissection. According to Witherby et al. (1938) Redshanks with wings longer than 166 ‘may certainly be accepted as Iceland’. On wing length, therefore, 1 5 of the 93 (16.1%) were referred to robusta and another 15 to britannicus ; the remaining 63 (67.8%) were in the area of overlap and subspecies could not be deter- mined. The wing lengths of the whole series are summarised in table 3. The Icelandic race has not previously been recognised in Dorset and only rarely elsewhere in southern England. Of the 1 5 birds referred to this race, one was an adult male, one was an adult female, one was a full-grown female and twelve were first-winter birds which included two males and five females. The adult female and one of the first- winter birds were preserved. WEIGHT LOSSES Weight losses are analysed species by species in table 4. The ranges and the means of the present cold spell weights are given there in comparison with ‘normal’ weights ; and the percentage decreases of the mean cold spell weights below the minimum, maximum and mean normal weights are also shown. It has been difficult to obtain an adequate range of normal weights for some species, and many of those quoted are from birds weighed at observatories; as these will mainly have been migrants, such weights are certain to be on the low side. Harris (1962) indicated that loss of weight seems to be more serious in small birds, and the present study shows that ‘end-weights’ of large species tend to be proportionately lower than those of small ones. However, end-weights for any species are very variable and the minima obtained are presumably the thresholds beyond which recovery is 233 jq u c-^u.S % o bD m 3 ^ 2 O •S' >, > "o S 3 ^ -■ u u i3 xi e4 i ^ 5 -2 Jt ^ « - c c u - o £ e o o _ S.SPQ’Sj i 8 .s 8 0 £ 4_r 0 of m £ 2 -rf 'o Sm^ ^ r-; 03 h U T) ^ 43 a o p* d co lj * S .3 g cr 4) jj ffl y u J2 s 43 C/5 d d ^ S u g 73 03 a? 1-1 d ^ •S TJ C/5 d d 5/5 duo ^ a> 3 g s o -G -4 CO 3 P ■— ' i_j dO - c.-S CCS C/5 J\ 6o7 OO o G 03 «/-\ ^ _ S jq & < "* ■5 c^ dJD ' G 43 0 CCS ‘-3 > ^ G ^ f-H -G '5 3 d *o'£ £r 3^0 „73 n ■o :r cd tj o & as w rh dO 7-; e3 ^ - ^ U ~ TJ „ fi &; *0 v 3 •a ^ 7 7 § t2 Mu « S _ ” 7. d -Q =3 7 J3 .§^rSn.^ | X~£.u O S« “i ri ” T3 (J O -« E i -2 -d "2 ^ d TJ d ccS -O • - d do « d s ^ d 2 3 G q/5 s s d^ 1 1. lw C/5 QJ #d *d a C/5 CO ccs a Cm O E _c •a M 4> T3 ■a d 3 £ in T3 -v, d h-J .. « C C u 73 rt d § 73 2 J? u O Q *i M n n (1| d O O j- ^ 1u S.S 3 5 e * 2 s § O I. 43 ^ m ££ 03 0) >, d o V. co “*21 u M -i^'oc/5 M ,S2 « 13 ,0 O d »'.S q > d O "o u s 2 .2 r 1 ' Q -d U " § ^ 3 u .SP-T3 o q • ^ T d” S tn Q> d d -3 m ^ c/ Cl. . jj m JS T3 a « 03 •M CO C O d dO C3 d o J TD o Z <2 W s tc O H K O w 4 4 W c- co O 4 O U d CCS < s o3 O Z x CCS z s C ^ W S H S3 O w * 4 <2 s 03 O Z o Z o dO d ccS Ph o Z V dO d CCS X CO do o n - + + 4 4 f- 00 r- «v mv «v f/v rf H *^N Cv 6 rt- o 'Cf o r-f rt+ *r\ cn r^- cv *4- 6 ►« fArv. fTi rf\ N Cv 00 00 «v H N 6 OO h- VO N ’t cf ’t rj- vO N VO O' Is- wv rrv VO vO mn h N rt< | m r- ^ + + OO MNOO Tf H 1. N t J_ I I I -< h- h- CV N rrv N VO 4 N VO Al ^ N N >-< N N c<-N + VO »^v ►-* T vO a. a, rv. rt. rv. n. rt. rv. rv. q r^- 00 rv. I I N o OO N Cv»^ O OOO cA OO* N “ ^ nv. «-> n. n. so Jr2.rt.ru C\ oo ^ M T r- o o O 00 o rrvvo O Tf ^2 «'-'r">*/-\CvH< CO VO* -4-1 •“•OO C\ "^vo VO 11 N 00 cv -cj-vo vo r-» N mv co w «rv 00 Cs Tt* Tf v-. 6 4 Tf Cv N N v-\ OO CV 00 00 ft-H-H-W V-i M Cv 0 vo v-v \S~\ N OO q VO* Cv crv Cv OO Cv rrv M o’ N-V 00’ VO’ rf VO I/-N f rC\ fTN Tf r trwO rx‘ rt. N* 6 6 Cn ^ N a- ri r IX 4 *rv vr\ N N N N N ptn r o o O 6 6 irv r- r- r^- «^N r- r"~ O r- V*s «N CN OO 00 o o r- r- ro. CN O rj ccn WV «r\ O CN » 1 1 1 O KPV r\ Ko CN KA >.»> k.« WAS WA Of *o^’ *o '"O *0 Of ^ Of *0 Of ^ Of ^ _ 4-1 .... 4-» VK W « ~ V» W k/ - VM M bb &b S bp S bp .o m bp bp bp bp .c ei op'c -rf nd M ti „o bp bp bi) ti> uj Uh" U-I t"* U-H H t“" U-I >-*-< 1*4 U-4 t~* *-*-4 U-4 N C8 rt U-4 Uh r *-*H U-4 c*j be U o r* Vx P > "0 o 0 c cs X (A m Dunlin Herring Gull Common Gull Black-headed Gull Woodpigcon o u o a -TD OystercatcJ Lapwing JD E c V 2 0 O Woodcock Curlew Black-tailec Redshank U OC c C3 Tj u *— i Barn Owl Green Woe Skylark -* c O Jj 0 £ «: ^ COLD SPELL WEIGHTS NORMAL WEIGHTS COLD WEIGHTS C d V hj < 5 cd 1 x z. cs z2 *< W s G O Z G d s O z G d o v bO G d X O CO lr tuo < r^» o n OO ^ H hi N Tj- n r- vs fA rt. »A NO Tf hi 00 can h« O too IT, fA t N + CAS NO Vs N qs q N vk^* hi 4 hi CAS CAS N N N N ~ NO ‘ CAS ^ rf- rf- O N N fA N N N »as ,A 40.. rt. N* ri. rv. O fA v-> fA h rt- f'- oo oo* fA n o ^ fA t t t t ooNCNO^-or-hi 00 00 N t C\ C\ Ov CnvO hi rf t 00 fi rU hi hi fA N Hi fA fA fA f t- fA fA fA rf" On Cn On hi t}- rf hi N N hi . CAS rf + + NO On q r- N 00 00 hi N hi VS o’ Csn- r^- ri-N0* Vs 4 N N + + N N + N ^ CAS OO | I N ^ 9> 6 ■v. "H 2 o.. rv. rv. rv. -f-j c Hi CN ON fA I p.NhH'OooOOO , 1 ' hi rf vs rf vs vs vs 1 O O vs Vs O n, t- fA IA ^ H N CN NO M iaoom. uT'\dHirrrr 1 1 n 00 so ‘VO h- h- OO O O o N hi cas pas cas h N f^O N 1. 00 -H+I+I + 'H-H-Hru -H +1 +1 HH ~H ru -H -H -H -H 41 vs n n n n 00 vs o hi hi 00 cas o r^- 4 t N' °°' vs o" On CO CO OO lA N H h r» ON CN ON CN H H N f" N N N HiNNNN r**- vs r"- o 4 4 t h N N N vs NO q NO NO N V r^ O 0 hi N CAS On Os hi Vs VS ON q- hi N r- N hl 0 CAS CAS OO O O O hi N N NO* hi hi hi hl OO bo h4 hi hi hi HI OO hi hi N N VS N hi CAS CAS CAS hi G rv. | 1 | 1 rV* Ch 1 n. rv. | | I T I 1 1 rv. 1 I 1 1 1 rv. | d q 00 vs OO vs NO NO hi N N CAS 6 q q- VS 0^ vs 0 ON hi vs OO* 6 OO VS 4 4 CAS CAS 00’ vs N* N* hi ON NO r- r- 00 r- r- hi M Vs N N N hi I I L I o r^ r^- 4 HI hi N r- kn canno hi ^ m t vs n CAN NO Tf- OO f" CAS CO h- H H N \C hi hi O ^ HI T VS VO O h" VS h- h~ Tf t 41 ^6 4) £41 -Hsd-f)-H-H-H-H-H 4 o f O 1 Vs CN ^ fA C\ in t w C the same as one in poor condition mentioned by Mac- donald (1962). Wrens showed a loss in weight of 0-35%, with an average loss of 19% which is much smaller than that found by Harris (1962) in a sample of similar size; the present figure may mean that in 1963 they were killed by the extreme cold rather than by starvation. Mistle Thrushes, which seem to be one of the earliest sufferers in anv cold spell, lost 24-45% °f their normal weight, with an average of about 33%; females appeared to lose much more (41%) than males (27%) in the small sample of three of each sex. It is of interest that some Song Thrushes, although smaller than Mistle Thrushes and similar in size to Redwings, lost relatively less weight; it would thus appear that they were more vulnerable to the cold itself. Eleven Song Thrushes were 22-57% below normal, with an average of 35%; there were insufficient males to compare with the weights of the females. This indicates less weight loss amongst some individuals than in the similar sample weighed by Harris, again possibly a reflection of the low temperatures in 1963. A male killed by a car on 16th February weighed 88 gm., and a female during very cold weather on 1 6th January weighed 79 gm. ; these are not included in table 4. Redwings, like Mistle Thrushes, appear to be able to withstand greater weight losses : the average was 54% over a rather narrow range of 50-57 % and, though the sample of only five is very small, these figures are close to those given earlier by both Harris and Ash. By contrast, Blackbirds were rather more like Song Thrushes with weight losses of 34% among 15 males (range 19-49%) and 31% among 12 females (range 14-42%), rather less loss than the 40% in the small samples weighed by Harris and Ash in earlier cold spells. As adult female Blackbirds cannot be separated with certainty from first-winter females, no comparisons there are possible, but twelve adult males averaged 32% below normal, while three first- winter males had lost 40%. A sample of Blackbirds killed by other means during the cold spell, and so omitted from table 4, showed that some individuals were maintaining high weights: adult <$, 30th January, 92.1 gm. (Pshot); §, 31st January, 106. 1 gm. (rat trap); §, 30th January, 106.3 gm. (Pear); , 1 6th January, 110.9 gm. (shot); $, 7th February, 116.6 gm. (Pshot); and first- winter A, 12th February, 125.8 gm. (car). A male Goldcrest killed by a car on 25 th January, although of low weight (31% below normal), had much visceral and subcutaneous fat. Apart from those in table 4, two Dunnocks killed well on in the cold spell were actually above the average normal : one (probably killed by a cat) weighed 24.4 gm. on 30th January and the other (hit by a car) weighed 22.6 gm. on 22nd January. The female Robin weighing 20.4 gm. in table 4 had been shot. 238 1963 COLD SPELL IN HAMPSHIRE AND DORSET A male Greenfinch at 20.0 gm. and a female at 16.2 gm. were respect- ively 29% and 42% below normal, and the lighter of two Goldfinches had lost 32%. Three Chaffinches were within a rather smaller range and averaged 23% below, but a male Brambling had lost about 34%. Losses in small samples of other species for which normal weights are available included Partridge (38%), Dunlin (24%), Herring Gull (24%), Common Gull (28%), Black-headed Gull (22%), Dunnock (22%) and Starling (8%). ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am extremely grateful to the following who provided 199 of the 332 bodies examined: J. Ambrose (1), T. H. Blank (2), A. Bromby (18), Miss H. A. J. Brotherton and Mrs. A. Hughes (56), F. R. Clafton (30), J. C. Follett (1), R. F. Hemsley (20), C. Horsey (1), G. Howells (1), P. Mays (5), H. Moore (17) and Dr. K. B. Rooke (47). My best thanks are also due to G. Newman of the Hum Meteorological Office and D. Jackson for the temperature records from Hurn and Fordingbridge respectively; to D. D. Harber for going to much trouble to abstract weights of certain species from the Russian literature; to Miss H. A. J. Brotherton for some additional comments on the effects of the cold spell in the Poole Harbour area; to Mrs. J. M. Finney for typing the final draft; to Dr. G. I. Sharpe for the statistical analyses; and to I. J. Ferguson-Lees. SUMMARY A total of 332 birds of 46 species found dead in Hampshire and Dorset during the prolonged cold spell of 1963 were examined. Mortality was very heavy, but an abundance of some natural foods and a relative absence of the icing-up of vegetation helped some species. The local effects of the cold spell are summarised; among birds which suffered particularly badly were Black-tailed Godwits L imosa limosa and Redshanks Tringa totanus on the coast, and Wrens Troglodytes troglodytes , Wood- pigeons Columba palumbus and some thrushes Titrdus spp. inland. The races of the Redwings T urdus iliacus. Black-tailed Godwits and Redshanks involved are discus- sed; the Icelandic forms of the two waders, previously only rarely recorded in England, were identified. Decreases of the minimum, maximum and mean cold spell weights below the mean normal weights are given for a wide range of species in table 4; ‘minimum threshold weights’ were very variable, but were mainly in the order of 35-45%. Wing-lengths are summarised in appendix 1. REFERENCES Ash, J. S. (1957): ‘Postmortem examinations of birds found dead during the cold spells of 1954 and 1956’. Bird Study, 4: 159-166. ■, Ridley, M. W., and Ridley, N. (1956): ‘On the movements and survival of Woodpigeons and Stock Doves’. Brit. Birds, 49: 298-305. and Sharpe, G. I. (in press): ‘Postmortem and pesticide examinations of birds in the cold spell of 1963’. Bird Study. Browne, K. and E. (1956): ‘An analysis of the weights of birds trapped on Skok- holm’. Brit. Birds, 49: 241-257. Dementiev, G. P., and Gladkov, N. A. (1951-54): The Birds of the Soviet Union. Moscow. 6 vols. 239 BRITISH BIRDS Hachisuka, M. U. (1927): A Handbook of the Birds of Iceland. London. Harris, M. P. (1962): ‘Weights from five hundred birds found dead on Skomer Island in January 1962’. Brit. Birds, 55: 97-103. Harrison, J. M. (1944): ‘Some remarks upon the Western Palaearctic races of Tringa totanus (Linnaeus)’. Ibis, 86: 493-503. Jones, P. H. (1962): ‘Mortality and weights of Fieldfares in Anglesey in January 1962’. Brit. Birds, 55: 178-181. Macdonald, J. W. (1962): ‘Mortality in wild birds with some observations on weights’. Bird Study, 9: 147-167. Middleton, A. D. (1964) : ‘The National Game Census’. 3rd Ann. Rep. of the Game Research Assoc. : 48-60. Morley, A., and Price, K. L. H. (1956): ‘The Black-tailed Godwit in Great Britain and Ireland, 1938-1952’. Brit. Birds, 49: 258-267. Ogilvie, M. A. (1963): ‘The migrations of European Redshank and Dunlin’. Wildfowl Trust 14th Ann. Rep.: 141-149. Salomonsen, F. (1935): ‘Aves’ Part LXIV, Zoology of the Faeroes. Copenhagen. (1954): ‘The migration of the European Redshanks ( Tringa totanus (L))’. Dansk Orn. Foren. Tidsskr., 48: 94-122. Tubbs, C. R. (1963): ‘The significance of the New Forest to the status of the Dartford Warbler in England’. Brit. Birds, 56: 41-48. Vernon, J. D. R. (1963): ‘Icelandic Black-tailed Godwits in the British Isles’. Brit. Birds, 56: 233-237. Williamson, K. (1958): ‘Bergmann’s Rule and obligatory overseas migration’. Brit. Birds, 51: 209-232. and Ruttledge, R. F. (1957): ‘Icelandic Black-tailed Godwits wintering in Ireland’. Brit. Birds, 50: 524-528. Witherby, H. F., Jourdain, F. C. R., Ticehurst, N. F., and Tucker, B. W. (1938-1941): The Handbook of British Birds. London. Appendix 1. Wing-lengths (mm.) of birds found dead in Hampshire and Dorset during the cold spell of 1963 Red-throated Diver: d 283 ; $ 283. Great Crested Grebe: unsexed 181, 182, 190. Little Grebe: unsexed 97, 98, 101. Mallard: d 269. Shoveler: d *45- Teal: d 191. Pochard: d 212; 9 212. Common Scoter: d 234; 9 230. Goosander: 99 270, 272. Shelduck : d 333 J ?? 272, 283, 286, 289, 291, 293, 302, 303, 304, 306 (2), 309, 313, 331 ( cf . 290-334 in Witherby el al. 1938-41) ; unsexed 319. Partridge: d 153; 9 158. Pheasant: 9 232. Moorhen: d 179. Coot: dd 208, 212, 213, 216(2), 219, 223:99 193, 200, 202, 204, 205 (cf. 196-218 in Witherby et al. 1938-41); unsexed 205. Oystercatcher : d 256. Lapwing: dd 222, 225, 234; 9? 2I7» 225. Ringed Plover: d 132. Golden Plover: d 191; unsexed 182, 184, 186. Wood- cock: 9 195; unsexed 191, 194. Curlew: d 299; 9 289. Black-tailed Godwit and Redshank: see pages 229-233. Knot: 9 180; unsexed 165. Dunlin: d 114- Herring Gull: 9 434- Common Gull: d 362. Guillemot: unsexed 205. Woodpigeon: dd 230, 235, 237, 238, 239 (2); 99 240, 242, 248. Barn Owl: unsexed 286. Green Woodpecker: 99 158, 162. Skylark: dd 1 1 3, 1 14; 99 99, 100, 103, 105 (2), 106 (2); unsexed 115. Rook: 9 286. Wren: dd 48 (2), 49, 50, 5 1 ; 9 48- Mistle Thrush: dd 15 1, 158, 161 ; 99 151 (2), 153; unsexed 153. Song Thrush : dd I2o, 121 ; 99 hi, 112, 1 14, 1 15, 1 16, 117, 1 18, 121 ; unsexed 1 13, 1 14, 117, 118. Redwing: d 119; $9 115 (3), 116. Blackbird: dd 123, 124, 126 (2), 129 (2), 130 (6), 132 (3), 133 (2), 134, 135 ; 99 112, 1 19, 122, 124 (2), 125, 126 (4), 127 (2), 129 (3), 130. Dunnock: dd 7L 73 ( cj . 64-71 in Witherby et al. 1938-41); 9 65; unsexed 70. Robin: d 75 ; 9 73- Starling: dd I26, 131. Greenfinch: 240 Plate 34. Adult Slender-billed Gull Farus genei overhead, Mauritania, June i960. The wing pattern is similar to that of a Black-headed Gull, but adults in summer plumage are, of course, quickly separated by their head colour; the bill is also longer and deeper, and not really slender at all (pages 242-247) {photo: F. Roux) Plate 35. Above, Slender-billed Gull Lart/s genei standing in well-hidden nest, France, May 1963. Note again the heavy bill and also the small head and long neck. Below, the surrounds of this nest in the Camargue: an overgrown islet in a saline lagoon (cf. habitat in plate 37c and see page 243) ( photos : K. Weber and H. Hafner) Plate 36. Above, nest and eggs of Slender-billed Gull Lar/ts genei, Mauritania, June i960, in a very open site compared with that in plate 35a; the normal clutch is three, but sometimes only two or one. Below, another nest in the same colony with three chicks; down colour varies very considerably (page 244 ) (p/jo/os: F. Ro//x) Plate 38. Adult Slender-billed Gull L arus genei, Mauritania, June i960. Note the long neck and small head and the rather prehistoric appearance {photo: F. Roux ) 'E 37 {opposite). Top, adult Slender-billed Gull Larus genei about to land, itania, June i960; the neck looks long in flight also, and head and bill seem 3op below the body. Centre, adult at nest; well shown arc the shape of the ibles, the flat forehead (making the bill look longer) and the proportions of ■ to tail. Bottom, part of colony {cf. habitat in plate 35 b) {photos: F. Roux) Plate 39. Above, first-winter Mediterranean Black-headed Gull Icarus melano- cephalus (right) compared with Black-headed L. ridibundus, Sussex, December 1963. Below, the same bird swimming. Note the stouter bill, darker head and white eye- rims, thicker neck and slightly longer legs (pages 250-252) ( photos : R. H. Charlwood) Plate 40. First-winter Mediterranean Black-headed Gull Larus melanocepbatus in flight, Sussex, December 1963, looking not unlike a young Common Gull. Note the wing pattern (including the brown leading edge and lighter areas) and the broadly tipped tail, chunky head shape and heavy bill (page 251) ( photo : R. H. Char I wood) Plate 41. Albino gull with just the tail pigmented, Yorkshire, October 1963. Although this bird was only about the size of a Kittiwake, the tail pattern and proportions of head and bill show it to have been a stunted immature Herring or I .esscr Black-backcd Gull Earns argen/a/ns or fuse ns (page 252) ( photos : G. E. Holloway) 1963 COLD SPELL IN HAMPSHIRE AND DORSET Chaffinch : $<$ 89, 90 (2); $ 84. Brambling Scientific names of species in text and tables $ 83. Goldfinch : 76; unsexed 77. cJ 93. House Sparrow: 77. Appendix 2. Red-throated Diver Gavia stellata Great Crested Grebe Podiceps cristatus Little Grebe Podiceps ruficollis Cormorant Pbalacrocorax carbo Shag Pbalacrocorax aristotelis Heron Ardea cinerea Mallard Anas platyrbyncbos Teal Anas crecca Shovclcr Spatula clypeata Scaup Aythya marila Pochard Aythya Jerim Goldeneye Bucepbala clangula Velvet Scoter Melanit/a fusca Common Scoter A lelanitla nigra Goosander Mergus merganser Shelduck Tadorna tadorna White-fronted Goose Anser albifrons Mute Swan Cygnus olor Whooper Swan Cygnus cygnus Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus Hen Harrier Circus cyaneus Kestrel Falco tinnunculus Partridge Perdix perdix Pheasant Phasianus colchicus Water Rail Ra/lus aquaticus Moorhen Gallinula cbloropus Coot Fulica atra Oystercatcher Haematopus ostralegus Lapwing Vanellus vanellus Ringed Plover Charadrius biaticula Grey Plover Charadrius squatarola Golden Plover Charadrius apricarius Turnstone Arenaria interpres Snipe Gallinago ga/linago Jack Snipe Lymr.ocryptes minimus Woodcock Scolopax rusticola Curlew Numenius arquata Black-tailed Godwit Limosa limosa Bar-tailed Godwit Limosa lapponica Green Sandpiper Tringa ochropus Redshank Tringa totanus Spotted Redshank Tringa erythropus Knot Cali dr is canutus Dunlin Calidris alpina Sanderling Crocethia alba Avocet Recurvirostra avosetta Herring Gull Lams argentatus Common Gull Larus canus Black-headed Gull Larus ridibundus Guillemot Uria aalge Stock Dove Columba oenas Woodpigeon Columba palumbus Barn Owl Tyto alba Tawny Owl Strix aluco Short-eared Owl Asio flammeus Kingfisher Alcedo althis Green Woodpecker Picus viridis Skylark Alauda arvensis Carrion Crow Corvus corone Rook Corvus frugilegus Jackdaw Corvus monedula Magpie Pica pica Jay Garrulus glandarius Great Tit Parus major Blue Tit Parus caeruleus Coal Tit Parus ater Marsh Tit Parus pa/ustris Willow Tit Parus montanus Long-tailed Tit Aegitbalos cauda/us Nuthatch Sitta europaea Treccreeper Certbia J ami liar is Wren Troglodytes troglodytes Mistle Thrush T urdus viscivoms Fieldfare T urdus pilaris Song Thrush T urdus pbilome/os Redwing T urdus iliacus Blackbird T urdus merula Stonechat Saxico/a torquata Robin Erithacus rubecula Dartford Warbler Sylvia undata Goldcrest Regulus regulus Dunnock Prunella modularis Meadow Pipit Anthus pratensis Rock Pipit Anthus spinoletta Pied W'agtail Motacilla alba Great Grey Shrike Lanins excubi/or Starling S/urnus vulgaris Greenfinch Ch/oris chloris Goldfinch Carduelis carduelis Linnet Carduelis cannabina Bullfinch Pyrrbula pyrrhula Crossbill Loxia curvirostra Chaffinch FringiHa coelebs Brambling FringiHa montifringilla Yellowhammcr Emberi^a citrinella Corn Bunting Ember i^a calandra Cirl Bunting Emberi^a cirlus Reed Bunting Emberi^a schoeniclus House Sparrow Passer domesticus Tree Sparrow Passer montanus 241 Studies of less familiar birds 128. Slender-billed Gull By D. I. M. Wallace Photographs by F. Roux, K. Weber and H. Hafner (Plates 34-38) First and foremost, in spite of statements to the contrary in several authoritative handbooks (but corrected by Peterson et al. 1961 in later editions of the Field Guide), the Slender-billed Gull Larus genei does not have a slender bill. Compared with that of the species which it most closely resembles in winter and immature plumages — the Black-headed Gull L. ridibundus — the bill of the Slender-billed is clearly longer, deeper and heavier-looking with a markedly decurved upper mandible. These structural differences, accentuated by a typically flat forehead, combine to give the bill a weighty, drooping appearance both on the ground and in flight (plates 35a and 37a). This character alone was sufficient to attract the attention of D. D. Harber to the first Slender-billed Gull recorded in Britain (Brit. Birds, 55: 169-171). As an identification pointer, therefore, few species have such a misleading name. However, the Slender-billed Gull presents more complex problems than that of a simple misnomer. In particular, its faunal relationship is rather obscure, though the pattern of its eastern distribution indi- cates that it formed a part of the avifauna associated with the saline, inland seas that in the late Tertiary and Pleistocene periods extended far to the north and east of the eastern Mediterranean, even into central Asia. Certainly the two main climactic zones that now contain most of the species’ widely scattered colonies are those of steppe and desert, and there seems a clear link with marine areas long evaporated or still in the process of further desiccation. As already intimated, the present distribution of the Slender-billed Gull is mainly Palearctic, though certainly not ‘primarily Mediter- ranean’ as stated by Fisher and Lockley (1954). Throughout its range, its occurrence is markedly discontinuous and local. Major population concentrations are known only on the north and west coasts of the Black Sea (with huge colonies on the Isle of Orlov and on the Sivash Reserve in the Sea of Azov), in the marshy complex of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and in the Persian Gulf (with large colonies on the islands of Bahrein and smaller groups scattered along the north coast and beyond to Sind and Karachi). Other colonies exist on the north and east shores of the Caspian Sea, in the Aral Sea 242 SLENDER-BILLED GULL STUDIES and at several other lakes to the east as far as Lake Zaysan and to the north-east as far as Lake Chany, the species’ only station in the boreal climactic zone. All but a handful of the world population is thus confined between the longitudes of 28 °E and 84°E and between the Tropic of Cancer and a latitude of 5 5 ’N (see Dementiev 1951 and Voous i960). It is, however, the handful of exceptions which are more accessible to the European ornithologist, even though only three localities, again widely spaced, are involved. The best known of these three western areas is the marismas of the Guadalquivir, Spain. As long ago as the end of the nineteenth century the Slender-billed Gulls there were attracting such famous ornithologists as Dresser (1903), but Erard (1958) considered it doubtful whether this population, though perhaps permanently established, had ever exceeded more than a few pairs; five nests were recorded in i960 and nine in 1962, on each occasion in a colony of Gull-billed Terns Gelochelidon nilotica (Weickert i960, Weickert and Cano 1962). The second western area, and the only other in Europe away from the Black Sea for which there is definite evidence of breeding, is the Camargue, France, where the species is still only an irregular nester and no permanent colony has been formed (Hoffmann 1958). Slender- billed Gulls were first seen there around 1940, but eggs were not found until 1948 and only a single nest was involved even then; in 1951 a pair produced three chicks, in 1954 one pair was again located in a large colony of Gull-billed Terns and Black-headed Gulls, and in 1963 a further nest was photographed by K. Weber and H. Hafner (see plate 3 5 which shows one of the adults and the breeding habitat). The third and largest western population, only discovered in 1959 by R. de Naurois, is on various islands oft' the coast of north Mauri- tania. Photographs taken by F. Roux in i960 at the largest of these Mauritanian colonies, on the Isle of Zira, Arguin Bank, are reproduced on plates 34 and 36-38. In 1959 this colony numbered 400 to 600 pairs and the total population of the Arguin Bank was between 500 and 1,000 pairs (de Naurois 1959). However, as records of Slender-billed Gulls in late spring and summer have come from 600 miles of the coast of north-west Africa, other colonies have been suspected and may yet be found in this region. The breeding habitat of the species varies considerably from rocky gulf islands and dry, open sandbanks in shallow coastal waters to overgrown, muddy islands in the saline lagoons of river deltas and fresh-water marshes near rivers. In view of the bird’s extensive distribution, a wide altitudinal range is perhaps also to be expected, but nevertheless the actual variation of over 3,000 feet from the level of the Caspian Sea to the most northerly colony is, like the range of M3 BRITISH BIRDS breeding habitats, evidence of considerable adaptability. The evi- dence on arrival and departure dates is fragmentary, but adults are probably present at the breeding stations from late March or early April to August, young birds staying on into September. The nest (plate 36a) consists of a scrape as deep as the eggs and it often has a pad of vegetable debris within and overlapping the depres- sion. Occasionally other materials are added, notably feathers; Dresser (1903) found a few feathers of Flamingos Phoenicopterus ruber in the nests that he inspected in the Spanish marismas. The eggs vary from white to pale buff in ground colour, being overmarked with large and small blotches (occasionally streaks) of both white and dark brown; underlying marks of lavender and even green also occur. The number of eggs is usually three, though sometimes only two or one form the clutch. May and early June are the normal months for completed clutches at the three western stations, but in the east the laying period is more prolonged, extending from late April to June and even July. A most remarkable behaviour observation is that in southern Bahrein these gulls sprinkle sea water on their eggs as if to protect them from excessive heat (Meinertzhagen 1954). No information on incubation or fledging periods has been pub- lished, though presumably this gull is single-brooded like its close relatives. The plumage pattern of three chicks is clearly shown on plate 36b. However, F. Roux (in litt.) noted that the down colour of those on the Isle of Zira in i960 was variable: some were clear beige, others pure grey, others grey-brown, much marked, and he added that often one nest would contain both grey and marked chicks. Although alluded to by Meinertzhagen (1954), this interesting varia- tion does not seem to have been recorded in detail before. Informa- tion about the food of the species is also scarce. However, both Dresser (1903) and Meinertzhagen gave fish as the staple diet, and the former recorded the taking of various insects. Some further flexibility is indicated by the fact that the bird in Sussex in i960 fed amongst sewage effluent. The distribution of the Slender-billed Gull on migration and in winter is no less intriguing than its breeding range. By far the most impressive work on this aspect of the bird’s annual cycle is that of the Russian ornithologists S. M. Semenov and B. W. Sabinevsky who in the seven years from 1947 to 1954 ringed over 65,000 young in the Isle of Orlov colony. By 1958, 816 had been recovered, the records showing a remarkable scatter to east, south and west through no less than 150° and at distances of up to 2,400 miles. Erard (1958), in a detailed discussion of these and other observations, concluded that three main migratory routes are followed by the Isle of Orlov birds. The first is oriented south-west along the west coast 244 SLENDER-BILLED GULL STUDIES of the Black Sea, through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, thence westwards across Greece to Italy and finally south to the most import- ant wintering area off Sicily and Tunisia; the second is oriented south from the Black Sea across Turkey (that Slender-billed Gulls can navigate successfully over desert regions is amply demonstrated by their occurrence in such places as the Azraq Oasis in Jordan), thence via the Gulf of Alexandretta to Cyprus and finally further south to another notable wintering area off northern Egypt; and the third is oriented south-east across Transcaucasia to the Caspian Sea, thence south to the Tigris and the Euphrates and via those rivers to the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, the other most frequented winter- ing area. The incidence of birds from further east in these migrations or winter populations is not known, but it seems likely that they would go south-west from their breeding areas — that is, if a species which apparently orients in three distinct directions from one colony can be said to have a standard direction! The species is only a rare migrant at the western extreme of the Mediterranean and Erard does no more than assume that the small Spanish population moves south along the north-western coast of Africa in the autumn. The fact that two Slender-billed Gulls ringed on the Isle of Orlov have been recovered as far west as the Canary Islands and Portugal throws open the possibility that those recorded in Sussex in i960 and 1963 also had an easterly origin. This suggestion is further supported by the recent considerable increase in observations of Mediterranean Black-headed Gulls L. melanocephalus in Britain, also mainly on the south coast. The latter is a species of similar faunal type and breeding distribution, but without the western outposts of the other. Thus it seems just as likely that the two Sussex Slender-billed Gulls came from the large Black Sea populations as from the comparatively thin, local and more sedentary western ones. Indeed, the establishment of the latter may have been the result of westward excursions from the scatter of relict habitats which are all that remain of its prehistoric ecology and distribution. In this context it is worth noting that the population of the Isle of Orlov had by 1954 fallen by over 2,100 pairs (14%) from a peak of about 13,000 pairs in 1947 and 1948. Perhaps the species is about to follow the Mediterranean Black-headed Gull as a regular vagrant from the eastern Mediterranean to the temperate Atlantic sea-board, and from now on it may be well worth looking for among flocks of its commonest associate, the Black-headed Gull. The species differs in shape from the Black-headed Gull in various ways apart from the bill. It is slightly larger, this being most apparent in a longer head, a thinner and usually more attenuated neck, a deeper, more pigeon-like chest and a more obvious, wedge-shaped tail. Standing, flying and swimming attitudes are also distinctly different. 245 BRITISH BIRDS Plate 37c shows the stance of a number of birds to advantage, while plate 37a emphasises the prominence of the bill, head, forebody and tail in flight and can be related to the comment made by Hollom (1959) that the head is ‘noticeably depressed below body level, skimmer- wise, when coming in to settle and on take-off’. The difference in swimming posture is portrayed below: Adults in fresh breeding plumage are, of course, also quite distinct in colour from Black-headed Gulls for, although they have a similar wing pattern (plate 34), they lack the dark brown hood and have paler grey upper-parts which make them appear much whiter at a distance. At close range, the black-looking bill (actually dark red) contrasts markedly with the white head and neck, while the under-parts of most individuals show the rosy tinge whereby the species gets its alternative English name of Rosy Gull. The legs and feet of adults are coral- red in spring and summer, and like the bill, fade to yellow in winter. In immature plumage, however, the colour differences are much less distinct. The feather pattern of the upper-parts and wings is appar- ently similar to those of the Black-headed Gull and the even smaller Bonaparte’s Gull L. Philadelphia at the same age, but on comparison the brown feathers on the wing are paler and the inner wing pattern therefore less contrasting. The eye and nape patches, if they exist at all, are little more than grey smudges. The legs of immatures are yellowish (darker in first-summer plumage) and the bill yellowish or reddish with a black tip. Clearly an observer faced with what he believes to be an immature Slender-billed Gull must confirm his suspicions as much by the bird’s general character and attitudes as by plumage marks. Notes on voice appear to have been made only by Hollom (1959) who described the calls which he heard in Syria in 1956 as quite distinct from those of the Black-headed Gull, being deeper and mellower with a nasal inflexion. REFERENCES Dementiev, G. P. (1 95 1) : In The Birds of the Soviet Union, edited by G. P. Dementiev and N. A. Gladkov. Moscow, vol. 3. de Naurois, R. (1959): ‘Premieres recherches sur l’avifaune dcs lies du Banc d’Arguin (Mauritanie)’. Alauda, 27: 241-308. 246 NOTES Dresser, H. E. (1903): A Manual of Palaearctic Birds. London. Erard, C. (1958): ‘Sur ies zones de reproduction et d’hivernage et les migrations du Goeland railleur Larus genei Breme’. Alauda, 26: 86-104. Fisher, J., and Lockley, R. M. (1954): Sea-Birds. London. Hoffmann, L. (1958): ‘An ecological sketch of the Camargue’. Brii. Birds, 51: 321-350. Hollom, P. A. D. (1959): ‘Notes from Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Antioch’. Ibis, 101: 183-200. Meinertzhagen, R. (1954): Birds of Arabia. Edinburgh and London. Peterson, R., Mountfort, G., and Hollom, P. A. D. (1961): A Field Guide io the Birds of Britain and Europe. London. 4th edition. Voous, K. H. (i960): Atlas of European Birds. London. Weickert, P. (i960): ‘Nidificacion dc Gaviota picofina en Donana’. Ardeola, 6: 383. and Cano, A. (1962): ‘Sobre nidificacion dc Gelochelidon nilotica y Larus genei’. Ardeola, 8: 275-277. Notes Houbara Bustard in Suffolk. — On 21st November 1962 B. Gray, a farmer, observed a small, sandy ‘turkey’ walking along a minor road at Hinton, near Westleton, Suffolk. A head gamekeeper in the area, P. Muttit, saw the bird on 25 th November and, recognising it as a bustard, informed F. K. Cobb, D. Rowe and G. J. Jobson, who identified it as a Houbara Chlamjdotis undulata. Mr. Cobb kindly told me and I watched it on 26th November and many other days until its disappearance after 29th December. During this period, several hundred visitors were able to see the bird from cars parked along the road bordering the small field of mustard in which it principally fed. Due to the understanding of the land- owner, Sir Gervase Blois, and patrols by his gamekeeper and local people, it was less disturbed than it might have been. It seems pro- bable, too, that it would not have stayed in such a small area had not Mr. Gray generously refrained from ploughing-in his field of mustard for so long as it fed there. It also frequented adjoining fields where it ate blades of winter wheat and picked up food amongst barley stubble. It was once seen to eat an earthworm. In the mustard field, where the plants were three to five inches high, the sandy-coloured bird could readily be picked out as it walked about very much like a turkey, thrusting its neck forward at every third or fourth step. It would pick off parts of the leaves of the mustard and those of the peas which also grew there, taking up to six ‘bites’ before swallowing (this feeding behaviour was recorded on film by H. Hurlock). When one openly approached it in the pale brown 247 BRITISH BIRDS barley stubbles, however, it would ‘freeze’ as one got to within about 150 yards and then sink slowly to the ground where it would squat quite still and become practically invisible. Generally it could not be seen again until one was ten to twenty yards from it and then, using its legs and a powerful down-beat of extended wings, it would leap from the stubbles and with slow, deliberate wing-beats was soon across the nearest up-wind hedge or row of trees. It did not often run. Once, just before it leapt into flight, I saw that its neck was retracted on to its back; W. H. Payn, from ten feet, saw it crouching with its neck slightly extended. When more clearly seen squatting in green vegetation, its bulk was like the round dome of a large sandy-coloured tortoise, but with an extended bulge over the rump formed by the folded primaries. In changing feeding sites, it more often walked than flew and occasionally visiting observers had to stop their cars to watch it pass by along the road (see Eric Hosking’s photograph in Brit. Birds, 5 6 : plate 61). Several times I saw it trying to cross an open, dry ditch at a point fifty yards from the road and on each occasion it walked up and down the side of the ditch for about ten minutes before leaping up and flying over. Many times it was seen to stop feeding and stand with its black neck plumes expanded. There was no apparent reason for this display except once when, with all neck-feathers puffed out like a Bittern Botaurus stellaris , it was snapping upwards at a mobbing Carrion Crow Corpus corone. The following detailed description is based on notes made through- out the bird’s stay: Head and neck: forehead sandy ; crown nearly white in centre and bordered with black feathers which only just protruded beyond the curve of the head, also a few black feathers at rear of crown; above and below eye, lores, chin and throat all pale grey; back of neck pale grey, becoming almost white near base, and front of neck sandy-grey; black ruff down side of neck, beginning at rear lower edge of ear-coverts, with thin line of white in front of the middle half. The crest of black feathers was not seen raised. The black ruff down the side of the neck was more apparent from behind except when the bird erected it in display; the long loose feathers at the base lay partly behind a Bittern-like ‘sporran’ of pale brown feathers just above the upper breast. The thin white line in front of the black was visible only at close quarters ; I did not see, nor did any other observer record, any prominent area of white in the tuft when it was displayed. Rest of body: mantle and scapulars pale sandy with regularly spaced slaty blotches; lower back and rump not well seen but appeared as paler area between mantle and upper tail-coverts; breast off-white; flanks and under tail-coverts whitish. The breast and part of the belly were stained with mud and frequently wet. Wings: coverts and inner secondaries as mantle and scapulars but less boldly marked with dark blotches; primaries and secondaries largely hidden when wings closed. In flight the distal thirds of the outer primaries were black while the middle parts of these feathers produced a large and prominent white patch separated by a thin area of black from a smaller whitish patch near the bend of the wing; the inner primaries were black and 248 NOTES the outer secondaries rather less dark, and these formed a band of blackish narrowing inwards across the outer two-thirds of the wing; whitish tips to the inner primaries and secondaries made a thin pale line along the trailing edge of the wing. The startlingly black-and-white wings opening from the sandy body as the bird took flight was reminiscent of a Stone Curlew Burbinus oedic- nemus. Tail: pale chestnut above (darker than mantle) with widely spaced bars of dark grey and white feather-tips. The tail was very stained. The white tips were usually visible only when it was fanned during preening. At such times it could be seen that there were three full bars of dark grey widely spaced from near the tip and an apparent half-bar in the middle of the tail ; this half-bar was otherwise generally hidden by the folded primaries. Soft parts: bill dark horn, shorter than head and not deep; iris large, bright and pale yellow; legs pale straw. From these details, especially from the amount of black and white in the crest, the pale grey nape, the fairly prominent gular tuft which was not pale grey, and the dark grey bars on the tail, it appears to have been a young male. It was last seen on 29th December when the great frost had already begun and the mustard had shrivelled. A blizzard soon covered the whole feeding area in snow and widespread searches in the following weeks failed to reveal any further trace of the bird. There are only four previous British records of this species, in Aberdeen, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, all in October between 1847 and 1898. All four are referred in The Handbook to the race C. u. macqueetiii which breeds in the deserts of central Asia south to Syria and Arabia. This subspecies has a large area of white in the neck- tuft and is described by R. Meinertzhagen in The Birds of Arabia (1954, p. 548) as having three blue bands on the tail, whereas C. u. undulata , which occurs west of the Nile in the Sahara, has the neck fringes quite black and four blue bands on the tail. Similarly, a detailed description in J. A. Murray’s The Avifauna of British India and its Dependencies (1880-90, p. 575) shows the adult male macqueetiii as having half the elongated neck feathers white at the base for more than half their length and the rest shining black, the lower half of the ruff entirely white and the upper half edged both behind and in front with rather lax black feathers, and the tail with three bluish-ashy bands. The more concise description of the neck-tuft in The Handbook is similar, but there the number of bars on the tail is not given for either macqueenii or undulata. The race found in the eastern Canary Islands, C. u. fuertaven- turae, is much darker in all respects. A series of photographs of the Suffolk bird by Eric Hosking confirms field sketches in showing the long feathers of its neck as black without white centres. Thus it appears to have had one main diagnostic feature of undulata , but the absence of a fourth full bar on the tail seems to make subspecific identification inconclusive. H. E. Axell 249 BRITISH BIRDS Turnstones searching for food in roof gutters. — During the first two weeks of September 1962 I paid several visits to Newlyn, Cornwall, where I noticed that the sloping roof of a long warehouse used for sorting fish was a roosting place for many dozens of gulls of various species. The droppings of these birds had whitened much of the roof and had apparently helped to silt up portions of the surrounding gutters. In these gutters three or four Turnstones Arenaria interpres were often to be seen actively searching for food by probing into the silt or occasionally flicking pieces to one side. Less frequently they also poked about in the crevices of the roof. Every now and then one would find and swallow something edible, but, except for a few small worms, most of the prey could not be identified. Although I had visited the Newlyn district at the same season for the previous sixteen years, this was the first time that I had noticed such behaviour by Turnstones. Bernard King [This observation provides further evidence of the Turnstone’s readiness to exploit unusual foods and feeding sites (cf. Brit. Birds, 54: 325-326; and 55: 241-244). — Eds.] Surface-skimming by Long-tailed Skua. — Just after 1 p.m. GMT on 15th October 1963 I saw an adult Long-tailed Skua Stercorarius longicaudus close to the shore at Selsey Bill, Sussex. At a range of about 30 yards, I watched it hover about 15 feet above the water and then start skimming the surface like a Black Tern Chlidonias niger, using very shallow wing-beats and elegantly picking up floating particles; this it continued to do for a minute or more. Although The Handbook records that this skua frequently hovers like a Kestrel Falco tinnunculus or a tern, it does not mention surface-skimming. R. J. Sandison Field-characters of the immature Mediterranean Black-headed Gull. — In recent years Mediterranean Black-headed Gulls Lams melanocephalus have been observed much more frequently than used to be the case on the south coast of England (and to a lesser extent in other parts of the British Isles). There were under a dozen records for the whole country when the last volume of The Handbook was published in 1941; yet in only four years from 1959 to 1962 no less than 87 were accepted by the Rarities Committee. Analysis shows, however, that this total includes far too high a proportion of adults or near-adults: only 24 of the 87 were first- year or second-year birds. Vagrant species are normally represented here by at least as many immatures as adults: for example, in the same four years there were 27 250 NOTES immature Sabine’s Gulls Xema sabini and only 17 adults. W'e suspect that this discrepancy is due to immature Mediterranean Black-headed Gulls being more frequently overlooked. In many books the des- criptions of the first-year and second-year plumages are misleading. The Field Guide , for instance, makes them sound rather similar to immature Black-headed Gulls jL. ridibundus by saying no more than that they are ‘distinguished from young Black-headed by lack of white leading edge to brownish wings’; at the same time the Field Guide's illustration of an immature in flight is actually quite incorrect. In fact, the young Mediterranean bears only a superficial resemblance to a young Black-headed and is really far more like an immature Common Gull L. canus, particularly in flight. We think that this is borne out by the three photographs reproduced on plates 39 and 40. These were taken by R.H.C. on 15th December 1963 at the boating pool at Hove, Sussex. The bird concerned, which was first found by G. A. Sutton, remained at this locality until 19th January 1964 and was then seen occasionally in the area until at least the end of March. There was nothing unusual in its occurrence as there have been quite a number of Mediterranean Black-headed Gulls in Sussex in each of the last few years, but it was probably the first time that an immature had been successfully photographed. Plate 39a shows this bird standing next to a first-winter Black- headed Gull. It will be seen that the plumages of body and folded wing are not dissimilar, except that the white margins and tips to the tertials and inner greater coverts are more conspicuous in the com- moner species; points to note, however, include the Mediterranean Black-headed Gull’s much stouter and darker bill and slightlv longer legs, and the fact that it has a blackish smudge right over the side of the head (instead of just a comparatively small dark spot behind the eye) and, already, the white marks above and below the eye. Plate 39b, showing it swimming, illustrates how this species combines the head shape and fairly thick neck of the Common Gull with the body shape and wing prominence of the Black-headed; note the distribution of the blackish colour on the side of the head and of the white marks by the eye (together giving an effect of prominent eyebrows) and the stout bill with its distinct gonys. However, it is plate 40 which really shows how easily a Mediterranean Black-headed at this stage can be dismissed as a young Common Gull: note the complete lack of white on the blackish outer primaries and brown wing-coverts which com- bine to make the leading edge of the wing dark, the broadly tipped tail, the chunky head shape with a faint hood and the heavy-ended effect given to the bill by the combination of its colour and shape. The wing pattern includes a light area across the secondaries behind the brown coverts, and in the region of the inner primaries this extends 251 BRITISH BIRDS back to form a break in the dark hind border; this pattern is quite distinct from that of a young Black-headed Gull, but it is sometimes almost exactly reproduced on young Common Gulls. D. D. Harber has kindly analysed for us the colours of the soft parts of immature Mediterranean Black-headed Gulls described in the records accepted by the Rarities Committee during 1958-62, and these agree well with rather scanty notes made by I.J.F.-L. on a flock of up to 1,000 first-year and second-year birds which he watched at Lake Burgas, Bulgaria, on several days at the end of May i960. First-year birds at a distance appear to have a blackish bill and dark legs, but at closer range it can be seen that the base of the bill is a very deep orange- red and the tip black, while the legs are very dark red. By the second winter the whole of the bill is usually dark red. R. H. Charlwood and I. J. Ferguson-Lees Unusual albino gull photographed in Yorkshire. — Plate 41 shows an interesting albino gull wading in water and mud in the harbour at Bridlington, Yorkshire, on 10th October 1963. I saw it in the same area on a number of subsequent occasions until it disappeared about the end of that month. Its plumage was pure white with the exception of its tail which had markings similar to those of an immature Flerring Gull Larus argentatus, and its bill and legs were greyish-white ; from tip of bill to tips of folded wings it was about 14 inches long. I sent one of the photographs to the British Museum (Natural History) and now quote from Mr. I. C. J. Galbraith’s reply summarising conclusions reached by Mr. Derek Goodwin: ‘Its dark eye and lack of orange on the bill and small size might suggest that it was a Common Gull L. canus, but in the photograph it appears to have too large a bill. Its proportions suggest rather that it is a Herring Gull or a Lesser Black- backed Gull L. fuscus , in which case the colours of eye and bill would be characters of immaturity, like the speckling of its tail, while its size might reflect the stunting that is common among abnormal birds.’ G. E. Holloway [Mr. Holloway kindly sent us all his photographs of this gull and we have discussed the matter with B. L. Sage whose paper on ‘Albinism and melanism in birds’ was published in this journal in June 1962 (Brit. Birds, 55: 201-225). The bird was evidently about the size of a Kittiwake R issa tridactyla but with the wing-span of a Herring Gull. The tail pattern, the presence of a distinct gonys and the general proportions seem to show that it must indeed have been either a Herring Gull or a Lesser Black-backed Gull. That being the case, the remarkably stunted growth with a body apparently no more than two-thirds of the normal size is particularly interesting. — Eds.] 252 NOTES Pairing of Reed Warblers from same brood. — On 6th June 1963 I saw a pair of Reed Warblers Acrocephalus scirpaceus feeding nestlings in an isolated clump of reeds at Coate Water, Swindon, Wiltshire. I set a mist-nest, caught the birds and found that they were wearing consecutively numbered rings. In fact, they had been ringed as nestlings of the same brood at Coate Water on 1 ith June 1961. There can be few records of brother and sister pairing up as adults in the wild, although it may happen not infrequently. G. L. W'ebber Song Thrushes feeding on periwinkles. — On 3rd January 1963, when much of Cornwall was under snow, I saw at least a score of Song Thrushes Turdus pbilomelos feeding on periwinkles Litiorina littorea along the shore line of St. John’s Lake on the Cornish side of the Tamar estuary. They were beating the molluscs out of their shells on stones and every few yards along this beach I came across one of these ‘anvils’ surrounded by the broken remains. I drew the attention of other naturalists to this and we subsequently made similar observa- tions on a number of occasions while the snowy conditions prevailed, not only on this beach, but also on the shores of the Lynher estuary, Cornwall, and the Yealm estuary at Newton Ferrers, Devon. At the last locality periwinkles were in some cases carried to the cliff-top path in the village and broken on anvil stones normally used by Song Thrushes for dealing with garden snails. A great influx of Redwings T. iliacus and Fieldfares T. pilaris was in progress at that time and both Fieldfares and Blackbirds T. merula were frequenting the shore or mud- flats, but none of these other thrushes was seen feeding in this way, though Blackbirds were suspected of attempting to take periwinkles from Song Thrushes. Not having encountered this habit of the Song Thrush before, I made enquiries among several experienced ornithologists in south- west England, but only one of these, R. G. Adams, was familiar with it. In fact, he described it as a common habit in severe weather on the shores of the Exe estuarv, Devon, and he said that he first noted it as long ago as 17th February 1929; he also drew mv attention to a reference in the 1940 Report of the Devon Bird- Watching and Preservation Society (p. 34). Nevertheless, there seem to be very few records in the literature. The Handbook gives the periwinkle as a food item of the Hebridean Song Thrush T. p. bebridensis on the authority of W. MacGillivray, but it does not list any marine molluscs under the other races. Howard Saunders (1899, An Illustrated Manual of British Birds) recorded that ‘on the sea-coast whelks and other shellfish are eaten and this may have something to do with the dark colour of the Hebridean birds’. D. A. Bannerman (1954, The Birds of the British Isles, vol. 3) names only the Redwing as preying on the periwinkle in 2 5 3 BRITISH BIRDS this way. However, it does appear that this food may be an important stand-by for Song Thrushes in hard weather. O. D. Hunt On 19th, 20th and 22nd January 1963, during the severe weather, I watched a single Song Thrush Turdus philomelos feeding on periwinkles Littorina littorea on wrack-covered reefs at Spit Beach, Par, Cornwall. It was banging the molluscs on the rocks and then extracting the flesh. I also found several periwinkle shells on a cliff footpath near-by; these were close to protruding stones which had presumably served as ‘anvils’. C. J. Stevens [As suggested by Mr. Hunt’s note, this behaviour is probably not uncommon. However, it does not seem often to have been recorded and we should be interested in reports from other parts of the British Isles. — Eds.] Reviews Animal Species and Evolution. By Ernst Mayr. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.), and Oxford University Press, London, 1963. 797 pages. 70s. In 1942 Ernst Mayr, who until then had been known to ornithologists only as a taxonomist, produced a book which quickly became famous, namely Systematics and the Origin of Species. Twenty-one years later, instead of revising this book and bringing it up to date, he has chosen to publish a new and much larger work which is indeed of impressive size and immense scope. It is very high praise to say that it is a worthy successor to the first book, but this can be said unhesitatingly. The prime thesis of the new work is that species are natural entities, not arbitrary creations of the taxonomists. At the same time it emphasises the conclusion that there are two types of speciation: (1) a gradual transformation during the process of evolution, which one might call the internal transformation of one species into another; and (2) the splitting of one species into two separate species, both of them new. The author concludes that this last process is, in the vast majority of cases, an end result of the process of geographical or ecological isolation. Many of the topics dealt with in this book are still controversial and, when this is so, the interpretation given is often subjective with the treatment taking an unequivocal stand on one side or the other. The author disarmingly admits this in the preface and justifies it, on the whole successfully in my view, by saying that his aim has been to integrate and interpret rather than to present raw data. Since inte- gration is his major goal, it may well be that a somewhat biased treat- 254 REVIEWS ment in places is reasonable, in that this is likely to provide greater stimulus to further advance. Nevertheless, the results are sometimes disconcerting and, although Dr. Mavr has yielded gracefully over the years on such topics as sympatric speciation, to my mind he is still somewhat intransigent over Thoday’s recent evidence for diversifying or disruptive selection; the same applies to Waddington’s discovery that Lamarckian inheritance can be simulated by ‘genetic assimilation’. Sometimes, too, he seems to go rather far in his attempts to make the best of both worlds. Thus he continually stresses the high cohesion and integration of the gene equipment of a species — so high, he thinks, as to render it almost impossible for a new fully integrated genetic pattern to arise within it — and for this reason is strongly against any principles of random genetic drift. But he speaks of the serious loss of viability which often occurs when an outbreeding population is suddenly subjected to intense inbreeding (‘inbreeding depression’) and immediately qualifies this by saying that, on the whole, the loss of genetic variance through inbreeding occurs far more slowly than one might expect. Later he discusses the ‘founder principle’, a term that designates the establishment of a new population by a few original founders (in extreme cases by a single fertilised female). He gives a surprising number of instances where this seems to have happened without the occurrence of the inbreeding depression that might have been ex- pected. This is a very important consideration for those who are sensibly trying to conserve some of the world’s rarest species, such as the Arabian Oryx, by keeping a breeding stock in captivity — a process which amounts to artificial conservation of a gene pool. The book, for all its size and range (about 1,700 titles are quoted in the bibliography), displays a remarkable unity. Nevertheless, few readers who are not primarily evolutionarv geneticists will wish to read through from cover to cover. For the ornithologist the second half of the book will probably be the most rewarding, particularly those chapters which deal with geographic variation of the population structure of species and with geographic speciation in relation to genetics and ecology. Here Dr. Mayr’s immense erudition as an ornithologist is very evident and all serious students of birds will find these parts of the book rewarding and stimulating. Thus from what- ever side one approaches it, one cannot fail to be impressed by the greatness of this work. In conclusion, biologists of all kinds, whatever their attitude of mind, will join with Dr. Mayr in emphasising — as he does in the last chapter — the tremendous danger to all that we as civilised spiritual beings cherish most, inherent in the threat of over-population of the world by man. W. H. Thorpe 255 BRITISH BIRDS Birds of the Atlantic Islands. Volume I. By David A. Banner- man. Illustrations by D. M. Reid-Henry. Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh and London, 1963. 358 pages; 13 colour and 4 monochrome plates ; 2 maps. 84s. It is a pleasure to handle and read a handsome book which, for a change, suffers neither from over-compression nor from an over- scientific approach. In this first volume Dr. Bannerman provides an authentic history of the resident and migratory birds found in the Canary Archipelago and the Salvage Islands ; the second will be cover- ing Madeira, the Desertas, Porto Santo and the Azores. The present book is based on his own travels as a collector from 1908 to 1920, but includes the records of the earlier, nineteenth century, collectors from S. Berthelot to E. G. B. Meade-Waldo and also those of the dozen or so mainly bird ecologists who, for limited periods, have worked on these islands since 1920. His account therefore brings us up to date, none the worse for a lingering odour of oology. The importance of this book as a basis for future research is manifest in view of recent changes already beginning to modify the former habits and habitats of many island birds. The factors involved here include such new crops as tomatoes, cotton and birdless square miles of banana plantations; pesticides; tourist development, from lidos to scenic motorways; increasing denudation of mountain sides for fodder; and, above all for the aridity it brings, the now almost com- plete reduction of all natural waterways into small reservoirs and closed irrigation channels. The collectors were bad enough — R. von Thanner alone slew 122 of the rare Blue Chaffinch of Tenerife and 76 of the still rarer Grand Canarian form — but these more insidious dangers, present and to come, are worse. And such species as the Blue Chaffinch, Laurel Pigeon and Island Chat (to say nothing of the Black Oystercatcher, the last known example of which was shot by the author himself on Graciosa in June 1913) are not merely rare, but unique. After an introductory text, ably summarising the dates and activities of those who have contributed to the long pursuit of birds on these islands, Dr. Bannerman deals systematically with resident species under description, range/status, habits and nesting. There follows a list, with notes, of migrants; and two appendices summarising previous records which require either confirmation or deletion. A biblio- graphy, a list of ringing recoveries and two maps are also included. Eleven colour plates by D. M. Reid-Henry, specially commissioned for this book, depict about thirty of the islands’ rarities with charm and accuracy; the same artist is responsible also for many of the line draw- ings in the text. One might imagine, after this masterly summary, that little remained 256 NEWS AND COMMENT to be said on Canarian birds. But, as Dr. Bannerman himself would be first to acknowledge, this is not so. No more collecting, , please — but there are problems enough for the ecologist for many, many years ahead. E. A. R. Ennion News and comment j Edited by Raymond Cordero Declining birds of prey in western Europe. -The International W orking Conference on Birds of Prey and Owls at Caen, France, from 10th to 12th April, which was organised by the International Council for Bird Preservation with the support of the Conseil International de la Chassc and other bodies, was attended by more than a hundred scientists, conservationists, sportsmen, falconers, foresters and agriculturalists from eleven countries. It included a busy programme of over twenty papers on such varying aspects as the relation of birds of prey to their environ- ment; the problems of agricultural chemicals (with an account by Dr. W. Przygodda of experiments carried out in Germany to determine their effects on individual birds); falconry and conservation; and a scries of reviews of the present status of birds of prey and owls in the various countries (among them a notable but horrifying summary by J.-F. Terrassc of their recent catastrophic decrease in France). An analysis of these reviews showed that a serious decline in numbers is general throughout western Europe, among the species most seriously affected being the Eagle Owl, Peregrine, Marsh Harrier, Goshawk, Golden Eagle, Short-toed Eagle and Kite. Whereas pesticides have been the chief factor in Britain, this is not necessarily so on the Continent. Drainage, felling and increased cultivation have destroyed many habitats; decreases in snakes, rabbits and carcasses have affected various buzzards, eagles and vultures; greater leisure and easier travel have resulted in the disturbance of once remote areas ; and there has been an enormous increase in shooting pressure in countries where birds of prey have only limited protection (two million gun licences are now issued annually in France, for example). Two notable contributions were Dr. P. H. Briill’s report on an exhaustive investi- gation into the food of Goshawks and Sparrowhawks in Germany, and Dr. David Jenkins’s summary of a five-year study of predation on a Scottish grouse moor. Both emphasised the way in which predators level the populations of their prey species by taking such surplus as unmated males and non-breeders (seven-eighths of a total of 500 Red Grouse killed in five years by Golden Eagles, Hen Harriers and Foxes were ones without territories and thus doomed to die anyway). Studies such as these have shown that predators do not control numbers of their prey, but rather that the presence of vulnerable prey is a controlling factor in the number of predators. In its resolutions the Conference stressed the need for existing protection measures to be properly enforced and wThere necessary strengthened. Minimum require- ments in countries where birds of prey are not already more adequately shielded include protection during the breeding season and on spring and autumn migration, the prohibition of the pole-trap and of the use of Eagle Owls as decoys, and the dropping of reward systems for killing birds of prey. At the same time it was agreed that an ultimate aim should be the complete elimination of the use of persis- tent chlorinated hydrocarbons and that, pending this, immediate steps should be taken to prohibit the more deadly forms. 257 BRITISH BIRDS Osprey trees in the news. — An old pine in the forest of Gyulaj, Hungary, has been declared a protected tree because Ospreys have nested there successfully for the past 1 5 years. The local forestry board has put up a notice warning lumbermen and ‘excursionists’ not to disturb the birds. By contrast, the Osprey tree at Loch Garten in Scotland was this spring found to have been partly sawn through by vandals, with the result that it had to be strengthened with steel splints to make it safe. I.C.B.P. conference in Northern Ireland. — The eighth conference of the European Continental Section of the International Council for Bird Preservation is taking place in Newcastle, Co. Down, from ist to 6th June. In a full agenda, items for discussion will include oil pollution, toxic chemicals, the protection of birds of prey, the problem of collisions between birds and aircraft, the threat to birdlife by drainage (in particular, the reserve of Voralberg in Austria) and the urgent need for protecting the Kingfisher in Germany. Untimely death of Rachel Carson. — Dr. Rachel Carson died in America on 14th April at the early age of 56. By training a marine biologist, she was an outstanding example of the rare combination of a scientist and a writer with the ability to produce fine, imaginative prose. This ability was clearly revealed in The Sea Around Us, the masterpiece which made her famous in 1951. But it was her Silent Spring, pub- lished in 1962, which had the greater impact in ornithological circles. This book is a passionate plea for more care and restraint in the use of pesticides, backed by a brilliant summary of the scientific background which has successfully withstood the attacks of often far from disinterested critics. A best-seller in many countries, it has been the most potent weapon in the battle fought by conservationists against the misuse of toxic chemicals. New Wildfowl Trust research centre. — A new research centre, costing £29,000, is to be built for the Wildfowl Trust at Slimbridge. The ground floor will com- prise exhibition rooms, of which one will be a lecture room and another the entrance hall to the grounds, with two large picture windows giving views of the Big Pen and of a new pond yet to be dug. On the first floor there will be seven workrooms for the research unit and a library with an information room. The research unit will work on fluctuations of wildfowl populations, migration, and food and habitat requirements, while Dr. G. V. T. Matthews will continue his studies of bird naviga- tion. A later, second phase will incorporate a new laboratory. New R.S.P.B. appointments. — John Clegg left the staff of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds at the beginning of April after two years as Education Officer; for the last six months of this time he was also temporarily editing Bird Notes. In his place, R. J. Taunton, previously Warden of the Y.M.C.A. National Training Centre near Ulverston, has been appointed Education Officer, while the new editor of Bird Notes is to be J. J. Boswell. At the same time, as part of the staff re-organisa- tion made necessary by the Society’s rapidly growing membership, C. Winnington- Ingram has been appointed Administrator, and David Lea, one-time Warden of Lundy Bird Observatory and then Assistant Curator of the Wildfowl Trust, is the new Reserves Manager. Research into conservation problems at reserves, partic- ularly Havergate and Minsmere, will be playing an increasing part in the work of the Society and P. J. S. Olney, previously a member of the research unit of the Wildfowl Trust, takes up the duties of Staff Biologist on ist June. Braunton Burrows National Nature Reserve.— Braunton Burrows in Devon, one of the largest sand-dune systems in Great Britain, which extends northwards for three and a half miles from the estuary of the rivers Taw and Torridge, has been 258 RECENT REPORTS declared a National Nature Reserve by the Nature Conservancy. While the area is known particularly for outstanding plants, it is also of ornithological interest as an important stopping point for such migrants as Merlins, Short-eared Owls and harriers, and as a breeding area for a wide variety of birds. Free access to the reserve by foot will continue, apart from restrictions on certain parts used by the military. N. F. Ticehurst’s 90th anniversary. — We think that our readers will want to join us in congratulating Dr. N. F. Ticehurst, internationally known as one of the authors of The Handbook, on a remarkable trio of longevity records. In 1959 he completed a half century as a member of the editorial board of British Birds and this year he has reached not only 70 years of membership of the British Ornithologists’ Union (of which he was one of the Vice-Presidents from 1959 to 1961) but also his 90th birthday. Individually, these milestones arc rare or even unprecedented; together, they seem unlikely ever to be equalled and we wish Dr. Ticehurst every success on his way to an undefeated century. Bird-watching at sea. — For as long as ships have gone about their lawful occasions — and, indeed, before they were lawful — birds have been a part of the mariner’s world, often as omens or as food. Yet many sailors have taken more than a purely supernatural or gastronomic interest in them. Captain Bligh, for instance, could describe ‘small blue petrels’ and ‘pintadas’ as beautiful and would measure the wing-spans of albatrosses, while his log of 1788 is full of such entries as ‘saw two hawks’ and ‘saw a land-bird like a lark’. Nevertheless, he did go on to describe the capture and feeding of birds which ‘improved wonderfully ... so that pintada birds became as fine as ducks and the albatrosses were as fat and not inferior in taste to farm geese’. Now, however, the accent on watching birds at sea is more strictly scientific, as is clearly revealed by the latest issue of The Sea Siva How, the 16th annual report of the Royal Naval Bird Watching Society. Formed in 1947 and now also open to the Merchant Navy and to the personnel of fishing fleets, the Society is steadily gaining in strength and recognition: there -were 273 members at the end of 1963. The report makes interesting reading. A large part is devoted to ‘Observations of sea birds’, prepared and systematically analysed by Dr. W. R. P. Bourne, and ‘Reports of land birds at sea’, summarised by Captain G. S. Tuck (the Chairman of the Society). There are also reports on the birds of islands in the Indian Ocean and of the Gilbert Islands, as well as some interesting short notes. The enthusiasm of R.N.B.W.S. members and their efforts to maintain the highest standards of observation are clear; so, too, is their eagerness to bring in more members — ‘how much more interesting that four-hour watch on the bridge or on deck when you can keep an eye lifted for any bird that passes’. The Honorary Secretary is Lieutenant Commander E. S. W. Maclure, R.N. (retd.), Melrose, 23 St. David’s Road, Southsea, Hampshire. Recent reports By I. J. Ferguson-Lees (These are largely unchecked reports, not authenticated records) This summary is confined to April. We hope to publish a survey of summer visitor arrivals in the next issue when all the records are in, but a rough outline is given here as a background to other occurrences. Although quite a few Wheatears Oenanthe oenantbe and ChifTchaffs Phylloscopus BRITISH BIRDS collybi/a arrived in March, together with Garganey Anas querquedula and Little Ringed Plovers Charadrius dubius, most of the other summer visitors had hardly put in an appearance by the end of that month {Brit. Birds, 57: 218-219). Moreover, there was very little in the way of further arrivals in the first eight or nine days of April. The only birds which did come in then were a thin scattering of Willow Warblers Pbylloscopus trocbilus , Blackcaps Sylvia a/ricapilla and Yellow Wagtails Alotacilla flava, and a few Sandwich Terns Sterna sandvicensis. Swallows Hirundo rus/ica, Sand Martins Riparia riparia and Redstarts Pboenicurus pboenicurus , while one or two other species — such as House Martin Delichon urbica. Cuckoo Cuculus canorus and Hobby Falco subblit eo — were represented by odd stragglers. Nevertheless, the end of this period did produce two rarer visitors in the Cley / Salthouse area (Norfolk): a drake Green- winged Teal Anas crecca carolinensis appeared on the 7th and stayed until the 8th, and on the latter day a Crane Megalornis grus flew over heading west. Then, suddenly, the four days from 9th to 1 2th April saw a big influx of Wheat- ears, Chiffchaffs and Willow Warblers, an increase in Blackcaps, Redstarts, Yellow Wagtails, Swallows and both martins, one or two more Cuckoos, and the first real arrival of Tree Pipits Anthus trivialis , Sedge Warblers Acrocephalus scboenobaenus. Garden Warblers Sylvia borin and Grasshopper Warblers Locustella naevia. About the same time, too, a number of Hoopoes Upttpa epops appeared in south coast counties and later also in Wiltshire, Oxfordshire and Glamorgan; they included up to four together at Portland (Dorset) from the 9th to the 16th. On the 1 oth Portland also produced an adult male Bluethroat Cyanosylvia svecica. The next few days, up to the 17th, saw bigger arrivals of many of the summer visitors already mentioned, as well as the first Wrynecks Jynx torquilla , White- throats Sylvia communis and Nightingales Fuscinia megarbynchos , and even odd Black Terns Cb/idomas niger in Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire and an early Swift Apus ap/ts in Wiltshire. By the 18th and 19th there had been a fall of Pied Fly- catchers Muscicapa bypoleuca in Devon and south Wales, Nightingales and Cuckoos were thinly spread, Yellow Wagtails, Tree Pipits and Redstarts were all being quite widely reported (though still in very small numbers) and the first Lesser Whitethroats Sylvia curruca and Reed Warblers Acrocepbalus scirpacens had appeared. There were also a few Turtle Doves Streptopelia turtur and Whinchats Saxicola rubetra about this time and a clear influx of Common Sandpipers Tringa bypoleucos, while Swallows and Sand Martins at last turned up in flocks of twenty or thirty. The last ten days of the month saw a strengthening of this position, a considerable passage of Yellow Wagtails about the 22nd-24th, and also a few more Swifts (though not apparently any early influx as in several other recent years). The ten days from the 18th also produced an interesting crop of rarities. These were mainly southern and eastern species of the kind which turn up each spring, usually in mid-May but in 1963 as late as early June (56: 270-271). On the 1 8th/ 19th a Red-throated Pipit Anthus cervinus arrived at Staines (Middlesex) and there was something of an influx of Little Gulls Larus minutus (including one at Staines). On the 19th, too, a male Subalpine Warbler Sylvia cant i llans was identified at Portland where it stayed until the 24th, being trapped and ringed on the 21st. On the 22nd and 23rd single Alpine Swifts A pus melba were seen at Minchead (Somerset) and near Horncastle (Lincolnshire) respectively. From the 24th to the 26th there was a Woodchat Shrike L anius senator at Holme (Norfolk), on the 25th a Red-rumped Swallow Hirundo daurica at Ruxley (Kent), and on the 27th two Night Herons Nycticorax nycticorax near Rushden (Northamptonshire). Finally, unusual concentrations of Redpolls Carduelis flammca were reported in several parts of south-east England during April. These included, for example, over a thousand at Bramfield (Hertfordshire) on the 19th, when there were also about 600 a few miles away at Broxbourne. A PURCKAitU. New ROSS BINOCULARS LEITZ TRINOVID 10x40 Revolutionary in design, this new featherweight binocular is unbeliev- ably compact. Its performance is positively brilliant and at £69 19s. 6d. it is well worth the money. JAPANESE BINOCULARS 10 X 40 Ross Solaross. This is probably the best buy in the Ross Solaross range and we would be inclined to think that it repre- sents the best value obtainable today in a British glass of good quality. It is beauti- fully balanced and streamlined, weighs only 26 oz. and is fairly compact with a height of 6.V in. We are supplying with this bino- cular a first quality English-made hide case. Inclusive cost £19 19s. Od. Where high power is required, we would suggest the Ross 16 > 60 at £32 8s. 8d. with hide case. The pick of the world's great instruments on 14 days' free trial SEND FOR NEW ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE (CHARLES FRANK LTD. 557-75 Saltmarket Glasgow C.1 Phone. BELL 2106/7 Est. 1907 If they are good, they can be very, very good and we have selected certain models which we can recom- mend with the utmost confidence and which we market under our own name: 8 x 30 centre focus and coated £12 10s. 10 x 50 centre focus and coated £18 1 0s. 6x 30 ARMY BINOCULARS An excellent general-purpose binocu- lar of good performance, which will stand up to a great deal of rough usage (cost approximately £20) £7 15s. Od. New hide case optional extra at 25s. For wildfowling or when extremely high light transmission is required, we would suggest the Canadian Naval 7 x 50 binocular ac £24 or the new Russian 7x50 at £16 16s. Od. Both glasses are exceptionally good and it would be difficult to decide which is the better buy. The West Zone Zeiss 8x50 is possibly the 'ideal' wildfowling glass and it is available at £96 18s. Od. TELESCOPES We have a host of models from which to choose and can recommend the following: Ex-Admiralty 16x40 single-draw micrometer focusing, £5 18s. 6d. Pocket 3-draw telescope, magnifica- tion 25 x : an excellent auxiliary to your binoculars £2 2s. Od. Nickel Supra 15 to 60x: a tremen- dous advance in portable telescope design £36 12s. Od. The Charles Frank PANCRATIC 30 x to 55 x £7 17s. 6d. Irfri tain’s greatest stocks of New, Used and Ex-Govt, b inoculars, Telescopes and Navigational Equipment. The Charles Frank 22 x OG 50 mm. PRISMATIC with tripod, £22 10s. Od. Accredited agents for ROSS, BARR & STROUD, WRAY and ZEISS (both East and West Zones) From Russia, we have a MAKSUTOV triple turret telescope of fantastic power and performance. Wt. 32 lb., price £250. Details on request. The West Wales Naturalists’ Trust Ltd (formerly the West Wales Field Society) Membership of the Trust is open to all who are interested in the study and conservation of wild life in Wales. The annual subscription of £1 Is. Od. (£1 by Bankers’ Order) entitles members to: (a) free issue of Nature in Wales which appears half-yearly; (b) field excursions, lectures and meetings; (c) visit, without landing fee, the island sanctuaries and nature reserves of Skomer, St. Margaret’s, Skokholm, Cardigan Island and Grassholm (owned by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and wardened by the Trust). The activities of the Trust include the co-operative study of animals, birds and seals and the recording of their distribution and habits. publications (post free): The Birds of Carmarthenshire by G. C. S. Ingram and H. Morrey Salmon, 5s.; A List of Pembrokeshire Plants by F. L. Rees, 3s.; Skokholm Bird Observatory Reports for each year to 1963, 3s. each; Nature in Wales, back numbers, 3s. THE WEST WALES NATURALISTS’ TRUST LTD 4 Victoria Place, Haverfordwest, Pembs SMALL ADVERTISEMENTS 72/- for 3 tines (minimum); 4/- for each extra line or part thereof. For the use of a Box- Number there is an extra charge of If. Private park especially sited for bird- watchers on north Norfolk coast. Luxury caravans available. All amenities. Details Mrs. B. Hickey, 34 Kinnaird Way. Cambridge. Near Poole Hbr, Studland, Brownsea, Purbecks. Bed & breakfast, packed lunches. Macdonald, 3 Chatsworth Road, Parkstone, Poole, Dorset. For sale. British Birds, 1951 July-Decem- ber; 1952-63 complete. What offers? Box JE124. Zoological Record Section Aves 1962 This indispensable biblio- graphy, compiled by Lt.-Col. W. P. C. Tenison, D.S.O., is an annual list of ornithological literature in all parts of the world. Full references are given with authors and titles, and they are indexed under species, subjects and countries. The latest issue covers over 2,500 articles and books pub- lished mainly in 1962 and is obtainable, at a cost of 21s. (including postage), from The Zoological Society of London REGENT’S PARK LONDON, N.W.I Notice to Contributors British Birds publishes material dealing with original observations on the birds of Britain and western Europe, or, where appropriate, on birds of this area as observed in other parts of their range. Except for records of rarities, papers and notes are normally accepted only on condition that the material is not being offered to any other journal. Photographs (glossy prints showing good contrast) and sketches are welcomed. Proofs of all contributions are sent to authors before publication. After publication, 25 separates of papers are sent free to authors (two or more authors of one paper receive 15 copies each); additional copies, for which a charge is made, can be provided if ordered when the proofs arc returned. Papers should be typewritten with double spacing, and on one side of the sheet only. Shorter contributions, if not typed, must be clearly written and well spaced. Notes should be worded as concisely as possible, and drawn up in the form in which they will be printed, with signature in block capitals and the writer’s address clearly written on the same sheet. If more than one note is submitted, each should be on a separate sheet, with signature and address repeated. Certain conventions of style and layout arc essential to preserve the uniformity of any publication. Authors of papers in particular, especially of those containing systematic lists, reference lists, tables, etc., should consult the ones in this issue as a guide to general presentation. English names of species should have capital initials for each word, except after a hyphen (e.g. Willow Warbler, Black-tailed Godwit), but group terms should not (e.g. warblers, godwits). English names are those used in The Handbook of British Birds, with the exception of the changes listed in British Birds in January 1953 (46: 2-3). The scientific name of each species should be underlined (but not put in brackets) immediately after the first mention of the English name. Subspecific names should not be used except where they are relevant to the discussion. It is sometimes more convenient to list scientific names in an appendix. Dates should take the form ‘1st January 1964’ and no other, except in tables where they may be abbreviated to ‘1st Jan.’, ‘Jan. ist’, or even ‘Jan. 1’, whichever most suits the layout of the table concerned. It is particu- larly requested that authors should pay attention to reference lists, which otherwise cause much unnecessary work. These should take the following form : Tucker, B. W. (1949): ‘Species and subspecies: a review for general ornitholo- gists’. Brit. Birds, 42: 1 29-1 34. Witherby, H. F. (1894): Forest Birds: Their Haunts and Habits. London, p. 34. Various other conventions concerning references, including their use in the text, should be noted by consulting examples in this issue. Tables should be numbered with arabic numerals, and the tide typed above in the style used in this issue. They must cither fit into the width of a page, or be designed to fit a whole page lengthways. All tables should be self-explanatory. Figures should be numbered with arabic numerals, and the capdons typed on a separate sheet. All line-drawings should be in indian ink on good quality drawing paper (not of an absorbent nature) or, where necessary, on graph paper, but this must be light blue or very pale grey. It is always most important to consider how each drawing will fit into the page. The neat insertion of lettering, numbers, arrows, etc., is perhaps the most difficult part of indian ink drawing and, unless he has had considerable experience of this kind of work, an author should seek the aid of a skilled draughtsman. Recently published books available from WITHERBY’S BOOKSHOP The Life of Birds by Joel Carl Welty. 84s. The Waterfowl of the World, Vol. IV, by Jean Delacour. Illustrated by Peter Scott. 6 gns. Birds of the London Area by the London Natural History Society. A revised edition with a new set of excellent illus- trations. 42s. The Shell Gardens Book. 320 pages of brilliant and original writing on gardens. Illustrated with 12 double-page colour plates, 120 photographs and 38 line drawings. 21s. Birds’ Nests and Eggs ( Instructions to Young Ornithologists V) by C. J. O. Harrison. Illustrated. 15s. Birds of the Atlantic Islands, Vol. I, by D. A. Bannerman. 84s. The Birds of the British Isles, Vol. XII, by D. A. Bannerman and G. E. Lodge. 63s. A Study of Bird Song by Edward A. Armstrong. 17 plates and 335 pages. 45s. Gardens of England and Wales. Those open to the public under the National Gardens Scheme. Illustrated Guide 1964. 2s. 6d. The Handbook of British Mammals edited by H. N. Southern. The first complete handbook of British mammals to be pub- lished in this country. Written by members of the Mammal Society of the British Isles, edited by H. N. Southern and illustrated mainly by Robert Gillmor. 512 pages, 55 text figures, 60 photographs. 37s. 6d. Wildfowl in Great Britain edited by G. L. Atkinson-Willes. A complete survey of distribution and habitats. 14-page colour section from paintings by Peter Scott. 28 half-tones, 60 line drawings and 364 pages. 45s. The Shell and BP Guide to Britain edited by Geoffrey Boumphrey. A complete guide to all the counties of Eng- land, Scotland and Wales. 936 pages, 32 pages of maps, heavily illustrated. Exceptional value. 30s. Please address all enquiries to The Manager, VVitherby’s Bookshop 61/62 Watling Street, London, F..C.4 or telephone City 5405 ALL BOOKS SENT POST FREE Printed in England by Diemer & Reynolds Ltd., Eastcotts Road, Bedford Published by II. F. & G. Withcrby Ltd., 61/62 Watling Street, E.C.4 British Birds rincipal Contents *4 JUL J964 HAS Report on rare birds in Great Britain in 1963 (with 1958 and 1962 additions) D. D. Harber and the Rarities Committee Field-identification of Hippolais warblers D. I. M. Wallace (with two plates) Notes Letters News and comment Vol. 57 No. 7 July 1964 THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE British Birds AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY JOURNAL Editors Stanley Cramp, I. J. Ferguson-Lees, P. A. D. Hollom, E. M. Nicholson 'Photographic Editor Eric Hosking 'Editorial Address 30 St. Leonard’s Avenue, Bedford ‘News and Comment’ Rarities Committee Raymond Cordero D. D. Harber Rohan Lodge, Wadhurst Park 59 Eridge Road Wadhurst, Sussex Eastbourne, Sussex Contents of Volume 57, Number 7, July 1964 Page Report on rare birds in Great Britain in 1963 (with 1958 and 1962 additions). By D. D. Harber and the Rarities Committee . . . . . . . . 261 Field-identification of Hippolais warblers. By D. I. M. Wallace (plates 42-43) 282 Notes : — Gannet swallowing 17-inch splinter of wood (Paul Harvey) (plate 45b) . . 301 Passerines feeding on tidewrack (P. F. Goodfellow) . . . . . . 302 Raven catching Rock Dove in the air (N. Elkins) . . . . . . . . 302 Goldfinch feeding tit-like on peanuts (D. G. Lawson) . . . . . . 302 Letters : — The Rarities Committee’s decision to delete certain species from its list (R. A. O. Hickling; S. Boddy, T. W. Gladwin, C. J. Mead and Robert Spencer; and P. A. D. Hollom) .. .. .. .. .. .. 303 Requests for information : — Spread of the Collared Dove in Britain and Ireland (Robert Hudson) . . 307 Colour-marked Swifts (C. Bower) . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 News and comment. Edited by Raymond Cordero . . . . . . 308 Annual subscription £ 2 6s. (including postage and despatch) payable to H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Watling Street, London, E.C.4 A unique and wonderful record The Birds of the British Isles VOL. XII D. A. BANNERMAN and G. E. LODGE A TAPESTRY OF BRITISH BIRD SONG FIRST-EVER FULL-LENGTH LP OF BRITISH BIRD SONG The twelfth and final volume of this well-known series deals with the skuas or robber-gulls, auks, guille- mots, razorbills, puffins, rails, crakes, coots, moor- hens and game birds The dawn chorus . . . ‘recitals’ by more than 50 birds... song of the nightingale — all this is wonderfully captured for you by Victor C. Lewis. With the record comes a 4-page leaflet giving notes on each of the species heard. JAMES FISHER writes of this record : "All the top songsters are really beauti- fully done , and all the birds’ voices are woven into an accurate and heart- warming evocation of the ivild." HMV CLP1 723 (mono) HIS MASTER’S VOICE Available from all His Master's Voice record dealers. f M.l. RecordsLtd.. [ .M l. House, ?0 Manchester Square, tondon W.l Beautifully illustrated by the late George E. Lodge, as were the previous volumes, this book is well up to the high standard which we have come to expect from Dr. Bannerman 63s OLIVER & BOYD Swoop — a proven aid to ornithologists and a vital food for hungry birds You can use Swoop wild bird food for scientific or for humanitarian reasons, or for both as you prefer. It has very apparent uses as bait for bird photography and study — and equally it is vital to the actual existence of wild birds in adverse conditions. Swoop’s balanced formula of twelve different foods — each carefully test- ed for acceptance by granivorous, insectivorous and omnivorous birds • — has been shown to attractno fewer than 34 different species, including Redwing, Goldcrest, Snow Bunting, Crossbill, and even Woodcock. Recommended and used by the R.S.P.B., Swoop wild bird food is available at all grocers and pet shops. fi'vhmtpybhrls Price 1/11 per pack. SWOOP balanced- j formula wild bird food Swoop gives life to hungry birds British Birds Vol. 57 No. 7 July- 1964 Report on rare birds in Great Britain in 1963 (with 1958 and 1962 additions) By D. D. Harber and the Rarities Committee This, our sixth rfport, has been prepared after the examination of about 250 records for 1963. Allowing for the removal from our list of the sixteen species announced in our 1962 report {Brit. Birds, 56: 394), this total is about the same as that for the previous year. How- ever, it does not include the numerous observations of Cranes in October and November, which are to be the subject of a special analysis. At the end of the report can be found a belated record for 1958 and 18 additional ones for 1962 (it should be noted that in the cases of past years we still include, for completeness, all the species which were then on our list even if they have since been dropped). A very few 1963 records remain outstanding, either because they present special problems or because they were sent in late. Our views have been requested and given on a number of observations from Ireland and we have also been glad to help county organisations over partic- ular records of species not on our list. The composition of the Committee is unchanged with P. A. D. Hollom (Chairman), D. D. Harber (Hon. Secretary), D. G. Bell, A. R. M. Blake, Peter Davis, M. F. M. Meiklejohn, G. A. Pvman, F. R. Smith, R. Wagstaffe and D. I. M. Wallace. As was promised in our last report, there have been virtuallv no unnecessary delays in considering records sent in over recent months. In fact, it has often been possible to let observers and county recorders have decisions within five or six weeks. It will be seen that the present report is out earlier in the year than any of its predecessors (with the exception of that for i960, which appeared in May) and we hope to be able to pub- lish future reports in June or July. The principles and procedure we follow in considering records were explained at length in the 1958 report (Brit. Birds, 53: 155-156). No 261 BRITISH BIRDS further changes have been made in our list of species since those announced in the 1962 report, but, as there have now been quite a number of deletions and additions since the list was last published in full in the 1961 report, a revised version is reproduced as appendix 2 on pages 280-281. The systematic list of records below is set out in the same way as its predecessors. The following points, some of which were outlined more fully in the 1958 report (Bril. Birds, 53: 156-158), should be borne in mind since they show the basis on which the information has been put together: (i) The scientific nomenclature follows that given in the B.O.U. Check-list of the Birds of Great Britain and Ireland (1952), with the amendments subsequently proposed (Ibis, 98: 157-168) and those resulting from the decisions of the Inter- national Commission for Zoological Nomenclature (Ibis, 99: 369). Any sight records of subspecies (including those of birds trapped and released) are normally referred to as ‘showing the characters’ of the race concerned. (ii) No record which would constitute the first for Great Britain and Ireland is published by us, even if we consider it acceptable, until it has been passed by the Records Committee of the British Ornithologists’ Union. (iii) In general, the report is confined to records which are regarded as specifi- cally certain. ‘Probables’ are never included and square brackets are used only to denote likely escapes from captivity. In the case of the very similar Long-billed and Short-billed Dowitchers dninodromus scolopaceus and L. griseus , however, we are continuing to publish indeterminate records and this will also apply to observations of such ‘difficult’ groups as frigate-birds Fregata spp. and albatrosses Diomedea spp. if and when they occur. (iv) The basic details included for each record are (1) county; (2) locality; (3) number of birds if more than one, and age and sex if known; (4) if trapped or found dead; (5) date or dates; and (6) observer or observers up to three in number, in alphabetical order. Other relevant information is sometimes added at the end of individual records and general comments may be given in a subsequent para- graph; although the report as a whole is confined to Great Britain, these general comments cover Ireland as well. One aspect of this presentation needs to be discussed more fully. We limit the names of observers to three (adding cet aid if more were involved) because some birds are seen by quite a number of people, sometimes even dozens, and clearly a line has to be drawn somewhere. However, it is often not easy to select three names ‘fairly’ and, in fact, we have had an occasional complaint about some particular choice. We think, therefore, that we should explain the method of selection. Firstly, the observer who found the bird, even if he or she did not succeed in identifying it, has an obvious right to be mentioned. Secondly, if the finder did not identify it correctly, the person who first named it clearly has an equal right. Thirdly, if neither of these has sent in a full description, someone else who has done so likewise has a good claim. Finally, added authentication of a rare or ‘difficult’ species can sometimes be provided by including the name of an obser- 262 RARE BIRDS IN GREAT BRITAIN IN I 9 6 3 ver of well-known experience and reliability. Where it is possible for us to take all these considerations into account, we usually have little difficulty in deciding which names should follow a record. But quite often we are merely given the names of a number of observers and, in the absence of any guidance, have to select three (sometimes out of only four or five) in a very arbitrary manner. It would therefore be most helpful if the observers or county editors concerned in such cases would indicate to us which names they think should be published. In conclusion, we must once again thank the individual observers and local organisations who have given us so much assistance in preparing this report. All records should continue to be sent direct to the Hon. Secretary who, please note, has now changed his address to 59 Eridge Road, Eastbourne, Sussex. Systematic list of 1963 records accepted White-billed Diver ( Gavia adamsii ) Sutherland: Loch Fleet, near Golspie, found dead, 7th April (Dr. I. D. Pcnnie). There are now about 19 records of this arctic Russian and Siberian species, all between Shetland and Yorkshire during November-June and all but three since 1946. Cory’s Shearwater ( Procellaria diomedea) Cornwall : between Isles of Scilly and Wolf Rock, 28th September (M. J. Carter, E. Griffiths, R. W. E. Williams et al.). This was the only 1963 record in Britain of this east Atlantic and Mediterranean bird, but, for the second year in succession, remarkable numbers were seen off Cape Clear Island, Co. Cork, including some 200 on 14th July (Brit. Birds, 57: 200-202). Purple Heron ( Ardea purpurea) Berkshire: between Long Wittenham and Didcot, 17th to 20th February (H. Mayer-Gross, Tomoo Royama et al.). Kent: Dungencss, 5th May (R. C. Homes); Tenterden, sub-adult (J, found in weak condition, 19th July, subsequently died (E. G. Philp). Northumberland : Cresswell, 24th and 25th April (M. Bell, M. Marquiss, C. Watson et al.). Somerset: Blagdon Lake, 12th to 17th May (R. J. Prytherch et al.). Suffolk : Minsmere, adult, 24th June to 23rd August, and immature, 29th August to 7th September (H. E. Axell, P. J. Makepeace et al.). Sussex : Sidlcsham, first-winter, found injured, 22nd November, had probably been present in area for at least a week, subsequently died (M. Shrubb et al.). This summer visitor to the Netherlands and southern Europe is now an annual vagrant to Britain, but the total of eight listed here is more 263 BRITISH BIRDS than in any previous year and the one in Berkshire was outside the normal April-October (the Sussex bird was unable to fly and could have been present in October). Little Egret ( Egretta gar^etta) Cornwall: Marazion Marsh, 28th July (B. Pattenden, P. Pearce). Hampshire: Newtown Estuary, Isle of Wight, 25th to 28th September (C. M. James, C. Lucas, Mrs. M. M. Seabroke). Isles of Scilly: St. Mary’s, 8th to 20th April (Dr. C. J. Leonard, R. J. Thomson et al.). In spite of the caveat in The Handbook, this species is now also an annual vagrant here from southern Europe, chiefly on the south coast during April-September. However, we must again point out that most descriptions do not exclude the Snowy Egret E. thnla of North America, which might conceivably cross the Atlantic and is virtually indistinguishable in the field when not in breeding plumage. Cattle Egret (. Ardeola ibis ) [Somerset : Portishead, 29th October to 15 th November (R. D. Hawley, J. F. Rowe, G. Sweet et al .)] Two Cattle Egrets were found to be missing from Whipsnade Zoo, Bedfordshire, when the annual census was taken at the end of 1963 and it seems likely that this was one of them. In the last 35 years Cattle Egrets have occurred in various parts of the country but most of these have been escapes (see The Handbook ) and only four British records, involving a total of seven individuals, are accepted as genuinely wild. This is a resident species in southern Spain and Portugal, and in Europe it wanders north much less than the other herons. Night Heron ( Nycticorax nycticorax ) Huntingdonshire: Stibbington, adult, 9th July (R. H. Forster). As has been pointed out previously (e.g. Bril. Birds, 53: 159-160), records of this species may relate to escapes from Edinburgh Zoo. Little Bittern ( Ixobrychus minutus ) Hampshire: Boscombe, Bournemouth, $, found dying, 21st April (Miss H. J. Brotherton, F. R. Clafton et al.). Norfolk: Barton, 28th August (G. E. Phillippo). Green- winged Teal (Anas crecca carolinensis) Drakes showing the characters of this American race were reported as follows : Cheshire : Rosthernc Mere, 1st to 9th April (S. C. Joyner, J. Osborne, P. H. Oswald et al.). 264 RARE BIRDS IN GREAT BRITAIN IN I 9 6 3 Cornwall: Marazion Marsh, 15th May (Rev. J. E. Beckerlegge). Inverness-shire: Moray Firth, 5th to 22nd February (R. H. Dennis). Suffolk: Butley Creek, 21st April (C. G. D. Curtis, H. J. Lee, J. O. Wright et a/.). Although there were only four or five records up to 1939 (see The Handbook), the Green- winged Teal is now proving an annual vagrant and the total of four listed here is more than in any previous year. American Wigeon (. Anas americana) [Hampshire: Titchfield Haven, 22nd December (R. Brown, A. Searle, W. H. Truckle et a/.).] Three juveniles, part of a brood raised in a collection, escaped at Portsmouth in August 1962; only one was subsequently found dead. Ring-necked Duck (Ajtbja collaris ) Inverness-shire: Loch Morar, immature o, 2nd and 27th January (R. H. Dennis, Miss M. T. MacDonnell). This North American species was not recorded over here until 1955, but there has now been a total of five or six in Britain and Ireland. An adult male in Armagh, Northern Ireland, in October-November 1963 was presumed to be the one recorded at the same place in i960 and 1961 {Brit. Birds , 54: 72-73). Ferruginous Duck ( Ay thy a nyroca ) Huntingdonshire: St. Ives, d, 23rd November to 14th December, and first- win ter, 1st to 14th December (G. M. S. Easy, B. S. Milne, A. E. Vine et a/.). Kent : Ruxley gravel-pits, near Sidcup, $ or immature, 27th October (R. Q. Hay- field, F. J. Holroyde). Nottinghamshire : Holme Pierrepont gravel-pits, $ or immature, 24th November to 13th December (A. Dobbs, Dr. R. J. Raines, D. J. Young et a/.). Oxfordshire: Stanton Harcourt, 9th to 13th November (J. J. Spooner). Numbers of this species occur in captivity where they sometimes hybridise with Tufted Ducks A.fnligula and Pochards A.ferina. Such hybrids, particularly female Ferruginous X Pochard, can be very con- fusing in the field. Surf Scoter ( Melanitta per spirit kata') Hampshire : off St. Catherine’s Point, Isle of Wight, accompanied by possible 9, 1 8th April (B. P. Bryant, J. H. Taverner). This North American duck is now recorded in most years, but comparatively seldom on the south coast. Ruddy Shelduck ( Casarca ferruginea ) [Norfolk: Holkham Park, 15th September (C. A. E. Kirtland).] 265 BRITISH BIRDS This species is frequently kept in captivity and single records such as this are more likely to refer to escapes than to wild birds. Lesser White-fronted Goose ( Anser erjthropus) Norfolk: Yare Valley, two adults, 6th January, and one, 27th January (M. J. Seago); Halvergate Marshes, adult, probably one of the Yare Valley birds, nth January (R. J. Johns); Acle Marshes, immature, 25th February (R. F.. Emmett, D. I. M. Wallace, Mrs. D. I. M. Wallace). Up to 1945 this north-east European and north Asian summer- visitor was regarded as a very rare winter vagrant here, and only two records had been accepted, but since then a number have been identi- fied, particularly in Gloucestershire, Norfolk and Kirkcudbrightshire, and the six years 1958-63 produced a total of no less than 21; since 1961 the majority have been in Norfolk. The ones in Gloucestershire have been with White-fronted Geese A. albifrons , and those in Norfolk and Kirkcudbrightshire with Bean Geese A. fabalis. Red-breasted Goose ( Branta ruficvllis) Devon : Bickham, 4th to 8th March (A. MacFarlane, Lady Roborough, A. F. Soper et al.). Gloucestershire: Slimbridge, 31st December 1963 to 8th March 1964 (Hugh Boyd, M. A. Ogilvie, Peter Scott et al.). There are now about twenty accepted records of this winter vagrant from arctic Siberia, all October-March. Other occurrences have been traced to escapes from waterfowl collections. Red-footed Falcon (Fa/co vespertinus) Dorset: near Wareham, d, 27th July (H. G. and W. B. Alexander). Kent : Dungeness, $, 9th to 22nd June (V. A. Green, G. J. Harris, R. E. Scott et al.). Lancashire: near Southport, d> 26th January to 4th February (Dr. J. A. Harrison, M. E. Harrison, R. Wagstaffe et al.) (Brit. Birds, 56: 220). Lincolnshire: Grantham sewage-farm, d> 8th September (A. Dobbs, Mrs. H. Dobbs). This summer-visitor to Europe and Asia is now proving an annual vagrant, chiefly April-June. The 1963 pattern was unusual in that it included only one in spring as against two in autumn and one in winter, the last being particularly remarkable as this insectivorous falcon normally winters in Africa. Crane ( Grus grits ) On 30th October a remarkable influx of Cranes occurred in southern England, the counties most affected being Sussex and Hampshire with lesser numbers in Dorset and Somerset and a few in Devon, Cornwall, 266 RARE BIRDS IN GREAT BRITAIN IN I 9 6 3 Essex and Cambridge. By 3rd November all but a few stragglers had left. Even approximate numbers are difficult to determine owing to parties up to about a hundred strong flying in large circles and thus being recorded as different birds by observers in widely separated localities. Some parties also tended to break up into smaller units or to join together into larger ones. But it seems that a fair estimate of the total involved would be about 500, though this could well be below the true figure. A similar influx took place at about the same time in other parts of western Europe and it is intended to publish separately a full account which will include details of the British records. Great Bustard ( Otis tarda) Norfolk : South Creake, $, found dead beneath power cables, 28th March, and now preserved in the Castle Museum, Norwich (Mrs. R. M. Barnes, F. W. Perowne, M. J. Scago) (Brit. Birds, 57: 181). This was the first British occurrence for 27 years (the last having been in Shetland in May 1936) of a former breeding species which is now becoming increasingly scarce on the Continent. It followed an influx of Great Bustards in Belgium which was believed to have been due to the exceptional severity of the 1962/63 winter. Sociable Plover (Cbettusia gregaria) Devon: Taw Estuary, 23rd September to 12th November (J. Coleman-Cooke, D. A. Eason, F. R. Smith et alt). Eight records of this south-east Russian and Asian wader are now accepted, all August-December apart from one in April. Long-billed Dowitcher ( "Lirntiodrowus scolopaceus) Caernarvonshire: Nefyn, shot 12th October, and now preserved in National Museum of Wales, Cardiff (J. Fisher, Col. H. Morrey Salmon, C. E. O. Wvnne Fifth). Short-billed Dowitcher ( Lirrmodrortius griseus) Lincolnshire/Norfolk: Wisbech sewage-farm, 28th September (P. Carah). Long-billed or Short-billed Dowitcher ( ’Litntwdromus scolopaceus or griseus) Hampshire: The Gins, 5th October to 2nd November (N. H. Pullen, J. Iff* Taverner). Lancashire: Frecklcton sewage-farm and Clifton marsh, 6th to 10th October (M. Jones, H. Shorrock, K. Smith). Suffolk: Havcrgate, 13th October to 20th December (F. D. Hamilton, R. J. Partridge). 267 BRITISH BIRDS A special paper by Dr. I. C. T. Nisbet, discussing the separation of the two North American dowitchers and analysing past British and Irish occurrences, accepted 41 records up to and including i960; at least twelve could be referred to the Long-billed species and only four to the Short-billed, and he concluded that most European records involve the former bird as their dates of late September-early Novem- ber coincide with its main migration period on the east coast of North America (Brit. Birds, 54: 343-356). However, the years 1961-63 pro- duced another 17 dowitchers and, although half of these were not specifically identified, no less than seven (one in Britain and six in Ireland) of the twelve in 1963 (five in Britain and seven in Ireland) proved to be Short-billed, thus bringing the total accepted records of this species in the two countries to eleven. Great Snipe ( Gallinago media) Buckinghamshire : Alderbourne and Rush Green watercress-beds, the one recorded at the end of 1962 {Brit. Birds, 56: 399) was last seen on 17th February (R. E. Emmett, P. J. Sellar, D. I. M. Wallace et a/.). Winter records of this vagrant from north-east Europe and Asia were formerly regarded as very rare, but of the nine records during 1958-63 no less than five were December-February. Solitary Sandpiper ( Tringa solitaria) Lincolnshire: Bardney Ponds, 10th to 12th August (G. Bundy, R. May, A. D. Townsend et al.). Eight records of this American wader are now accepted, all August- October apart from one in mid-July. Lesser Yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes) Dorset: Lodmoor, Weymouth, 26th September to nth October (F. R. Clafton, K. D. Edwards, D. E. Wooberry et al.). Hampshire: Farlington Marshes, 29th June to 1st September (J. V. Boys, M. Bryant, B. W. Renyard et al.). This American wader is now proving an annual vagrant, chiefly late July-September. Most of the 15 records in Britain and Ireland during 1958-63 were in southern counties, but the first date of the Hampshire bird above was unusually early. Marsh Sandpiper ( Tringa slagnalilis ) Co. Durham: Cowpen Marsh, Teesmouth, 25th to 29th May (D. G. Bell, E. C. Gatenby, P. J. Stead et al.). Kent : Swanscombc, 18th August to 2nd September (R. j. Elvey, K. H. Palmer, C. E. Wheeler et al.). About 14 records of this summer-visitor to east Europe and west 268 RARE BIRDS IN GREAT BRITAIN IN I 9 6 5 Asia are now accepted, all in England during April-Mav or August- October, but the two noted here were the first for some years. Terek Sandpiper ( "Tringa terek ) Hampshire: Pennington Marshes, 25th and 31st May (P. Hobby, E. Williams, E. J. Wiseman). Five records of this summer-visitor to north Russia and Siberia are now accepted, all but one during May-June and all since 1951. In Finland there has been some evidence of a recent westward spread: the species nested there sporadically from the end of the 19th century to 1913 and then, after a gap of more than 40 years, several times from 1955 onwards. Baird’s Sandpiper ( Calidris bairdii) Lancashire: Hutton Marsh, Ribblc estuary and Frecklcton sewage-farm, 22nd September to 6th October (M. Greenhalgh, H. Shorrock, P. J. Thompson et a/.). Eight records of this American species are now accepted, one May- June and the rest September-October. White-rumped Sandpiper ( Calidris fuscicollis) Co. Durham: Teesmouth, 13th to 17th August (R. T. McAndrcw', Dr. J. D. Summers-Smith, P. J. Stead et a!.). Hampshire: Titchfield Haven, 17th October (R. A. Cheke, J. R. Davison, Dr. C. Sutfern et al.). Lancashire: Southport, 28th September (L. Baird, P. R. Horrocks); Freckleton, 1 2th and 13th October (L. Eccles, M. Greenhalgh, P. J. Taylor et al.). Northumberland: Whittledene Reservoir, 29th and 30th September (E. L. Arnold, B. Little, P. J. Stead et al.). This is another American wader which is now proving an annual vagrant, chiefly late September-November, and the six years 1958-63 produced 20 in Britain and Ireland. Sharp- tailed Sandpiper ( Calidris acuminata) Co. Durham: Cowpen Marsh, adult, 21st to 24th August (F. G. Grey, R. T. McAndrcw, P. J. Stead et all). There are now seven records of this summer-visitor to north-east Siberia, including three during 1956-63; all but one in January have been August-October. Buff-breasted Sandpiper ( Tryngites subruficollis ) Isles of Scilly: Porthloo Beach, St. Mary’s, 18th September (Mrs. B. C. Palmer, C. D. Palmer, Miss E. M. Palmer et al.); St. Mary’s Airport, two, 28th and 29th September, and one, 2nd October (Mr. and Mrs. L. Roberts, R. Symons). 269 BRITISH BIRDS This American wader is now becoming an increasingly regular vagrant, particularly in September, and the four years 1960-63 pro- duced no less than 18 records (involving 22 individuals) in Britain and Ireland. Broad-billed Sandpiper (Limicola falcinellus ) Suffolk: Minsmere, 31st July (H. E. Axell, B. Briggs, P. J. Makepeace et al.). Black- winged Stilt ( Himantopus himantopus ) Cornwall: Marazion Marsh, 6th and 7th June (Rev. J. E. Beckerlegge, R. G. Had- den, B. Pattenden et al.). Stilt Sandpiper ( Micropalama himantopus ) Lincolnshire/Norfolk/Cambridgeshire: Wisbech sewage-farm, adult, trapped, 19th July to 7th August (G. Gould, J. A. Hardman, Dr. C. D. T. Minton et al.) (Brit. Birds, 57: 125-126). Sussex: Manhood End, Chichester Harbour, adult, 7th to 13th August (D. D. Harber, M. Shrubb, D. I. M. Wallace et al.) (Brit. Birds, 57: 126-127). There are now four records of this American bird which had never been identified in Europe before 1955. In 1963 one was also seen in Sweden on 13th July. Wilson’s Phalarope ( Phalaropus tricolor') Cornwall: Camel Estuary, 2nd September (A. H. Glanville, W. J. Julyan, R. J. Salmon). Co. Durham: Teesmouth, 12th and 13th October (D. G. Bell, B. Little, P. J. Stead et al.). Fife : Peppermill Dam, 1 9th to 25 th October (G. Dick, J. Potter, I. Taylor et al.). Tliis is another American species which was not identified in the British Isles until 1954, yet there has now been a total of 14 records during May-October (eight in England, three in Scotland, two in Wales and one in Ireland). Bonaparte’s Gull (Laras Philadelphia) Lancashire: Morecambe, immature, 4th November (M. Greenhalgh). About 15 records of this North American gull are now accepted, mostly October-February. Slender-billed Gull (Laras genei) Sussex: Rye Harbour, immature, 28th April (R. H. Charlwood) (Brit. Birds, 57: 81-82). This is the second Sussex and British record of this southern Pale- arctic species. 270 RARE BIRDS IN GREAT BRITAIN IN I 9 6 3 White- winged Black Tern ( Chlidonias leucopterus) Hampshire: off Hurst Castle, adult, nth and 18th August (P. Hobby, G. Wester- hoff, E. Williams). Kent: Dungeness, adult, 20th August (J. M. Campbell, Dr. J. G. Harrison, R. E. Scott et al.). Lincolnshire: Huttoft, adult, 28th September (K. Atkin, G. Bundy); mouth of River Nene, immature, 13th September (R. L. K. Jolliffe). This summer-visitor to south-east Europe and Asia is now proving an annual vagrant and each of the six years 1958-63 produced three to nine records, mostly May-June and August-September. Whiskered Tern ( Chlidonias hybrida ) Sussex: Darwell Reservoir, adult, 3rd September (D. D. Harbcr). Yorkshire: Easington, 18th and 19th May (T. D. Bisiker, R. F. Dickens, G. R. Edwards et al.). Compared with the White- winged Black Tern, this south European, Asian and African bird is still only a rare vagrant, but the six years 1958-63 produced a total of six records, all but the Sussex one above in May-June (though the species is much less distinctive in autumn). Gull-billed Tern ( Gelocbelidon nilotica) Dorset: Portland Bill, 20th October (Dr. J. S. Ash, J. B. Cox, D. G. Harris et all). Kent: Dungeness, 25th and 26th April (R. E. Scott); four, 26th June, and three, 27th June (R. E. Scott). Sussex: Sclscy Bill, 26th and 29th August (A. Allen, R. L. K. Joliffe, R. F. Porter). This tern, which nested in Essex in 1950 (Brit. Birds, 45: 337-339) and which breeds in various parts of the Continent, is now identified annually on the south coast from Kent to Dorset during April- September, but the Dorset bird noted here was unusually late. Snowy Owl {Njctea scandiaca) Aberdeenshire: Ben MacDhui, 1st June (F. C. Gribble, B. S. Owen et al.). Essex: Scwardstonbury, 2nd to 28th March (B. Hornygold, E. James, F. Riley et al.). Orkney: Eday, 20th June to 18th July (E. Balfour). Shetland: Fetlar, 14th June (L. S. Taylor); Ronas Hill, Mainland, 4th July (C. Booth). Formerly almost a regular winter visitor to northern Scotland, this circumpolar arctic owl is now a rare vagrant and the five years 1958-62 produced only three. The four June-July records listed here could conceivably refer to only two individuals, but the midsummer dates are nevertheless exceptional. Alpine Swift ( Apus melba ) Dorset: Portland Bill, 3rd to 5th April (II. A. Cheke, F. R. Clafton, M. Seaford et al.) ; Swanage, 2nd and 3rd September (H. G. Alexander). 271 BRITISH BIRDS Norfolk : Horsey Beach, 8th September (B. Harmer). Suffolk: Lowestoft, 6th September (F. E. Muddeman). This south European, Asian and African species is now an annual vagrant to southern England, and to a lesser extent elsewhere, during April-October; the six years 1958-63 produced a total of 24 records. The first Dorset record above is early, but there have been earlier or comparable occurrences in Devon (nth March 1930) and Co. Dublin (14th March 1833 and 3rd April 1938). Bee-eater ( Merops apiaster ) Cornwall: Falmouth, 10th November to 3rd December, subsequently found dead (Rev. J. E. Beckerlegge, Mrs. E. West, R. G. Hadden). Devon: Ottery St. Mary, 20th and 21st October (Dr. and Mrs. G. H. Gibbens, T. J. Richards). Somerset: Weston-super-Mare, three, 23rd April (R. Angles). This summer-visitor to Southern Europe and Asia, which nested in Midlothian in 1920 and in Sussex in 1955, is an annual vagrant and each of the six years 1958-63 produced one to six records. However, nearly all occurrences have been June-September and so the three listed here are all out of season, the Cornish one being exceptionally late (although it and the Devon record may refer to the same individual). Roller {Cor arias garrulus) Lancashire: Ainsdale, 6th and 7th June (P. Carah). Short-toed Lark ( Calandrella rinerea ) Shetland: Fair Isle, 25th September to 14th October (R. H. Dennis, P. Davis, B. R. Spence et al.). This bird belonged to the reddish southern type (as represented by the races rubiginosa, hermonensis and brachydactyla) and not to the greyish eastern type ( artemesia and longipennis) (see Brit. Birds , 48: 457-458). Nutcracker ( Nurifraga caryocatactes) Gloucestershire: Humblebee Wood, near Winchcombe, 28th September (V. Fawkes). Kent : Springhead, Northfleet, trapped, 26th August (B. J. Hendy). Most records of this vagrant from south and east Europe and Asia have been in the winter months and in the last two decades the species has become very rare here (only two in the five years 1958-62). The fact that there were two in 1963 is interesting, therefore, and their dates are unusual. Rock Thrush (A \onticola saxati/is) Devon: Eddystone Lighthouse, d1, 30th and 31st May (H. S. Taylor et al.). 272 RARE BIRDS IN GREAT BRITAIN IN I 9 6 3 Eight records of this summer visitor to central and southern Europe and Asia are now accepted, half of them May-June. Great Reed Warbler (. Acrocepbalus arundinaceus ) Cornwall : Marazion Marsh, 5 th to 8th June (Rev. J. E. Beckerlegge, R. G. Hadden). Lancashire: Leighton Moss, 17th July (M. Greenhalgh, P. Taylor). Leicestershire: near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, 5th June to 5th July (J. Crocker, P. H. Gamble et al.). Kent: Sandwich Bay, trapped, 14th and 15th May (D. M. Batchelor); Dungeness, trapped, 1st June (P. L. Britton, P. J. Grant, R. E. Scott et al.). This large warbler, which is a summer-visitor to so much of the adjacent Continent, is an annual vagrant, chiefly to southern England during May-June, and the six years 1958-63 produced a total of 21 records. It should be added that field observations, particularly those lacking a song description, do not normally exclude the Clamorous Reed Warbler A. stentoreus , especially the less rufous race brunnescerts, though such a species from southern Asia and Egypt, practically un- known in Europe, could hardly provide this number of records. Aquatic Warbler (. Acrocepbalus paludicola ) Devon: Slapton Ley, trapped, 3rd August (P. W. Ellicott, F. R. Smith); Lundy, trapped, 13th September (M. Crane, M. Jones, A. J. Vickery et all). Dorset: Portland Bill, 12th September (F. R. Clafton, S. R. Stobart). Kent: Dungeness, 1st September (D. I. M. Wallace); trapped, 21st September (H. G. Alexander, R. E. Scott, P. J. Wilson et all). Somerset : Blagdon Reservoir, 1 3th May (G. Sweet, Al. A. Wright) ; West Huntspill, 2 1st and 22nd September (E. G. Holt, B. E. Slade). This summer-visitor to eastern Europe now occurs in sufficient numbers each autumn to provide five to 19 records annually and the six years 1958-63 produced a total of over 60, almost all August- September but including odd ones in October and even November. Spring records such as the one at Blagdon, Somerset, noted above are exceptional, however. Subalpine Warbler ( Sylvia cantillans) Northumberland : Hauxley, q , trapped, 2nd and 3rd November (B. Galloway, E. Robson, B. Little et all). There are now twenty records in Britain and Ireland of this summer- visitor to southern Europe and the Mediterranean area. The one noted here is the fourteenth since 1951, but the date is exceptional as most have been May-June and no others later than 7th October. Rufous Warbler (Agroba/es galac totes) Lincolnshire: Butlin’s Holiday Camp, Skegness, trapped, 2nd to 9th September (C. Devlin, F. J. Lambert, B. Wilkinson et all). 273 BRITISH BIRDS Eight records of this summer-visitor to southern Europe and south- west Asia are now accepted, all September-October and all except the one above in south coast counties of England and Ireland. Greenish Warbler ( Phylloscopus trochiloides) Kent: Sandwich Bay, trapped, 30th August (D. M. Batchelor, K. Charman, D. F. Harle et al.). Isles of Scilly: St. Agnes, 26th and 27th November (J. A. Burton, C. Hart, G. Johnston). Up to 1945 this summer- visitor to north-east Europe and Asia had been recorded here only once, but by 1957 the total had risen to ten or more and in the six years 1958-63 there were a further 22; some of this increase may perhaps be related to the species’ extension of breeding range in the Baltic area. The dates of the one in Scilly noted here are late, but there have been three previous November records and one in January-February. Bonelli’s Warbler ( Phylloscopus bonelli) Cheshire: Delamere Forest, q in song, 19th May to 9th June (G. Cottrell, M. Standish, P. H. G. Wolstenholme et al.). Glamorganshire: Lavernock Point, 30th August (W. E. Jones). Kent: Dungeness, trapped, 2nd September (N. S. Barnes, R. E. Scott, Mrs. M. Waller et al.). There are now 15 records of this summer- visitor to central and southern Europe and the Mediterranean area, although the first one was not until 1948. This is almost certainly linked with the fact that the species has been spreading steadily northwards in Europe during the last 25 years. In this connection, the record here of a male in song in Cheshire for three weeks in May-June is of particular interest. Pallas’s Warbler (Phylloscopus proregulus) Hampshire : St. Catherine’s Point, Isle of Wight, 27th October (B. Duffin, E. Williams, E. J. Wiseman et al.). Kent: Dungeness, trapped, 31st October (R. E. Scott, A. J. Smith). Norfolk: Holme, trapped, 27th to 29th October (J. Crudass, T. R. E. Devlin, C. R. Knights et al.). Isles of Scilly: St. Agnes, 31st October (K. H. Hyatt, B. S. Milne). Suffolk: Walberswick, 16th November (G. L. Clark, D. J. Pearson, A. D. Ross). Yorkshire: Spurn, 3rd November (J. and P. E. Preston). There are now 1 3 records of this summer- visitor to southern Siberia, all October-November and, apart from those in Hampshire and Scilly noted here, all between Northumberland and Kent. Until 1951 there had been onlv one record and that as long ago as 1896, and, though at least one appeared in most years from 1957, there had 274 RARE BIRDS IN GREAT BRITAIN IN I 9 6 3 still been only seven by the end of 1962. The occurrence of these six between 27th October and 16th November was therefore quite extraordinary. In this connection, it is worth noting that there was also one at Cap Gris Nez, France, on 26th October 1963 and that the end of October and the beginning of November produced a number of unusually late Yellow-browed Warblers Pb. inornatus. Collared Flycatcher ( Muscicapa albicollis) Orkney: Newhill, Harray, <3, 30th May (E. Balfour, G. Flett). Four records of this summer-visitor to eastern F.urope (as far west as eastern France) are now accepted, all but one in May though the species is more likely to be overlooked in autumn when it is far less distinctive. Richard’s Pipit ( Antbus novaeseelandiae) Anglesey: Newborough Warren, 13th, 16th and 30th November (R. W. Arthur, P. Hope Jones). Devon: Northam Burrows, 1st September (R. F. Coomber); Lundy, two, 14th to 22nd September (D. B. lies, M. Jones, A. J. Vickery;. Kent: Sandwich Bay, 29th September (D. M. Batchelor, J. Harvey, J. Websper et a/.). Isles of Scilly: St. Agnes, 20th September (J. L. F. Parslow, D. R. Wilson), 17th to 19th October (G. J. Harris, B. S. Milne, M. J. Warren et a/.); St. Mary’s, 22nd October (A. M. Martin, B. S. Milne). Shetland : Fair Isle, 7th, nth, 13th and 19th October (R. H. Dennis, B. R. Spence). Staffordshire: Blithfield Reservoir, 8th April (E. G. H. Bacon, R. P. Bacon, A. R. Lowe). Yorkshire: Spurn, 9th November, found dead on 17th November (J. Cudworth et a/.). This summer- visitor to central Asia is an annual vagrant here, mainly on the east and south coasts during September-November, but there were more in 1963 than in any previous year. The autumn, in fact, was particularly notable for the number of records of large pipits: apart from these Richard’s Pipits and the Tawny Pipits listed below, several others were insufficiently described to be assigned to one species or the other. Tawny Pipit (. Antbus campestris) Cornwall: St. Ives Island, 6th to 8th May (R. Khan). Dorset: Portland Bill, 14th September (Dr. J. S. Ash). Hampshire: Needs Oar Point, 3rd September (J. H. Taverner). Middlesex: Perry Oaks sewage-farm, immature, 15th September (R. E. Emmett, D. I. M. Wallace et a! .); adult, 22nd September (C. M. Veysey). Shetland: Fair Isle, 6th June (P. Davis, B. R. Spence). 275 BRITISH BIRDS Sussex: Seaford Head, 8th September (M. H. Port); Rye Harbour, 14th September (K. Verrall); Langney Point, 16th September (L. A. Collins). This widespread summer- visitor to Europe and Asia is an annual vagrant here, especially on the south coast in September, but the Fair Isle one noted here was doubly unusual because spring records later than May are exceptional and there have been few previous occurrences in Scotland. Red-throated Pipit ( Anthus cervinus ) Co. Durham: Cowpen Marsh, 26th May (D. G. Bell, R. T. McAndrew, P. J. Stead et al.). Northumberland : Hauxley, trapped, 7th and 8th September (B. Little, E. Robson, P. Yeoman et al.). This summer-visitor to north-east Europe and Siberia is now proving an annual vagrant here; it was formerly regarded as almost exclusively an autumn wanderer, but five out of the twelve records in the six years 1958-63 have been in May. Woodchat Shrike ( Lanius senator ) Shetland: Fair Isle, adult, trapped, 2nd to 22nd June (P. Davis, B. R. Spence, R. A. Richardson et al.). Yorkshire: Spurn, adult, trapped, 20th September to 13th October (D. Booth, Dr. J. A. Harrison, A. R. Sumerfield et al.). This summer-visitor to western and southern Europe is an annual vagrant here, but to a fluctuating extent. Up to 1938 there had been no more than 50 records in all and the species was still regarded as irregular in the early 1950’s. Then more were recorded in the mid 1950’s, and in 1958 no less than 21; though in 1959 the figure dropped to 11, there were 21 again in i960. Since that time, however, there has been a marked drop in the numbers reaching Britain and Ireland, so much so that 1961, 1962 and 1963 produced only five, three and two. Of the 62 records during the six years 1958-63, 22 were in May, ten in June, one in July, 16 in August, eleven in September and two in October; most were in southern counties, but a fairly widespread scatter included odd ones as far north as Shetland, Northumberland and Cheshire. Rose-coloured Starling ( Sturms rosetts) Caernarvonshire: Bardsey, adult, 8th July (Miss C. J. Pratt, R. C. Pratt, M. P. M. Richards et all). [Lancashire: Formby, adult, 9th to 14th August (Mrs. E. M. Butler et al.).] [Wiltshire: between Mere and Kingston Deverill, adult, 16th March (C. R. Verner); Brinkworth, adult, 22nd to 28th July (P. J. Roberts et a!.).] As pointed out in previous reports, Rose-coloured Starlings are 276 RARE BIRDS IN GREAT BRITAIN IN 1963 being regularly imported as cage-birds, and, as it seems especially likely that those in Lancashire and Wiltshire had escaped from cap- tivity, these records are placed in square brackets. The Wiltshire records may, in fact, relate to the same individual. Baltimore Oriole ( Icterus galbula) Isle of Man: Calf of Man, immature trapped, 10th to 16th October (A. H. Morlcy, R. E. Rayment). There are now three records of this North American species, all in October in the six years 1958-63. Arctic Redpoll (Car due hs bornemanni') Inverness-shire: Tomnahurich, two redpolls showing the characters of this species, 4th January (R. H. Dennis). In view of the close similarity to bornemanni of some examples of flammea , which may as a result be almost indistinguishable in the field, we are treating sight records of Arctic Redpolls as we do those of well-defined races, i.e., as ‘showing the characters’ of this species. Scarlet Grosbeak ( Carpodacus erythrinus) Caernarvonshire: Bardsev, 9 or immature, trapped, 20th and 21st September (B. Bell, R. C. Pratt, R. Rolfc et al.). Orkney: Auskerry, 9 or immature, 23rd September (P. J. B. Slater). Pembrokeshire: Skomer, 9 or first-summer 12th and 13 th June (J. W. Donovan D. R. Saunders). Shetland: Fair Isle, 9 or immature, 4th September (P. Davis, A. R. Mainwood, J. Jones); three, 9 or immature, 8th September, and one, 9th September (P. Davis, B. R. Spence, R. H. Dennis). This summer-visitor to eastern Europe and Asia has long been known as a regular vagrant to Fair Isle, but in recent years it has been more widely recorded on the east coast down to Suffolk and in the Irish Sea south to the Isles of Scilly. Most are late August-early October and the June record in Pembrokeshire is quite exceptional; adult males are very rare and, although first-year males and all females are indistinguishable in the field, the majority of those in autumn are probably birds of the year. Two-barred Crossbill (Loxia leucoptera ) Hertfordshire: Bramfield Forest, <$, 22nd December (G. C. Gore). Black-headed Bunting (Emberi^a melanocepbala ) Caernarvonshire: Bardsey, d, trapped, 27th May (Miss C. J. Pratt, R. C. Pratt, R. Rolfc et al.). Though this species is kept in captivity, the above bird seems quite 277 BRITISH BIRDS likely to have been a genuine migrant and it occurred during a period when a number of other south European species were recorded. Yellow-breasted Bunting ( Emberi^a aureola) Fife: Isle of May, immature $ or adult $, trapped, 26th to 28th September (L. Adams, D. Eggeling, Dr. W. J. Eggeling et a/.). Shetland: Fair Isle, $ or immature, 3rd to 5th September (P. Davis, R. H. Dennis, B. R. Spence et al.) ; another, immature, trapped, 13th to 16th September (P. Davis, R. H. Dennis, B. R. Spence et al.). There are now 18 records of this summer-visitor to north-east Europe and northern Asia, all but two in September and all but three between Shetland and Norfolk. Up to 1957 there had been only nine records, but in the seven years from then to 1963 there were as many again and 1963 was the first year to produce three; this increase may perhaps be related to the species’ westward extension of breeding range into Finland from Russia and Siberia. Rustic Bunting (Emberi^a rustica ) Shetland: Fair Isle, $, trapped, 12th to 19th June (Mrs. A. Davis, B. Johannson, B. R. Spence et al.); 24th and 26th October (G. Barnes, R. H. Dennis). The June bird was ringed and subsequently recovered on or about 15th October 1963 on the Greek island of Khios. Little Bunting (Emberi^a pusilla ) Shetland : Fair Isle, trapped, 2nd to 4th November (R. H. Dennis et all). Supplementary 1958 record accepted Snowy Owl ( Njclea scatidiaca) Banffshire: Corse Maul, 22nd February (W. Dally, D. Miles). Supplementary systematic list of 1962 records accepted American Bittern ( Botaurus lentiginosus ) Caernarvonshire: Bardsey, 12th to 15th September, dying on latter date and now preserved in National Museum of Wales, Cardiff (B. D. Bell, F. R. Clafton, R. S. Thomas et all). Ferruginous Duck ( Aythya nyroca) Yorkshire: Scampston, $ or immature, 7th October and previously (E. W. Taylor et all). 278 RARE BIRDS IN GREAT BRITAIN IN 1963 Lesser White-fronted Goose ( Anser erythropus) Norfolk: Yarc Valley, adult, 31st December (P. R. Allard). Long-billed or Short-billed Dowitcher (JLimnodromus scolopaceus or griseus ) Northamptonshire: Pitsford Reservoir, 7th to 21st October (M. Goodman, J. L. Moore, Miss M. Walton et al.). Mediterranean Black-headed Gull ( Lams melanocephalus ) Hampshire: Langstone Harbour, adult, 17th March (G. H. Rees). Melodious Warbler ( Hippolais polyglot ta) Caernarvonshire: Bardsey, 7th September; nine trapped between 9th September and 2nd October (B. D. Bell, F. R. Clafton, D. L. Clugston et al.). Bonelli’s Warbler ( Pbylloscopus bonelli) Caernarvonshire: Bardsey, trapped, 1st and 2nd September (D. J. Bates, D. L. Clugston, P. Reading et al.); another, trapped, 15th and 16th September (B. D. Bell, F. R. Clafton, D. L. Clugston et al.). Woodchat Shrike ( Lanins senator') Isles of Scilly : St. Mary’s, adult, 31st August (T. R. J. Williams). Arctic Redpoll ( Carduelis hornemanni) Co. Durham: Durham, a redpoll showing the characters of this species, 3rd December (D. W. Simpson). Serin ( Serinus canarius) Isles of Scilly (correction): two, not one, were recorded on St. Agnes on 13th October (cf. Brit. Birds, 56: 407). Appendix i. Observations in ‘Recent reports’ not now accepted The following records were mentioned in ‘Recent reports’, but were found to be unacceptable upon fuller consideration. This list in- cludes all the records of this kind (apart from Irish ones) unless they were qualified by such terms as ‘apparent’ or ‘probable’, or unless they appeared in brief summaries without precise date or location. A few other observations remain outstanding, no decision having yet been reached on them. It should be noted that in a very few cases records mentioned in ‘Recent reports’ have not been submitted for our con- sideration, because they have either been withdrawn by the observers or been rejected by county recorders. It should once again be stressed that the rejection of records does not imply a slur on the observers concerned. Often it merely means that we considered the evidence insufficient for complete acceptance. 279 BRITISH BIRDS Red-footed Falcon Lesser Kestrel Dowitcher sp. Short-billed Dowitcher Black-winged Stilt Wilson’s Phalarope Gull-billed Tern Red-rumped Swallow Arctic Warbler Richard’s Pipit Serin Scarlet Grosbeak 1963 Studland, Dorset, 6th June(Br/V. Birds, 56: 271) Hauxley, Northumberland, 19th October (57: 45) Fremington, Devon, 21st September (56: 430) Havergate, Suffolk, 14th to at least 21st October (57: 45); this bird has been accepted simply as a dowitcher Chapel Point, Lincolnshire, 6th September (57: 45) Tresco, Isles of Scilly, 8th October (57: 45) Wisbech sewage-farm, Lincolnshire/Norfolk, 1st Sep- tember (56: 388) near Stodmarsh, Kent, 9th September (56: 388) Altrincham sewage-farm, 10th July (56: 304) Cley, Norfolk, 20th October (57: 45) Sandwich Bay, Kent, 10th October (56: 431) Dungeness, Kent, 27th July (56: 390) Fife Ness, Fife, 2nd to nth September (56: 431) Barns Ness, East Lothian, 5 th September (56: 390) Appendix 2. Full list of species which come under the consideration of the Rarities Committee The list which follows is based upon the British and Irish list, but naturally we are also interested in records of species which have not yet qualified for this. We are likewise concerned with a number of well-marked races, e.g. Green-winged Teal, Spotted Sandpiper, Black- headed Wagtail and Isabelline Shrike. But sight records of these (including ones examined in the hand and then released) are accepted only as ‘showing the characters’ of the race in question; we regard museum examination and comparison with skins as the only method of determining even well-marked races with certainty. White-billed Diver Black-browed Albatross Wilson’s Petrel Madeiran Petrel Frigate Petrel Little Shearwater Audubon’s Shearwater Cory’s Shearwater Bulwer’s Petrel Kermadec Petrel Collared Petrel Capped Petrel Magnificent Frigate-bird Purple Heron Little Egret Great White Heron Squacco Heron Cattle Egret Night Heron Little Bittern American Bittern White Stork Black Stork Glossy Ibis Flamingo Black Duck Baikal Teal Blue-winged Teal American Wigeon Ring-necked Duck Ferruginous Duck Bufflehead Surf Scoter Harlequin Steller’s Eider King Eider 280 Hooded Merganser Ruddy Shelduck Lesser White-fronted Goose Red-breasted Goose Egyptian Vulture Griffon Vulture Spotted Eagle Black Kite White-tailed Eagle Pallid Harrier Gyr Falcon Red-footed Falcon Lesser Kestrel Crane Sora Rail Baillon’s Crake Little Crake - RARE BIRDS IN GREAT BRITAIN IN 3963 American Purple Gallinule Great Bustard Little Bustard Houbara Bustard Sociable Plover Killdeer Caspian Plover Lesser Golden Plover Long-billed Dowitcher Short-billed Dowitcher Great Snipe Upland Sandpiper Eskimo Curlew Solitary Sandpiper Greater Ycllowlcgs Lesser Yellowlegs Marsh Sandpiper Terek Sandpiper Least Sandpiper Baird’s Sandpiper White-tumped Sandpiper Sharp-tailed Sandpiper Semipalmated Sandpiper Western Sandpiper Buff-breasted Sandpiper Broad-billed Sandpiper Black-winged Stilt Stilt Sandpiper Wilson’s Phalarope Pratincole Cream-coloured Courser Ivory Gull Great Black-headed Gull Bonaparte’s Gull Slender-billed Gull Ross’s Gull White-winged Black Tern Whiskered Tern Gull-billed Tern Caspian Tern Sooty Tern Bridled Tern Royal Tern Brunnich’s Guillemot Pallas’s Sandgrouse Rufous Turtle Dove Great Spotted Cuckoo Yellow-billed Cuckoo Black-billed Cuckoo Scops Owl Eagle Owl Snowy Owl Hawk Owl Tengmalm’s Owl Nighthawk Red-necked Nightjar Egyptian Nightjar Alpine Swift Needle-tailed Swift Bee-eater Blue-cheeked Bee-eater Roller Calandra Lark Bimaculated Lark White-winged Lark Short-toed Lark Lesser Short-toed Lark Crested Lark Red-rumped Swallow Nutcracker Wallcreeper Dusky Thrush Black-throated Thrush Siberian Thrush American Robin White’s Thrush Rock Thrush Olive-backed Thrush Grey-checked Thrush Desert Wheatear Black-eared Wheatear Pied Wheatear Isabelline Wheatear Black W heatear Red-flanked Bluetail Thrush Nightingale Cetti’s W'arbler Lanceolated Warbler River W'arbler Savi’s W'arbler Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler Moustached Warbler Thick-billed W'arbler Great Reed Warbler Blyth’s Reed W'arbler Paddyfield Warbler Aquatic W'arbler Olivaceous Warbler Booted W'arbler Orphean Warbler Sardinian Warbler Subalpine Warbler Rufous W'arbler Greenish Warbler Bonclli’s Warbler Arctic Warbler Pallas’s W'arbler Dusky Warbler Radde’s Warbler Firecrest (Scotland only) Brown Flycatcher Collared Flycatcher Alpine Accentor Richard’s Pipit Tawny Pipit Pechora Pipit Red-throated Pipit Yellow-headed Wagtail Lesser Grey Shrike W'oodchat Shrike Red-eyed Vireo Black-and- White Warbler Myrtle W'arbler Northern Waterthrush Yellowthroat Rose-coloured Starling Bobolink Baltimore Oriole Summer Tanager Rose-breasted Grosbeak Slate-coloured Junco Arctic Redpoll Citril Finch Serin Scarlet Grosbeak Pine Grosbeak Two-barred Crossbill White-throated Sparrow Fox Sparrow Song Sparrow Pine Bunting Black-headed Bunting Yellow-breasted Bunting Rock Bunting Rustic Bunting Little Bunting 281 Field-identification of Hippolais warblers By D. I M. Wallace INTRODUCTION The genus hippolais is a small one of only six species. Two of these, the Icterine Warbler H. icterina and the Melodious Warbler H. polyglotta, are now proven annual vagrants to Great Britain and Ireland; another two, the Olivaceous Warbler H. pallida and the Booted Warbler H. caligata, occur here as rare stragglers; and the final pair, the Olive-tree Warbler H. olivetorum and Upcher’s Warbler H. languida , might conceivably reach us in the future. All except the last breed in Europe, though the Booted Warbler does so no further west than Russia. For many years the members of this genus have been labelled difficult to identify, in much the same way as other groups where plumage pattern alone is not always sufficient for certain diagnosis. Williamson (i960) included all the species and races in the first of his systematic guides to the warblers, but the detailed information he gave was primarily intended to aid ringers with birds in the hand and, although some general comments on the genus (at times dangerously misleading if applied to individual species) were made by Alexander (1955), no descriptive treatment so far published is adequate for accuracy in field identification. I do not presume to be able to meet this need fully, but I have watched all six species on migration in Europe or the Near East (Jordan) and have more thoroughly studied three of them in both their European breeding-habitats and their African winter-quarters. In addition, I have discussed Hippolais identification with many field ornithologists and have investigated all the records published in this journal and several observatory reports over the last ten years. This paper is therefore intended to outline the nature of the difficulties and to simplify the whole problem as far as possible. However, it must be emphasised that, when faced with a Hippolais , even the experienced observer has got a most exacting task on his hands. Characters must be checked and re-checked at every obtainable angle. An accurate record of structure should form the basis of any specific identification, particularly of a solitary extra-limital migrant. To get such a record usually requires previous knowledge of habits and habitat preferences and, if possible, a stationary observer-, stalking a Hippolais is usually a fruitless manoeuvre and the odds definitely favour the person who is sitting on his bottom with a mounted telescope to hand! The sequence of treatment in this paper is unusual since character and 282 FIELD-IDENTIFICATION OF HIPPOLAIS structure are described before plumage, habits and voice. This is intentional: one cannot satisfactorily identify Hippolais in the field without careful and patient observation of the former. I have also found it shorter and simpler to use the scientific names throughout in place of the vernacular. GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE GENUS Just as the members of the genera Sylvia and Phylloscopus exhibit many ‘common denominators’ in character and actions, so do the species of Hippolais. With one exception, caligata, they are quite large, rather heavily built warblers possessing neither the grace of Phylloscopus nor the irascible alertness of Sylvia and borrowing only some of the actions of Acrocephalus. In all species the body often appears plump (some- times even ‘pear-shaped’ with a belly-down appearance) and has a rather flat back and tail line extended by a prominent head and, except- ing again caligata , a strong and often long bill. When perched they often appear to carry more bulk forward of the legs than aft, looking sometimes short-tailed in the field. Both completely upright and horizontal postures are adopted by moving and perched birds and there is often a hint of clumsiness or carelessness in their acrobatic progress through cover. In particular, they show scant regard for tamarisk foliage (a frequent migrant habitat), sometimes crashing through the green fronds in a way that I have seen no other kind of warbler do. Fig. i . General character and structure of four warbler genera typified by (top left) Willow Warbler Phylloscopus trochilus, (bottom left) Whitethroat Sylvia communis, (top right) Icterine Warbler Hippolais icterina and (bottom right) Reed Warbler Acrocephalus scirpaceus 283 BRITISH BIRDS Anatomically the genus is very closely related to Acrocephalus, of which the species most closely resembling a Hippolais in shape is the Marsh Warbler A. palustris. While no real confusion is likely under good conditions, mistakes are possible in even generic identifications in poor light and at longer ranges. Typically, however, the Hippolais possess generally greener or greyer plumage and, more important, relatively longer wings and tails, the latter being square-ended or just rounded at the corners. Another difference surprisingly obvious in the field is the short under tail-coverts, amounting almost to an apparent lack and contributing to the distinctive body shape men- tioned above. No general remarks apply on plumage: two species, icterina and polyglotta, are normally green above and yellow below (a Hippolais showing this basic pattern must be one or other of these species) and the other four have various tones of grey or brown above and of dull white below. In certain light conditions the most bewildering changes in colour suffusion occur in all the species that have reached Great Britain and Ireland: for example, compare the field and laboratory descriptions of the pallida caught at Portland Bill, Dorset, in August 1956 (Brit. Birds, 53: 3 1 2-3 1 3). All species have relatively unpatterned plumage apart from short supercilia, eye-rings and paler edges to the inner flight feathers. Even these characters vary in their distinctive- ness with age and season. The colours of soft parts within the genus and within individual species vary too, although a bluish tinge to the tarsus is common to several. The bills of all species have characteristically (when un- stained) dark upper and light lower mandibles : their breadth is one of the basic systematic keys to the genus but it takes a deal of seeing in the field. This seems the right point to mention the pitfall of a Garden Warbler Sylvia borin which gives only a poor or interrupted view of itself. This is the trick species where Hippolais identifications are concerned, particularly as it likewise shows considerable variation in plumage tone (young birds in autumn can even have a greenish wash on the upper-parts). Since body and tail shape and leg colour can be identical to those of some Hippolais , the elimination of the Garden Warbler possibility must be based on this species’ lack of any well- defined supercilium and its combination of a short and comparatively deep bill with a characteristically chunky head (see Williamson 1964 for an excellent photograph illustrating this point). THE APPROACH TO SPECIFIC IDENTIFICATION Any experienced observer should be able to identify a Hippolais generically as such without much difficulty. His troubles begin when 284 Uja.//f British Birds for April, August and Wovember 1960, and January, September, Wovember and December 1962. 5s. each: ' iostage refunded. Send issues to Alan 'Vitherby, H. F. & G. Witherby, 61/62 ' Vatling Street, London, E.C.4. ' Vitherby ’s Handbook, 5 vols., £16. • dorris’s Birds, 6 vols., £10. C. C. Kohler, ’ 'athways, Westhumble, Dorking. Surrey. or sale. British Birds, bound volumes 9-52, unbound volumes 53-55. Offers. * lox JY16. lighland safaris. Excursions to NW lighlands, eastern seaboard and Handa. ull board at good hotel, 1,000 miles txury travel, guided walks, boat trip, iclusive cost from Inverness £17 per 'eek. Book now for September and Octo- er. Kyle & Glen, MuirofOrd, Ross-shire. tours for naturalists FRANCE— THE CAMARGUE 12 days by air, rail and coach £58 Departure August 29th YUGOSLAVIA— METKOVIC 15 days by air £68 Departure September 5th RUMANIA— DANUBE DELTA 15 days by air £99 Departure September 12th Academy Travel Ltd 26 BLOOMSBURY WAY, W.C.I Telephone : HOLborn 2417 (3 lines) Recent publications available from WITHERBY’S BOOKSHOP A Tapestry of British Bird Song recorded by V. C. Lewis. A 12-inch L.P. record with explanatory notes. 32s. Bird Life in the Royal Parks 1961-62. Report by the Committee on Bird Sanctuaries in the Royal Parks of Eng- land and Wales. Illustrated. H.M.S.O. 3s. 6d. The British Amphibians and Reptiles by Malcolm Smith. Third edition. 18 colour photographs, 33 black and white photographs. ‘New Naturalist’ series. 35s. The Life of Birds by Joel Carl Welty. 84s. The Waterfowl of the World, Vol. IV, by Jean Delacour. Illustrated by Peter Scott. 6 gns. Birds of the London Area by the London Natural History Society. A revised edition with a new set of excellent illus- trations. 42s. The Shell Gardens Book. 320 pages of brilliant and original writing on gardens. Illustrated with 12 double-page colour plates, 120 photographs and 38 line drawings. 21s. Birds’ Nests and Eggs ( Instructions to Young Ornithologists V) by C. J. O. Harrison. Illustrated. 15s. Birds of the Atlantic Islands, Vol. I, by D. A. Bannerman. 84s. The Birds of the British Isles, Vol. XII, by D. A. Bannerman and G. E. Lodge. 63s. A Study of Bird Song by Edward A. Armstrong. 17 plates and 335 pages. 45s. Gardens of England and Wales. Those open to the public under the National Gardens Scheme. Illustrated Guide 1964. 2s. 6d. The Handbook of British Mammals edited by H. N. Southern. The first complete handbook of British mammals to be pub- lished in this country. Written by members of the Mammal Society of the British Isles, edited by H. N. Southern and illustrated mainly by Robert Gillmor. 512 pages, 55 text figures, 60 photographs. 37s. 6d. Please address all enquiries to The Manager, Witherby’s Bookshop 61/62 Watling Street, London, F..C.4 or telephone City 5405 ALL BOOKS SENT POST FREE <3*4 PURCHASER Notice to Contributors British Birds publishes material dealing with original observations on the birds of Britain and western Europe, or, where appropriate, on birds of this area as observed in other parts of their range. Except for records of rarities, papers and notes are normally accepted only on condition that the material is not being offered to any other journal. Photographs (glossy prints showing good contrast) and sketches are welcomed. Proofs of all contributions arc sent to authors before publication. After publication, 25 separates of papers are sent free to authors (two or more authors of one paper receive 1 5 copies each) ; additional copies, for which a charge is made, can be provided if ordered when the proofs are returned. Papers should be typewritten with double spacing, and on one side of the sheet only. Shorter contributions, if not typed, must be clearly written and well spaced. Notes should be worded as concisely as possible, and drawn up in the form in which they will be printed, with signature in block capitals and the writer’s address clearly written on the same sheet. If more than one note is submitted, each should be on a separate sheet, with signature and address repeated. Certain conventions of style and layout are essential to preserve the uniformity of any publication. Authors of papers in particular, especially of those containing systematic lists, reference lists, tables, etc., should consult the ones in this issue as a guide to general presentation. English names of species should have capital initials for each word, except after a hyphen (e.g. Willow Warbler, Black-tailed Godwit), but group terms should not (e.g. warblers, godwits). English names are those used in The Handbook of British Birds , with the exception of the changes listed in British Birds in January 1953 (46: 2-3). The scientific name of each species should be underlined (but not put in brackets) immediately after the first mention of the English name. Subspecific names should not be used except where they are relevant to the discussion. It is sometimes more convenient to list scientific names in an appendix. Dates should take the form ‘1st January 1964’ and no other, except in tables where they may be abbreviated to ‘1st Jan.’, ‘Jan. ist’, or even ‘Jan. 1’, whichever most suits the layout of the table concerned. It is particu- larly requested that authors should pay attention to reference lists, which otherwise cause much unnecessary work. These should take the following form: Tucker, B. W. (1949): ‘Species and subspecies: a review for general ornitholo- gists’. Brit. Birds, 42: 1 29-1 34. Witherby, H. F. (1894): Forest Birds: Their Haunts and Habits. London, p. 34. Various other conventions concerning references, including their use in the text, should be noted by consulting examples in this issue. Tables should be numbered with arabic numerals, and the title typed above in the style used in this issue. They must either fit into the width of a page, or be designed to fit a whole page lengthways. All tables should be self-explanatory. Figures should be numbered with arabic numerals, and the captions typed on a separate sheet. All line-drawings should be in indian ink on good quality drawing paper (not of an absorbent nature) or, where necessary, on graph paper, but this must be light blue or very pale grey. It is always most important to consider how each drawing will fit into the page. The neat insertion of lettering, numbers, arrows, etc., is perhaps the most difficult part of indian ink drawing and, unless he has had considerable experience of this kind of work, an author should seek the aid of a skilled draughtsman. New ROSS BINOCULARS 10x40 Ross Solaross. This is probably the best buy in the Ross Solaross range and we would be inclined to think that it repre- sents the best value obtainable today in a British glass of good quality. It is beauti- fully balanced and streamlined, weighs only 26 oz. and is fairly compact with a height of 6£ in. We are supplying with this bino- cular a first quality English-made hide case. Inclusive cost £19 19s. Od. Where high power is required, we would suggest the Ross 16x60 at £32 8s. 8d. with hide case The pick of the world's great instruments on 14 days’ free trial SEND FOR NEW ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE CHARLES FRANK LTD. 67-75 Saltmarket Glasgow C.l. Phone. BELL 2106/7 Est. 1907 Britain's greatest stocks of New , Used and Ex-Govt. Binoculars, Telescopes and Navigational Equipment. Accredited agents for ROSS, BARR & STROUD, WRAY and ZEISS (both East and West Zones) A new type of Zeiss binocular. The 8x30B DIALYT is revolutionary in design and performance, weather proof and suitable for spectacle wearers. £49 15s. JAPANESE BINOCULARS If they are good, they can be very, very good and we have selected certain models which we can recom- mend with the utmost confidence and which we market under our own name: 8x 30 centre focus and coated £12 10s. 10 x 50 centre focus and coated £18 1 0s. 6x 30 ARMY BINOCULARS An excellent general-purpose binocu- lar of good performance, which will stand up to a great deal of rough usage (cost approximately £20) £7 ISs. Od. New hide case optional extra at 25s. For wildfowling or when extremely high light transmission is required, we would suggest the Canadian Naval 7x50 binocular at £24 or the new Russian 7x50 at £16 16s. Od. Both glasses are exceptionally good and it would be difficult to decide which is the better buy. The West Zone Zeiss 8x50 is possibly the ‘ideal’ wildfowling glass and itis available at £96 18a. Od. TELESCOPES We have a host of models from which to choose and can recommend the following: Ex-Admiralty 16x40 single-draw, micrometer focusing £5 18s. 6d. Pocket 3-draw telescope, magnifica- tion 25 x : an excellent auxiliary to your binoculars £2 2s. Od. Nickel Supra 15 to 60x: a tremen- dous advance in portable telescope design £36 12s. Od. The Charles Frank PANCRATIC 30 x to 55 x £7 17s. 6d. The Charles Frank 22 x OG 50 mm. PRISMATIC with tripod £22 10s. Od. From Russia, we have a MAKSUTOV triple turret telescope of fantastic power and performance. Wt. 32 lb., other details on request £250 Printed in England by Diemer & Reynolds Ltd., Eastcotts Road, Bedford Published by H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Watling Street, E.C.4 British Birds Arrival times and measurements of small petrels on St. Kilda Estlin Waters Further observations of birds from aircraft K. D. G. Mitchell Principal Contents British bird-photographers : 2 — Harold R. Lowes (with eight plates) Notes Reviews Letters News and comment Recent reports Vol. 57 No. 8 August 1964 THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE British Birds AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY JOURNAL 'Editors Stanley Cramp, I. J. Ferguson-Lees, P. A. D. Hollom, E. M. Nicholson Photographic Editor Eric Hosking Editorial Address 30 St. Leonard’s Avenue, Bedford 'News and Comment ' Rarities Committee Raymond Cordero D. D. Harber Rohan Lodge, Wadhurst Park 59 Eridge Road Wadhurst. Sussex Eastbourne, Sussex Contents of Volume 57, Number 8, August 1964 Page Arrival times and measurements of small petrels on St. Kilda. By Dr. Estlin Waters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 Further observations of birds from aircraft. By Captain K. D. G. Mitchell 315 British bird-photographers: 2 — Harold R. Lowes (plates 46-53). Text by Eric Hosking .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 325 Notes : — Immature Lesser Black-backed Gulls playing with sticks (P. N. Humphreys) 326 Small passerines preying on Great Green Grasshoppers (J. F. Burton) . . 327 Sexual display of the Crested Lark (Bryan L. Sage) . . . . . . 327 Carrion Crow ‘bathing’ on lawn (S. G. Madge) . . . . . . . . 328 Rook hanging upside down from wire (S. G. Madge) . . . . . . 329 Rook hanging upside down from branch by its bill (Derek C. Hulme) . . 329 Male Pied Wagtail killing another and persistently attacking the corpse (D. Joslin) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 329 Late nesting by Meadow Pipit (G. B. G. Benson) .. .. .. .. 330 Late nesting by Chaffinch (A. P. Radford) .. .. .. .. .. 330 Reviews : — The Birds of the London Area, revised edition, by a Committee of the London Natural History Society. Reviewed by Eric Simms . . . . . . 331 The Waterfowl of the World, vol. 4, by Jean Delacour; illustrated by Peter Scott. Reviewed by E. M. Nicholson .. .. .. .. .. 333 Letters : — The need to support conservation societies (Miss J. M. Stainton) . . 334 Common Terns breeding inland in Yorkshire (A. E. Platt and J. Burley) 335 News and comment. Edited by Raymond Cordero . . . . . . 335 Recent reports. By I. J. Ferguson-Lees .. .. .. .. .. 337 Annual subscription £2 6s. (including postage and despatch) payable to H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Watling Street, London, E.C.4 A unique and wonderful record A TAPESTRY OF BRITISH BIRD SOAR FIRST-EVER FULL-LENGTH LP OF BRITISH BIRD SONG The dawn chorus. . .‘recitals’ by more than 50 birds... song of the nightingale — all this is wonderfully captured for you by Victor C. Lewis. With the record comes a 4-page leaflet giving notes on each of the species heard. JAMES FISHER writes of this record: “ All the top songsters are really beauti- fully done, and all the birds’ voices are woven into an accurate and heart- warming evocation of the wild." HMV CLP1723(niono) HIS MASTER’S VOICE Available from all His Master's l oice record dealers. E.M.I. Recoids Ltd . . E.M.I. Housn. ?0 Manchester Square, london W.l ZOOM ON sim Catalogue on request WHELDON & WESLEY LTD Lytton Lodge Codicote, Hitchin, Herts Zoological Record Section Aves 1962 This indispensable biblio- graphy, compiled by Lt.-Col. W. P. C. Tenison, D.S.O., is an annual list of ornithological literature in all parts of the world. Full references are given with authors and titles, and they are indexed under species, subjects and countries. The latest issue covers over 2,500 articles and books pub- lished mainly in 1962 and is obtainable, at a cost of 21s. (including postage), from The Zoological Society of London REGENT’S PARK LONDON, N.W.I Zeiss Binoculars of entirely new design: Dialyt 8x30B giving equal performance with or without spectacles This delightfully elegant and compact new model from Carl Zeiss has an entirely new prism system which gives an amazing reduction in size. The special design also gives the fullest field of view — 130 yards at 1000 — to spectacle wearers and to the naked eye alike. Price £49.15.0 Write for the latest camera, binocular and sunglass booklets to the sole U.K. importers. DEGENHARDT & CO. LTD • CARL ZEISS HOUSE 20/22 Mortimer Street • London, W.1 • LANgham 6097 (9 lines) ZB. 83 British Birds Vol. 57 No. 8 August 1964 _ Arrival times and measurements of small petrels on St. Kilda By Estlin Waters INTRODUCTION During my residence on St. Kilda, Outer Hebrides, from May 1961 to September 1962 I spent eighteen nights on Carn Mor observing the colony of Leach’s Petrels Oceanodroma leucorrboa and Storm Petrels Hydrobates pelagicus there. Carn Mor, on the west coast of the main island of Hirta, is a steep, grassy and boulder-covered slope extending from about 500 feet to 700 feet above sea level. Accounts of this colony have been given by Williamson and Boyd (i960) and by Waters (1964). This paper describes the seasonal incidence and times of arrival of both petrels on Carn Mor as far as these became evident from my limited number of visits. Data are given on weights and measure- ments of petrels caught in mist-nets. The distinctive plumage of the juvenile Leach’s Petrel is recorded for the first time at a colony in the British Isles. SEASONAL INCIDENCE Leach’s Petrels were the first to return to Carn Mor. On 1st May*, my earliest visit, at least a score were present. This is the earliest recent record on St. Kilda, though Wiglesworth (1903) stated that they were said to arrive in April. The numbers increased during May and they reached a maximum of activity at the end of the month and in early June. Many fewer were observed in mid-June: this may not have been due to an actual decrease but simply to a change in behaviour resulting in less aerial display because the birds were incubating. During July there was again an increase in calling and flying over *A11 dates are those for the pre-midnight period; in other words, the night of 1st May is really ist/2nd May. All times are in GMT. 309 BRITISH BIRDS Carn Mor and this continued into August. By the end of the first week of September, however, the numbers had dropped considerably and I did not see or hear any on 6th October. Nevertheless, a few must still have remained because young were found in Village Glen up to ioth October; and when I was on North Rona, also in the Outer Hebrides, with a Nature Conservancy expedition in October 1962, occasional Leach’s Petrels were heard calling over the old village as late as 19th October, our last night on the island. Anderson et al. (1961), writing about the Flannan Isles, suggested that late July might be the most profitable time for mist-netting Leach’s Petrels. The most profitable time on Carn Mor appeared to be the end of May (a period not covered on the Flannan Isles), but there was a secondary peak in July. Fisher and Lockley (1954), referring to North Rona, suggested that the increase in the number of Leach’s Petrels in July and August was due to an influx of yearling or ‘sweet- hearting’ birds. The Storm Petrels on Carn Mor returned later than the Leach’s Petrels ; my earliest record was on 9th May. Their numbers remained low until June and then increased during July and August. They were particularly numerous on moonlight nights when up to 35 were caught in a single 20' x 9' mist-net. They then became much reduced in early September, and none was recorded on 6th October although there are October records for Shillay and North Rona, and pre- viously for St. Kilda. That occasional Storm Petrels may arrive earlier is shown by the one heard in an access gully to Carn Mor on 21st April 1958 by Boyd and Wormell (1958). This is probably exceptional as Davis (1957) recorded that in most years the first Storm Petrels returned to Skok- holm, Pembrokeshire, during the last week in April but that the bulk of petrels did not appear until the second half of May. HOUR OF ARRIVAL The earliest hour of arrival and the latest hour of departure, where these were accurately observed, are given in table 1 . The ‘local’ times of sunset and sunrise are calculated from the Astronomical Epbemeris (H.M.S.O.) for a position 5 8°N and 8°3o'W. These should never be more than a few minutes different from the times of sunset and sunrise at Carn Mor which lies at 570 49' N and 8° 36' W. In compiling table 1 the hours of arrival and departure are taken as the times of the first and last Leach’s Petrels seen or heard in flight. Occasionally Leach’s Petrels would call from their burrows before the first arrivals and frequently in the dawn birds would be calling or churring from underground for up to an hour after the last one was recorded on the wing; these have not been included. Ainslie and 3 10 SMALL PETRELS ON ST. KILDA Table i. Times of arrival and departure of Leach’s Petrels Oceanodroma leucorrhoa on Cam Mor, St. Kilda, in 1961 and 1962 First arrival (GMT) Minutes after local sunset Last departure (GMT) Minutes before local sunrise May 1 OO.3O 249 02.40 121 May 12 - - 02.55 81 May 26 23.15 122 O3.OO 49 June 2 23.30 126 02.15 82 June 10 23-45 I30 02.15 77 June 11 23.40 125 01.30 122 June 12 23.50 134 - June 15 23.22 104 02.00 9i June 26 23.05 84 - - July 5 23-55 139 02.20 81 July 9 23-35 122 - - July 16 23.15 1 1 1 02.15 101 July 21 23.25 131 - - Sept 2 22.15 164 - - Sept 7 21.55 158 — — Atkinson (1937) found a variation of only 34 minutes in the times of arrival of Leach’s Petrels on North Rona when these were recorded each night between 18th July and 5 th August, and they related this variation to weather conditions. With my less regular observ ations on Cam Mor it was not possible to assess the influence of weather, but table 1 does appear to show a seasonal variation. During the second half of June Leach’s Petrels arrived sooner after sunset than they did earlier or later in the season. The time of the last departing Leach’s Petrel was a more variable event. This was due to occasional birds leaving their burrow and flying out to sea long after the majority had left. These late Leach’s Petrels were often seen after the St. Kilda Wrens Troglodytes troglodytes hirte/isis had begun their dawn chorus from the boulder tops. The first Storm Petrels normally arrived a short time before the first Leach’s Petrels. They were 35 minutes earlier on nth June and 5th July, but only 10 to 15 minutes earlier on several occasions later in the season. In the first hour of successful mist-netting in July and August the catch was predominantly of Storm Petrels. There was also a tendency for birds caught at the end of the night to be mainly Storm Petrels. Manx Shearwaters Procellaria puffinus were heard earlier than either petrel on nine of the twelve occasions for which I have records ; twice they were at least 40 minutes before the first Leach’s Petrels and may have been even earlier. It appeared, however, that the last Manx Shearwaters also left earlier than the last Leach’s Petrels. This was 3 1 1 BRITISH BIRDS Table 2. Weights of Leach’s Petrels Oceatiodroma leucorrhoa on Cam Mor, St. Hilda, in 1962 The figures across the top are weights in grams and those below show the number of each weight caught in each period (see also fig. 1) 39 4° 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 4» 49 5° 5* 52 53 54 55 May 10 to June 3 — — 1 3 5 6 5 734 — — — — — — — June 26 to August 14 114-333621x2----! the case on five occasions, when differences of up to 3 5 minutes were noted. On two other days the last I^each’s Petrel and Manx Shear- water were recorded at the same time, but Manx Shearwaters were never seen later than the last Leach’s. MEASUREMENTS AND WEIGHTS In 1962 a series of wing measurements and weights was obtained for petrels caught on Carn Mor. The wings were measured with a stopped rule from the carpal joint to the tip of the longest primary feather with the wing lying, bat not pressed, on the rule. The birds were weighed with a spring balance which was accurate to less than half a gram and which was frequently checked against standard weights. The average wing length of 76 Leach’s Petrels was 156 mm., with a range of 148-168 mm. The average wing length of 69 Storm Petrels was 1 21 mm., with a range of 1 13-129 mm. The Storm Petrels were rather larger, therefore, than 39 Skokholm adults which averaged only 1 17.5 mm., with a range of 1 12-122 mm. (Davis 1957); similar measur- ing techniques were used in both series. 6 ■ 4 - 2 - Number (a) 10th. May to 3rd June of birds Weight ur grams Fig. 1. Data from table 2 on weights of Leach’s Petrels Oceanodraom leucorrhoa in graphic form 312 SMALL PETRELS ON ST. KILDA Table 3. Weights of Storm Petrels Hydrobales pe/agicus on Cam Mor, St. Kilda, in 1962 The figures across the top are weights in grams and those below show the number of each weight caught in each period (see also fig. 2) 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 June 3 to July 17 - 5645421 August 13 51210611-- The weights of Leach’s Petrels (table 2 and fig. 1) in May and early June varied between 41 and 48 grams. Those caught later in the season included both lighter and heavier individuals and ranged from 39 to 55 grams. The very light birds were perhaps just leaving their burrows after incubation or feeding young; the heavy ones may have been returning to the colony after feeding at sea. It was noticed that Leach’s Petrels caught in the mist-net later in the season were more inclined to vomit, often bringing up considerable quantities of oily material ; this was lost before weighing so there were in fact even more heavier birds later in the season than are shown in fig. 1 and table 2. The weights of Storm Petrels (table 3 and fig. 2) are also divided according to whether they were early or late in the season, but the latter group were all caught on a single night. While it would have been desirable to have extended these weighings over several nights, 6 4 2 Number \zr of birds |0 . 8 • 6 ■ 4 ■ 2 • 22 24- 26 28 30 Weight Ln grams Fig. 2. Data from table 3 on weights of Storm Petrels Hydrobales pe/agicus in graphic form (a) 3rd. June tol7th. July BRITISH BIRDS there does not appear to be as much variation as occurred later in the season in the Leach’s Petrels. Throughout the season Storm Petrels vomited more frequently than Leach’s Petrels and this, of course, reduced their weight. Davis (1957) gave the average of 50 Skokholm adults as 28 grams — -a weight attained by only three of my birds. DEPARTURE OF LEACH’S PETREL CHICKS I did not see any young petrels departing from Carn Mor, but four Leach’s Petrels found in Village Glen, Hirta, in 1961 were thought to be young recently emerged from their burrows. This age identifica- tion was based on behaviour, plumage characteristics and, in one case, voice. Leach’s Petrels have occasionally been heard over Village Glen, but breeding is not suspected there. These birds may have come from the large colony on the island of Dun and thus already have flown for at least three-quarters of a mile. The first two were caught by hand about midnight on 5 th September. One reluctantly flew away, but the second would not fly at all and was therefore kept in a cardboard box. It could fly only a distance of 30 feet when exercised on the following day, but seemed to be slowly improving. At midday on 7th September, after several short flights had ended in crash landings, it suddenly darted away and flew buoyantly in a wide circle around Village Glen. A Raven Corpus corax then appeared from the side of Oiseval and chased it out over Village Bay at a height of about 200 feet, but with its quick changes in direction the petrel escaped four or five determined attacks and then continued to fly out to sea for at least as long as I could see it through binoculars. The third Leach’s Petrel was found on 10th September and released three nights later when it still appeared very lethargic but finally flew away strongly. The fourth, found inside a building in the army camp on 10th October, had a repeated plaintive peee-peee cry. On North Rona a Leach’s Petrel, also thought to be a juvenile, came out from the stone wall into the bothy in the old village at 21.40 hours on 6th October 1962. It weighed 54 grams, but was 2 grams lighter when re-weighed 24 hours later. None of these five showed any traces of down. Although direct comparison was not possible, all appeared identical in plumage with an adult except that the tips of the wing-coverts were even paler, giving a more prominent light band across the wing. Witherby et al. (1940) described the juvenile as ‘like adult’, but Palmer (1962) referred to these prominent light margins and added that ‘this plumage can be dis- tinguished for whole of first winter’. While possibly not an infallible means of identifying young Leach’s Petrels, this feature would seem to deserve further study. Davis (1957) emphasised a similar age distinc- 3i4 OBSERVATIONS OF BIRDS FROM AIRCRAFT tion in Storm Petrels, the light wing-bar formed by the tips of the greater coverts in the young being more prominent than in adults. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thanks are due to those who accompanied me on many of my noc- turnal visits to Carn Mor. I am also grateful to Dr. J. Morton Boyd for reading this paper in manuscript and for many helpful suggestions. SUMMARY Leach’s Petrels Oceanodroma leucorrhoa and Storm Petrels Hydrobales pelagicus were studied on Carn Mor, St. Kilda, in 1961 and 1962. Leach’s Petrels were seen on 1st May and increased during that month; there was a further increase during July, probably of first-year birds. Storm Petrels returned rather later in the season. Times of arrival and departure of Leach’s Petrels are given and compared with those of Storm Petrels and Manx Shearwaters Procellaria puffinus. Wing measure- ments and weights are quoted for Leach’s and Storm Petrels. Notes on five juvenile Leach’s Petrels include an apparently useful method of distinguishing these from adults. REFERENCES Ainslie, J. A., and Atkinson, R. (1937): ‘On the breeding habits of Leach’s Fork- tailed Petrel’. Bril. Birds, 30: 234-248. Anderson, A., Bagenal, T. B., Baird, D. E., and Eggeling, W. J. (1961): ‘A description of the Flannan Isles and their Birds’. Bird Study, 8: 71-88. Boyd, J. M., and Wormell, P. (1958); ‘Spring observations on the Manx Shear- waters and small petrels on St. Kilda and Rbum’. Scot. Birds, 1 : 46-48. Davis, P. (1957): ‘The breeding of the Storm Petrel’. Brit. Birds, 50; 85-101 and 371-384. Fisher, J., and Lockley, R. M. (1954): Sea Birds. London. Palmer, R. S. (1962) : Handbook of North American Birds. New Haven and London, vol. 1. Waters, W. E. (1964): ‘Observations on small petrels at St. Kilda, 1961-62’. Scot. Birds, 3: 73-81. Wiglesworth, J. (1903): St. Kilda and its Birds. Liverpool. Williamson, K., and Boyd, J. M. (i960): St. Kilda Summer. London. Witherby, H. F. et al. (1940): The Handbook of British Birds. London, vol. 4. Further observations of birds from aircraft By K. D. G. Mitchell INTRODUCTION In two earlier papers (Mitchell 1955, 1957) I detailed a total of 131 records of birds which I had seen from aircraft at heights of 500 feet or more above ground level during 1949-56. The present paper summarises 86 further observations in seven years from 1957 to 1963 inclusive and thus enables a span of fifteen years to be reviewed. 3D BRITISH BIRDS During those fifteen years I spent about 12,000 hours in the air and covered approximately 1,750,000 miles. The 86 new observations are detailed in table 1 on pages 3 17-321. They involve 19 species, four of which (Imperial Eagle, Black Kite, Common Gull and Woodpigeon*) were not recorded in the first eight years. Thirty-two of the 86 observations are of Swifts, 19 of gulls of five species, ten of Lapwings and nine of birds of prey of four species. ROUTES AND AIRCRAFT FLOWN Twenty-six records in 1957 continued the higher rate of observation which began in 1953 when I started flying Douglas DC3’s over pre- dominantly European routes. From 1958 onwards, however, I was transferred to Viscount 8oo’s and the number of sightings slumped to an average of ten per annum over the six subsequent years. Routes varied considerably, but the principally Continental pattern of 1953 onwards was maintained and extended to much of the rest of Europe, as well as to parts of North Africa and the Middle East as far as the Persian Gulf. Although the number of observations per annum from a Viscount on mainly Continental routes was thus less than half of that from a DC3 on similar routes, it was still more than twice that from a DC3 on British routes ; this confirms the earlier impression of a comparative lack of observations over Britain (Mitchell 1955, p. 69). There are various reasons for the drop in observations from Vis- counts. The increased work load inevitably impinges on look-out time. The average cruising level, except where specially restricted as in the Berlin ‘corridors’, is much higher and only on the shortest sectors of 1 50 miles or less is it as low as 1 2,000 feet, the greatest height at which 1 have yet observed birds ; cruising levels are mostly between 15,000 and 25,000 feet, a height range which birds probably seldom reach in Europe (see, for example, Lack i960). At the same time, the cruising speed is approximately doubled, so that opportunity for observation and identification is halved, and rates of climb and descent are from two to four times as great because the aircraft is pressurised and this proportionately reduces the periods spent in the more reward- ing lower levels. PROBLEMS OF OBSERVATION AND IDENTIFICATION The changes listed above have further reduced the chances of seeing small species, particularly single birds on their own, and again nothing smaller than a Skylark or a Swallow was identified during 1957-63. The increased speed has made it still more difficult to determine the direction in which a bird is flying, the speed of the bird being so much less that it seems to be suspended in space as the aircraft bears down on ♦Scientific names are given in table 1 on pages 3 17-321. 316 g g o G u o Si •s-S' 8 .5 S & •fl CO W M V V-/ S xi C/9 *2 •w e o T) V . u t a > <0 l *2 1 S j !J 2 6 J u > K i S3 ! "0 ! .3 p* ' a " 1 -3 O . ”3 •* ', « T3 « G L tt « § fd .60 'u X £ "w 3 o X u +J « Q 6 Z o o CJ _Q ■g E* W CO 0 S o O O VO d X) X! 4J £ 2 2 o' 3 x d N o o ™ . &o c Vs O -Cl Q CO o.'S « J «H _s JS « T ^ ft .£ oo if o o N o o V3 E* o 60 co CCS 3 j£ CJ O i-I & O 60 co « o tf O a E* u tf c 4) Pi VO 1 I is > co o > V .. E* o o o c N W -"^3 (J « § 1 on n _o 2 -O 60 w m •- a W CON 3 tf. « ° u co Q, l ° r 3 > CO £> rq ji> G c$ o O 1/5 N q _ > g o 3 x •£ 03 o o r- > S’? tuO 3 o ti — 3 ^ 2 ‘S 3 5 +-t »-< _. . _ To ~ H3 -♦n C ►-« rrt O O d 3 VH CQ o rG c .«« x: > o VO r- u > d v CO O X d O O V V£ Uc g £1 o o o ll o is co •H > •u* is 8 M > rr\ S s CO 3 d ll s 3 O X d O o — _ .. s; y vo u g C oo « C - £ " CL, 8 8 vo r-~ o o o o o ere « 60 o .S £ 3 >. S « 3 co £ c i# •S 4 u «< U ■0 S CO X3 HD .iJ c ■fj 8 & °« u ” c 8 £ 5^3 §: ii 3 G 0 d n y o w o o ^ CO ^ g VO tL, o o •Tl u z u r- o G V 3 X V < d CO X c d ♦j cq 4-T - c c g 3 XI tdO G 6 CO t-H tf a CO 3 w a G 0 a u x e u ^ » u ^d' CO /-V < ^ it* tJ) o o ^ -s a tT ^ ■« z a 1/5 >>.i; « c < X « ^ u £.E2 U< •— i • M r? 4-< s. 0 z CO -H >> c « E G vw n o tf M c co 3 o — G >. 0 £ L-4 o N Tf C\ oo* Cv o vq d eo> vq »-H O vq W^N o vq oo r- r- «^N o VO o >-< f-< M N O M N N V u X ^ p-s t 3 2 C> g § o-l 6-1 Q> -3 I ^3 C u T3 ■«W -c 8 O .S O '°"'8 0 u w 00 c/5 rf d o _Q W W X! .tj -Q .t: x & CO J3 3 H 3 u • O N N „ $ * 6 .-x SS £ 1 ® C OO O S' x O o 0) o o o & >> * X G • — 1 4-* IS .'2 ^ * - £ O 3 0 o 60 a; T3 11 «vX 60 2^ C 00 o M < C 0 is o c O CO ~q 0 H Mg nl V| 8 • * >4 co co O -d x o z 0 0 0 0 OOO 0 0 0 0 OOO 0^ r- IAN VO f^VO rr\ w tr\ N *-T aT M JJ <0 >> c X CO 12 x! *g 60 cl 60 TJ V4 no y V4 S3 § V4 SJ cS O x V X X 4J tJ^ K« a 01 1 C V T3 Vh -« O M M »H M r^» r- IAN OO OO OO 0 CTN ACk r-~ 6 ‘A'N M IAN IA VO M fAN IA r- VO* N N N M N rr» M N N N CA\ r^> CAN cv O O M O l-t 'T N hi W M IAN v d cj •-* CO is > CO o ►-§ O O O O IA CA N co n o o o Cv 6 i* o 60 co x -S3 8 O aj 3 tJ TJ O §.§* T! E* - £ C **3 a) c U V m pi fA >A o o 6 6 H< N OO N W-N VO 4 rf OvVO* N N >n V u u 2 CO £ <0 f<5 -H o 2 o N r- »A ^t* N o o I 60^ .£ g d h-l S3 0 V U CJ X 1 ^4 u d S 4-1 K o .S5 I 3 o TJ O X O Ji § u g « S 8 S jJ 3 o 6D .3 o r- N > CO O 1 o V > o CO 1) 1-3 I* 0^7° M <0 n *h £8 ► ^ g C a § 8 •ax £ > rt N • - o « ■fl O H 3 ^ « O to 3 "o 0! "3 UT3 § .2 2 3 O 01 oo Z N" o o o ti *-« . — . 'o X N o v in 00 ^ d N jq k -S £ r. s SnT3 T3 >11 ? ° ° > ^ ^ 8 ••* O 8 - X V - 8 JO ■fl '5 3 1 3 u O oo oo Z f^ - «■ O 00 l-« > -0 .« ■-'O ij U O 3 R > o O .. o «^-o 8 *> « £ *^r- co d O ° d . — ' g c > X fe- « u o > U oo 5 o o o o o o rTN CTn N O O O O ° o m r o M N & o o o o ir\ N O CO d J3 N O CO d X ■3 -3 * «s r -tf CO H (O H -2 "o' — "o' 3 r-~ 3 N g N g N 3 > 3 > o o t~- OO^ f* 00 ^ ret m o o O O r- >-« . o a | to w ■> .. ... u 2 2 O os O'C u to _ « "O XI c os X X « * M *2 >s p ^ ^ IS Er.‘2 V > o o ITv d ~Q 52 — *5 3 fU n C 4-» .53 s * X .. G ^ 3 6_ 3 X V = i'0 ~ tu X c :s s ►:§ - 2 K o' 8*3 £ N o > O c ~g- 8 S ^ Mo ^ o ■M ^ ° w Z, 52 « J 8 8 3 |-S^ 2 Sd co jr H O O 2 2 C1 H o •*-» -4-* _X CO -p 4-J CO -p 73 oo u CO oo c oo c oo oo VO 00 O o O O O o O O Tf ►-< C'^ •x 2 o r2 Ij O .52 Z. X ^ ^ d .„ O « d T3 P JD 73 o V d O C ^ Z £ ^ O O o O O O *-• r^- r~- jj £ TD 3 _0 *u o c o' c •*i X to •O c « HH d ”0 g g 13 c ri X X u 8 8 (3 c d a 3 IM tf 3 •H tf u d X U tf 0 kT w k* nrt co G Jn D »— < ►~j C/5 ^ HH 1) CO x Ja i§ X O CO n3 T3 X u CO "O +J in 8 u < £ i tu L ! D i »-< ; is 52 'S § 6 y CO U § < tf a it C/D 4-T X o a u < d C O V as" co G v ^ *r S X 60 O 0 13 & 13 O tf o & fr < n S aJ% ^ ^ ^ § § ! X .H o S I S _o < T3 „ C 0 ^ Q co co < CO >s CO ui O §U m tn O 2 C 60 •S 3 « 2 oiS mEO o o o 60 60 60 CO CO CO d d d 0 0 0 QQ u .s d ■w X S3 c ’d <-• C/D .£ S i I ! ^ I u '$ H To G 3 O X X s .&£ x K u C/D O 13 u H d PQ co 13 13 H co co C co co rp P P Nn 13 CO CO 2 m o o \0 m i^n o o i IA A O o H IA O o rr\ M m rf N N trs O N 0 i A N N »-« fAk A O CAS m M H VD Tf 4 c\ 6 m oo’ Cs fAk 4 4 VO* Cs OO* Cs 6 M IM M »-« »-« M o N ►-* M M i W M M *”* M o O M N fAk Cv r- i — *-• M M N Cv vq vq r- n n CAS in m CT> m \0 fO fA N vq vq vq N Tf h* m vq r- U-N CAS 4* vq 4 6 H ►H *-l a\0 vO A O' Os 6 \o 6 N N C\ c\ 4 h* CTr q\ rq> 4 6 C\ oo’ >-« \0 vO CAS M fO. M l-« M H H N «r» r^* vo M N N PA> »-« b-t t-t M X M V> M N fT. M »H M IA rr\ VO fAk A I 1 2 M 3 !; ^ 1 1 1 1*3 o 3 ^ 01 •8 1 T3 2* C3 W 3*3 PQ c o u •SP< X 15 .2-§ t? | a -5 £ o O P -Ss I C 1 o O Q 60 -S "S. I -o -5 o .« o U 33 So v a; 3 o a u 3 O X y 4— ' TO Q o Z o VO fAk o fAv Tf C/5 N § O j> y ~a1 o > ?o •3 c/5 rG q M U M O 00 >\ *1 O O •- O 0) O VO O a 3 > O mO O VO f O J2 TO IA 00 c/5 0 .ts w £ £* R 3 °. rq n 2 1 XJ» oj a g* ^ J2 TO «•§ 3 > 3 u TO 3 00 > V O O r- rA\ #g *3 o > fT\ 'o' £ 13> "3 N o U O 1) > 2 oo * to T) c 6 -S3 > o 'O o -S3 •£ * 4-» C/5 r-3 3 tuO 3 J0 O 03 U 'G o a c p •- O cj in a M u< 2 * C y • » -5 £ 3 s ^ 3 — H 6* y > o 32 13 c/5 V-X 03 o o CO 3 JO 0> VC Q o M ^ M r*C 3 U « > o 32 CS ,U y ^ > cj O .„ 32 o o >> g y T2 & § . „ 3 u I' 0 !§ JO co 01 V u tv Su o o o 0 Tf fn N O N > O >* V r> G TO o o TO JO o3 >» -T co ~ .S TO . — < > 2 3 2 C/2 C O T3 co 3 ^4 rr, •’■h 'V 1 o o cj M I- w .3 4) _n «> ^ m ris > mV ST G C3 o a - (D 4-T 4-T G o o a Jh u. Cm fe 8 § i d 03 G SJI o 0 0 CO Cv O C4V fO, Tj- r- IA IAN IA vo vq vq r^- r^- Cn o o o >> 13 (U £ o pi o 3 \S 3 C N 3 H • O 3 u -g- U 00 >> o S5 «« ^ Jtj 2 > E JJ 5 03 U O 00 w e 4= U CJ CJ t/> 8-° « ^ ^333 ... ^ •? 9 ^ "P 3 ^ g ^ 3 3 CO r2 y 3 u T3 G c3 O c 00 o 00 o •-<00 vc OOO OOO VO VO 00 a> o 2* ^ C8 £ *4 C3 § 0 -g V4 Vj GOO G s w S C^3 ■a S' & • -4 n 8 0 O P-< rJ a . t: t; O o fr C.-3 •is C << 4- OJ 0 60 ■2 3 a o S PQ .2 u U h-1 x u *3 ^ 0 S "O r-a C3 K & 0 1 -4 hT . TO 61) 3 >» G *TO 0 hG *> G 0 G TO O 22 to C/5 OOOO OOOO l~- N On 1- 'M E 3 X Jp Ph E 3 « t: J_g «B o V m2 43 S' c 2 U. '3 . f^la If* 2-^3 e 4 60 C tn -3 « c 3 2 S ^ y O O g .£3 P* cQ c?2 I! pq cq 00000 I •A N O Ntf- O rj- oo’ rf CN O O H4 N VO VO H VO VO - ^ 00* r^- r- e-4 rj- V > O •8 8 1-4 >> 13 CJ 6 e •3 6 2 § c, S* «,'5 .a § & g os o J3 Cl O O ^ o > V tO 2 «XS > o J2 d 4-4 s d £ "G C d V C > .2 d O vo mv U-. * rz tO C V o rG 4-« 1 s. _ Cu -bi « .5 li; .a > > jj • - « >, « 33 3 O V t> o ja « S-2 3 c« S P o o « JO ti o SO fi 0 .fro 2 o -r- C* o ^ N ■-iT > cn 33 ~ H 12 i* E | a 0^3 — •- i-i .. o o y o j3 £ C4 60 0 - •=; il -T3 u ■M o G d is -s a "2 o A"v _Q •M -H tf d o n ~ 8 O Tf CO *3 " (O « — -a o „ , sc O 4-1 0 g W) d ^ o CO 1-4 co *r T3 ■? * s G vo C„2 to c E N 3 > £ G MV > G jD d 4-4 w G & C CO 00 T U OO 13 0 CO oc E '5* Z 00 0 0 O O 0 0 0 0 O O 0 0 Cv CV VO Cv Cv */“N d 60 £ .£ ^ r £ c O- d « O »-5 G E I £ 15 ^ £ c C/3 *~* 4-4 Cm O As -M d s-i m d £ '3 - *-4 E^S ' I-3 3 O O •* CO SJ .fip d JD CQ o o VO G d o a cT .£ *3 Gh Cm O Z CO T3 G . d G hS « G E O i- C u C O « •o a u ^ « a sK •T3 d < & >. « ^ E> -2 ^ o o N Tf »r> »r\ M M f/N VO MV N VO M O O IA IA 0 «A MV O -« M 1-4 M *-• O ►-< M M >-4 MV MV eA MV MV r- N r- r- r- IAN CAN O MV vq vq vq vq vq vq CAN vq IA vd d vq q- q~ q- N M CAN • M Cv vd M N MV MV OO* vd N H4 • VO N VO* »-4 N N N N M N N *-* N H4 N N N O M MV M N M C/3 Starling 20 25.8.60 17.20 Treviso Airport, near Venice, 2,500 Fine and hazy Sturnus vulgaris Italy 10 20.1.61 17-05 Corinth, Greece 9,7°° No low cloud; fine; w/v 020/30; temperature — 120 C (see also Lapwing of 28.8.60) BRITISH BIRDS it at, say, 320 m.p.h. The bird is overtaken so swiftly that no lateral movement is discernible and any movement along the path of the aircraft only slightly increases or diminishes the time available for identification. If the aircraft is flying at 320 m.p.h., a large hovering bird at a distance of half a mile is in sight for about 5! seconds, while a flock travelling at 60 m.p.h. at a similar range is in sight for between 4| and 7 seconds depending on its direction in relation to that of the aircraft. The rapidly closing range and change in angle, especially of smaller birds which are seen later and closer than larger ones, so extends the focusing ability of the eye that, in fact, direction often cannot be determined, even when identification is possible. Any unskilled observer sighting birds in such conditions invariably reports their heading as the reciprocal of that of the aircraft. HEIGHTS OF BIRDS As in the previous two papers, the heights of birds in table 1 are those above mean sea level. The height of the ground is given only where this exceeds 25% of the height of the bird and in only a few cases does it bring the observation into a significantly higher category than if height above ground were used throughout. Of the 86 observations, 62 (72%) were below 2,000 feet, 17 (20%) were between 2,000 and 4,500 feet, and seven (8%) were above 4,500 feet. These results are very similar to those given in the two previous analyses and the corresponding figures for the total of 217 observations in 15 years are 73%, 22% and 5%. Apart from a rather spurious record of an Imperial Eagle at 6,000 feet over Ankara where the airfield is more than half this height above sea level, the highest category in this latest series consists of two obser- vations of Swifts at 4,600 feet and 6,000 feet, a flock of ten Starlings at 9,700 feet and three parties of Lapwings, including 30 birds at 11,500 feet and twelve at 10,000 feet. Four of the seven records are thus strictly comparable to those made in earlier years when cruising levels were at lower altitudes, but the Starlings and the two higher parties of Lapwings were the result of having to climb and descend through higher altitudes. In three of the seven observations the birds were flying in air temperatures ranging as iow as — 20 C to — 120 C (28° F to io° F). It is remarkable that only four of all my 217 records involve altitudes greater than 6,500 feet and yet two of these were over Corinth. SEASONAL AND DIURNAL VARIATION The difficulties of assessing seasonal and diurnal variation in a markedly seasonal occupation which involves irregular hours around the clock are obvious. Nevertheless, one or two facts of interest emerge from analysing the data. The 86 observations occurred during some 2,500 322 OBSERVATIONS OF BIRDS FROM AIRCRAFT hours of daylight flying, a rate of one per 29 hours. These observa- tions and the hours of daylight flying in the 72 months concerned have been totalled under calendar months and the resulting figures com- pared with the average. The only months which vary more than one would expect if there were no seasonal variation are July and Novem- ber, respectively well above and well below the average of observations per month. There is only one November record and no less than 19 July ones. Ten of the latter are of Swifts and three of Lapwings, the two species most commonly identified. The earliest observation was at 05.15 hours and the latest at 20.05 hours, local time in each case. Of the 3 1 half-hour periods from 05.00 to 20.30, only 08.30-09.00, 11. 30-12. 00, 13.00-13.30, 14.00-14.30 and 15.30-16.00 had five or more observations, but over the series as a whole 93% of the records were spread reasonably evenly between 08.00 and 19.00, each full hour having between 12 and 21 observations. Six days yielded two observations each and two days three apiece, one of the latter, 1st June 1957, coinciding with a good flock of air- borne insects. Two of the six days with two observations each are worth enlarging upon. On 16th October 1957 the nine Lapwings seen heading WSW five miles north-east of Brandenburg were flying in clear conditions above complete cloud cover which I estimated extended for at least a hundred miles in every direction; nearly two hours later as we climbed out of Berlin, having just topped the cloud at 1,200 feet, we passed two Swallows heading south. On 22nd January 1958, when I recorded two flocks of Lapwings moving WSW near Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, at 1,300 and 2,600 feet, another pilot flying from Cranfield, Bedfordsliire, reported ‘dozens of Peewit flocks’ moving west in that area at the same time of day at heights of between 2,000 and 4,500 feet. There were no occasions on which striking weather movements gave rise to a series of observations of several species on a single day, as occurred in 1955 (Mitchell 1957, p. 301). Several observations were again clearly connected with insects being carried aloft in ther- mals; on such occasions the conditions offer good soaring for birds and, with it, a supply of food for such species as gulls and Swifts. LAPWING, HERRING GULL AND SWIFT Lapwings, Herring Gulls and Swifts between them account for 5 1 of the 86 observations and each have different reasons for their relative abundance. The Lapwing is a widespread bird which moves regularly over the greater part of Europe and the Mediterranean and participates in hard weather movements. It has the advantage of being large, and dis- tinctive in colour, shape and especially mode of flight. 323 BRITISH BIRDS The Herring Gull (with, to a lesser extent, the other commoner gulls) now fulfils the role of scavenger in the British Isles. Its adapta- tion to a wide variety of habitats makes it very widespread and one can expect to see it relatively frequently as one approaches many British airfields. Of a grand total of 61 gull records in 15 years, however, only five were outside Britain and the Channel Islands ; these five were all in coastal areas, but 20 of the 5 6 in Britain were inland. The Swift accounts for no less than 32 observations in the 1957-63 period. This may be partly due to its distinctive shape, but it also appears to be the only smaller bird which can be seen regularly each summer throughout its range at reasonable heights. CONCLUSION The present series of observations broadly follows the previous pattern, but includes slightly more at greater altitudes as a result of an enormously increased amount of high flying. Only during take-off or landing when avoiding action has not been possible have birds been struck by my aircraft and none has been seen or struck by night. The mounting radar evidence of smaller birds migrating at considerable heights is not reflected in my own observations, the conclusion being that radar is vastly superior to a public transport aircraft as a medium for amassing data of this kind, even though it lacks the benefit of specific identification. The role of light-powered aircraft and particu- larly gliders could well be extended to redress the balance in favour of direct human observation. SUMMARY A total of 86 personal observations of birds from aircraft at heights of over 500 feet in various parts of Europe and the Near East are detailed for the seven years from 1957 to 1963 inclusive. Taken in conjunction with two earlier papers, this series enables a grand total of 217 records over 15 years to be reviewed. The frequency of observations is discussed in relation to routes and different types of aircraft and the records themselves are assessed from the aspects of height above sea level, seasonal and diurnal variation, and weather. Five-eighths of the present series of records are made up by three species — Swift Apus apus, Lapwing Vanellus vanellus and Herring Gull Larus argentatus in that order — and the reasons for this arc mentioned. REFERENCES Lack, D. (i960): ‘The height of bird migration’. Brit. Birds, 53: 5-10. Mitchell, K. D. G. (1955): ‘Aircraft observations of birds in flight’. Brit. Birds , 48: 59-70. ( 1 9 5 7) : ‘Further aircraft observations of birds in flight’. Brit. Birds, 501 291-302. 324 Plate 46. Goshawk Accipiter gentilis, Denmark, June 1958 ( Harold R. Lowes) (pages 325-326) Plates 47 and 48. Three water birds. Above, Slavonian Grebe Podiceps auritus, Inverness-shire, June 1956. Below, Black-throated Diver Gavia arctica, Sutherland, Tune 1952. Opposite, Dipper Cinchts cinclus, Sutherland, June 1951 ( HaroldR . Poms) %* V I I Plates 49 and 50. Threewadcrs. Above, Avocct Kecurviros/ra avoseila, Denmark, June 1958. Below, Kentish Plover Cbaradrius a/exattdrinus, Denmark, June 1958. Opposite, Black-tailed Godwit Limosa limosa, Denmark, June 1958 ( Harold R. Lowes) Plate 5 1 . Golden Eagle Aquila ebrysae/os, Hebrides, May 1957 (Harold R. Lowes ) Plate 52. Above, Ring Ouzel Turdits torquatus, Yorkshire, June 1957. Below, Short-cared Owl Asio fammeus, Orkney, May 1953 (Haro/d R. Lowes) Plate 53. Above, Dartford Warbler Sylvia undata, Dorset, May 1954. Below, Wood Warbler Phylloscopus sibi/afrix, Yorkshire, June 1949 ( Harold R. Roms) , British bird-photographers 2. Harold R. Lowes (Plates 46-53) Harold Lowes was born in Barnsley, Yorkshire, on 6th February 1908 and his interest in birds was such that he was hunting for nests almost as soon as he could walk. In the years which followed he was, to use his own words, only ‘semi-educated’ until at the age of 17 he was initiated by T. M. Fowler into the art of bird photography. He joined the Zoological Photographic Club when he was 22, later becoming a member of its Council (1948-53), then Honorary Secretary (1954-59) and, finally. President (1960-61). He was awarded the Medal of the Royal Photographic Society in 1947 and his Fellowship in 1951 and he has served on committees of that body on a number of occasions. In 1947, too, he was my co-editor in the production of Masterpieces of Bird Photography. He was also a member of the Photographic Advisory Committee of the Nature Conservancy from its inception in 1955 until 1961. Fie sums himself up as a civil servant by profession and a countryman by inclination, whose other interests are music, rose grow- ing, cricket and current affairs. Some bird photographers set out to obtain series showing behaviour, nesting, feeding and so on, and are less concerned if their results are not of an impeccable standard. Others aim at the perfect portrait, and Harold Lowes is one of these. His main interest is in ‘typical birds in typical surroundings’, but if his results fa'l below his own very high standard he considers he has failed. He is happy to spend long hours in a hide provided that he goes away with one really outstanding photograph. The selection of his results on plates 46-53 clearly demonstrates his prowess and also shows his penchant for waders and birds of prey. Take, for example, the Avocet Recurvirostra avosetta settling on its eggs (plate 50a) and observe the tones in the white and black plumage: there is no soot and whitewash effect here. Usually when waders return to their nests they approach stealthily until within two or three feet, then dash the rest of the way and settle quickly on the eggs: it can have been no easy job, therefore, to photograph the Black-tailed Godwit Limosa limosa standing over its nest (plate 49) or the male Kentish Plover Charadrius alexandrinus poised as if to reveal the markings on the eggs (plate 50b). Plates 46 and 5 1 show two of his many birds of prey. There are few really good photographs of the Goshawk Accipiter gentilis at its nest and plate 46 is, to my mind, by far the best yet taken : not only is the bird itself clearly shown, but everything right down to BRITISH BIRDS the foreground is critically sharp and the whole picture beautifully balanced. But not all his photographs are of waders and raptors, and the rest of this selection ranges from divers to warblers. Many Dippers Cinclus cinclus have been portrayed on stones in streams, but few have the quality of plate 48 : there the rock is almost wet to touch and the bird seems really alive. The Short-eared Owl Asio flammeus is another frequently photographed bird, but is there another picture as good as plate 5 2b ? How well one’s eye is taken to the most important part, the distinctive face, and how clearly everything else is subordinate to this; yet a second glance shows so many other details from the heather- covered habitat to the feathering of the young. Similarly, in the portrait of the Slavonian Grebe Podiceps auritus (plate 47a) one can still see the drops of water on the bird’s feathers and even get an impression of its pink eye with the silvery ring round the pupil, while at the same time the plumage, the lobed feet, the nest and the surrounding reeds combine to give us a remarkably complete picture of this rare species. In short, Harold Lowes is interested in all birds and, in spite of his endless search for the perfect portrait, he always puts their welfare before his photography even though this may sometimes be to his cost. Eric Hosking Notes Immature Lesser Black-backed Gulls playing with sticks. — At mid-day on 3rd April 1964, at Llandegfedd Reservoir, near Pontypool, Monmouthshire, I came across a group of about fifty Lesser Black- backed Gulls Icarus fuscus , accompanied by a few Herring and Black- headed Gulls L. argentatus and ridibundus, resting and preening fifty yards from me at the water’s edge. About half of the Lesser Black- backs were immatures and after a few minutes I saw one of these pick up a floating stick about four inches long, fly out with it over the reservoir for thirty feet or so and, from a height of some twenty feet, drop it into the water, then dive down to retrieve it. It went on to repeat this performance twenty or thirty times, letting the stick fall from heights varying between twenty feet and only a few inches and once actually catching it again before it hit the water. This behaviour appeared to stimulate the other young Lesser Black- backs to do likewise and soon several were picking up and dropping sticks. Two even tried to lift a submerged stick several feet long, but this was too heavy for them and they had to abandon it. Sometimes 326 NOTES one would try to steal another’s stick and an aerial chase would develop in the familiar manner of a gull trying to snatch another’s food. The sticks were never dropped over the land and to retrieve them from the water the gulls varied their method of approach, sometimes crashing down with a splash and sometimes just picking them up neatly without touching the surface. None of the adults joined in, though when a stick actually fell on a Herring Gull the outraged bird threatened the youngster as it came down to retrieve it. After about ten minutes the majority of the young gulls were dropping sticks; the adults then became disturbed and both they and the immatures started to drift away until, in a few minutes, most of the group had dispersed. The whole action resembled the technique used by gulls to smash mussels on rocks, except that it was apparently quite purposeless as none of the birds was seen to eat anything. This, and the way the other youngsters joined in, was very similar to the type of play activity commonly seen in young mammals but apparently seldom recorded in birds. P. N. Humphreys Small passerines preying on Great Green Grasshoppers. — T. A. W. Davis’s recent note (B rit. Birds, 57: 34) on a Yellowhammer Emberi^a cintrinella taking a Great Green Grasshopper Tettigonia viridissima reminded me that I saw a House Sparrow Passer domesticus carrying an adult Great Green Grasshopper in its bill on 26th July 1953, at Dartford Marshes, Kent. In addition, L. Parmenter ( Ent . Mon. Mag., 94: 1x9) has recorded a Song Thrush Tardus philomelos taking this large bush-cricket, so it would seem that it is probably not a very rare prey of small passerines. Nevertheless, it is a rather formidable insect, capable of inflicting a powerful bite if held care- lessly. The first one I ever caught drew blood from my thumb. J. F. Burton Sexual display of the Crested Lark. — Little appears to have been published on the sexual display of the Crested Lark Galerida cristata. Neither The Handbook nor D. A. Bannerman in The Birds of the British Isles (1954) gives any information on the subject. In fact, the only accounts in the British literature seem to be those by P. H. T. Hartley, who published some brief notes from Israel (Brit. Birds, 39: 142-144), and by J. H. Barrett, P. J. Conder and A. J. B. Thompson, who described observations made in Germany and Poland (Brit. Birds, 41: 162-166). On 21st May 1962, at Estartit, Spain, I witnessed sexual display culminating in copulation. The display began with a pair alighting on a dusty patch within a few feet of each other. The male immediately 327 BRITISH BIRDS faced the female and stood in a very upright posture for a few seconds with his crest fully erected and uttering snatches of song; the female remained motionless in a crouching position with her wings partly opened. The male then began to run round and round the female, and after her when she occasionally moved. During this circling and chasing his body plumage was very fluffed out, his crest was fully erected, his tail was cocked to an angle of about 80 degrees, and both his wings were drooped to the ground and partly opened to show the orange undersides. When not moving, the female remained crouched in the position already described, and the display culminated with the male mounting her and coition taking place. Both birds then made preening motions before flying off. These notes agree basically with the few previously published obser- vations, but there appears to be some variation in the posturing of the male. I did not see him face away from the female as described by Hartley and figured by Dr. M. Abs (1963, Bonn. Zool. Beitr., 14: 1-128, fig. 46), the purpose of which appears to be to display the ruffed-up anal feathers to the female. Nor did I observe the dancing gait with ‘light buoyant hops’ noted by Barrett et al. My observations on the female posture differ from previous descriptions only in that the bird I saw did not have her tail half-opened when she crouched, as described by J. Gengler (1903, Verb. Orn. Ges. Bayern, 4: 96-101). Bryan L. Sage Carrion Crow ‘bathing’ on lawn. — On nth April 1964, at St. Ives, Cornwall, I watched a Carrion Crow Corvus corone perform a curious series of actions on a closely mown lawn while a light misty rain was falling. It stretched out its neck and placed its bill flat along the turf, then propelled itself forward for about a foot with strong, thrusting leg-movements as if trying to burrow into the ground. In this way it brought the feathers of the underside of its neck and breast into close contact with the damp grass. After several such ‘runs’ it stopped and, with head up and tail down, made typical bathing movements with its wings, finally shaking its head vigorously and sending out a small cloud of spray. It then began the whole sequence all over again and, in fact, went through it about a dozen times during the five minutes I had it under observation, before it eventually flew off. S. G. Madge [Dr. J. S. Ash tells us that he once had a tame Carrion Crow which used to do this and Dr. N. Tinbergen has seen the species bathing in the same way in wet snow. Similar behaviour is known in other passerines and seems likely to be common to many species but not 328 NOTES often shown by most individuals. Whether or not it is used may depend on the availability of standing water for normal bathing. — Eds.] Rook hanging upside down from wire.— The recent note by Alexander C. Baird ( Brit . Birds, 57: 182-183; see a^so 54: 121-122) reminds me of a similar incident. I was driving along a country road near Crediton, Devon, in September 1963 when I saw a Rook Corvus frugilegus hanging upside down from an electric cable. As I stopped, it released its hold and flew off. Other Rooks were perching normally near-by and feeding on the ground below. S. G. Madge Rook hanging upside down from branch by its bill. — On 6th October 1946, at Foremark, near Repton, Derbyshire, while watching about twenty Rooks Corvus frugilegus and Jackdaws C. tnonedula indulg- ing in their autumn aerial antics, I noticed one Rook perched some twenty feet above the ground in an oak. Suddenly it fell and for about three-quarters of a minute hung motionless from the branch with its wings fully outspread, apart from once fluttering weakly for a second or two. One of the others then swooped at it and it flew oft quite normally. A small spray of leaves prevented me from being certain whether it was gripping the branch with its bill horizontal or vertical, but I was only about 3 5 yards away and the rest of its body was clear of foliage and outlined against the sky. Consequently, I was sure that there was no question of its being accidentally caught in the tree and this was proved when it was able to let go immediately the other Rook , disturbed it. Derek C. Hulme [The fact that Rooks, and to a lesser extent other crows, occasion- ally behave in this way seems now to be well established, even if the interpretation is not clear, and we do not propose to publish any further records unless they throw new light on the matter. — Eds.] Male Pied Wagtail killing another and persistently attacking the .corpse. — On 25th March 1964 I found two male Pied W’agtails Motacilla alba in one of the park greenhouses at Cheam, Surrey. One was viciously attacking the other and it continued to do so even after I had caught the latter and was holding it in my hand. The victim was slightly injured and, as there is not much cover outside the green- houses, I thought that it would be safer indoors. I therefore removed it to the next greenhouse and shut the connecting door after me, but when I returned I found it lying dead not very far from where I had left it. Its attacker was in the greenhouse, having entered through one of the ventilators (a normal practice of this and other species) and 329 BRITISH BIRDS had presumably killed it. There was no other way in which death could have occurred (except possibly as a result of some unsuspected internal injury sustained during the original attack), particularly as the greenhouse is lined on the inside with a layer of polythene which would have acted as a cushion if the bird had flown against the glass. I left the corpse on the staging and when I came back nearly four hours later the aggressor was still attacking it. This bird was so engrossed that I was able to approach to within 1 8 inches and even to move aside a pot plant to get a better view. In fact, it continued to stand on the corpse, pecking at the head and eyes, while four other people and I watched within two or three feet. It occasionally broke off the attack to clean its beak, but each time quickly resumed, nearly always from behind. Finally it pierced the skull and ate the brains of the dead bird. The attacks continued on each of the next two days, 26th and 27th March, as soon as the greenhouse ventilators had been opened and the bird could get in. These were just as vigorous on the second and third days as on the first, but they tended to be of shorter duration and to have longer pauses in between. As before, they were from behind and directed at the corpse’s head, the bird darting in from a distance of about a foot away. The attacker became more wary of human beings, but I was still able to get close enough to photograph it on the second day. At 11.30 a.m. on the 27th the corpse was removed. Other people who witnessed the attacks at various times were Mr. C. E. Cherry, the Parks Superintendent, and Messrs. H. Buxton, S. Hoad, J. Jinkins and P. Ladbrook. I am unable to account for this remarkable exhibition of persistence, but it should perhaps be added that there was a new but incomplete nest inside another green- house about 50 feet away, where these birds have produced up to three clutches annually for a number of years. D. Joslin [Mr. Joslin has kindly sent us a colour transparency which confirms both the identification and the method of attack, but unfortunately it would not make a satisfactory reproduction in black-and-white. The behaviour of this Pied Wagtail seems comparable to that of captive tits Parus spp. in killing other birds and then eating their brains or to that of small mammals in fighting to the death and then indulging in cannibalism. One of the most interesting features about this record is the fact that a species which does not crack open seeds or nuts should puncture the skull of its victim. — Eds.] Late nesting by Meadow Pipit. — On 20th August 1962, at Blyth- burgh, Suffolk, I found the nest of a pair of Meadow Pipits Anthus pratensis with four eggs. These had hatched by the 22nd. On 2nd 33° REVIEWS September the chicks were attempting to crawl from the nest and they had left by the next day. G. B. G. Benson Late nesting by Chaffinch. — In his paper on ‘Late nesting in i960’ (Brit. Birds, 57: 102-118) H. Mayer-Gross quoted I. Newton to the effect that very few Chaffinches Fringilla coelebs lay after 20th June and that a clutch started about 13th July is the second latest record among over 4,000 B.T.O. Nest Record Cards. It seems worth recording, therefore, that in 1962, in a garden at Minehead, Somerset, I found a Chaffinch nest containing two half-grown young as late as 13th August. A. P. Radford [H. Mayer-Gross of the British Trust for Ornithology has kindly commented as follows on the above two notes: ‘The first egg in the Meadow Pipit nest must have been laid about 7th August and this is undoubtedly late; The Handbook does not give anything after “late in July”. Laying in the Chaffinch nest evidently started about 22nd July and the sample of approximately 4,000 records analysed by I. Newton in “The breeding biology of the Chaffinch” ( Bird Study, 1 1 : 47-68) is large enough to show that clutches begun after the beginning of July are very rare. No particularly late nests of either Meadow Pipit or Chaffinch were reported on B.T.O. Nest Record Cards in 1962, but it is interesting to note that the breeding season of a number of insecti- vorous and seed-eating species around Oxford appeared to finish late that year. The last clutches I found of Wren Troglodytes troglodytes , Dunnock Prunella tnodularis and Spotted Flycatcher Muscicapa striata were started about 17th, 18th and 29th July respectively, while egg- laying began between 10th and 20th August in nests of Greenfinch Chloris chloris. Goldfinch Carduelis carduelis. Bullfinch Pyrrhula pyrrhula , Yellowhammer Emberi^a citrinella and House Sparrow Passer domesticus. Furthermore, I. Newton trapped a recently fledged Bullfinch as late as the first week of October.’ — Eds.] Reviews The Birds of the London Area. By a Committee of the London Natural History Society. Revised edition. Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1964. 332 pages, 32 plates, 5 maps. 42s. ‘All nature is so full that the district produces the greatest variety which is most examined.’ Gilbert White’s axiom of 1768 was admirably 33i BRITISH BIRDS supported by the first edition of this imaginative and remarkable book, published in 1957. Now, seven years later, this revised edition with certain changes, including that of publisher, has appeared. Apart from a new editorial preface and the omission of an appendix on introduced or escaped birds, the first 294 pages and the bibliography remain unaltered; this part of the book has already been examined critically and at length by the present reviewer (Brit. Birds, 50: 2 10-2 12). Where the revised edition most differs from its predecessor is in Part Three, a section of some 27 pages dealing with the more important changes in London’s avifauna during 1955-61. In this period inten- sive studies of different parts of London bore fruit, including the surveys of Beddington sewage-farm, Rye Meads, Regent’s Park and Holland Park; certain areas of marshland were lost (as at Epsom), reclaimed (as at Swanscombe) or created (as at Rainham) ; and some 2 5 species of birds were recorded with certainty for the first time this century, bringing the total to 270. Much of this chapter is devoted to the broad trends in population changes and it shows a certain stability throughout the period. However, there has been a marked decline in the numbers of breeding Kestrels Valeo tinnunculus and Sparrowhawks Accipiter nisus, as of Woodlarks Vullula arborea and Red-backed Shrikes Vanins cristatus collnrio. On the other hand, regular watching along the Thames estuary has shown that many waders can now be seen in numbers ‘greatly exceeding anything previously recorded this century’. In Inner London the Little Grebe Podiceps ruficollis and Stock Dove Columba oenas, and probably the Jackdaw Corvus monedula , have been lost as breeding species since 1954, but in their place have come the Bullfinch Pyrrhula pyrrhula , Nuthatch Sitta enropaea and Canada Goose Bran/a canadensis. Of course, in an area such as London where observers are often highly concentrated there are many opportunities for stimulating and rewarding population studies. Yet, despite a number of references to publications and observations in 1962, it is unfortunate that the mechanisms by which this book was produced seem to have prevented any inclusion of a serious attempt which was made in January that year to answer one of the few major criticisms of the first edition — the lack of detailed studies of the ornithology of suburban London. The last part of the new section is concerned with migration and describes some of the extremely valuable planned watches, on a broad front, of many of the visible migratory movements across London. These observations have proved that ‘some diurnal migration occurs over the London Area on nearly every day throughout the five months from July to November,’ and have provided further evidence, if it were needed, of the value of instituting and maintaining a regular and disciplined study of a small area. It is also now established that spring 332 REVIEWS passage movements, once thought to be either very small or along a different route, are by no means negligible in size or in the number of species involved. The revised edition has dispensed with a number of the original photographs of typical habitats and has concentrated on showing studies of some of the more interesting birds of the London Area including eight of the visiting species of waders. However, the excellent choice of plates was marred to some extent in two copies I examined by too contrasting and ‘hard’ a reproduction ; and there are also captions at the bottom of pages 28 and 50 which have outlived the photographs to which they were once attached. This edition pre- serves the original attractive appearance, but is enhanced by a frontis- piece and dust-jacket in colour. It serves to remind us once more of the solid achievements possible for a local society with both vigour and courage. Eric Simms The Waterfowl of the World. By Jean Delacour. Illustrated by Peter Scott. Vol. 4. Country Life, London, 1964. 364 pages; 6 colour plates; numerous maps and drawings. £ 6 6s. To conclude this important work of his in four volumes, Mr. Delacour has provided a survey of ‘Aviculture and domestic waterfowl’ — an v unusual review of the various domestic breeds of waterfowl, well illustrated by Peter Scott, which will be of interest to circles even beyond those of ornithology — and a section on ‘Corrections and additions’. He has also obtained eight contributed chapters from other specialists. All but two of the latter are from Dr. Milton W. Weller, who writes on ‘General Habits’, ‘Reproductive cycle’, ‘Ecology’, ‘Distribution and species relationships’, ‘Fowling and conservation’ and ‘Management’. These contributed chapters summarise much interesting information on locomotion (especially diving and flight), feeding methods, timing of reproduction, pairing and display, territory, nest-sites, habitat, population dynamics, parasites and diseases, and many other topics. Although the sections are often scrappy, it is valuable and stimulating to have so many characteristics of such an important world-wide group reviewed comparatively in the light of the large amount of very recent work which has greatly extended our knowledge. In surveying the distribution of the 148 recognised species of swans, geese and ducks of which 47 are polytypic and have 144 subspecies), Dr. Weller finds :hat the dominant genera are Cygnus , Bran/a and Anas, of which the ast is nearly cosmopolitan although only a third of its 38 species are 333 BRITISH BIRDS found north of the Tropic of Cancer. In addition, 85 extinct species of Anatidae are known. Extensive disappearance of habitat is illus- trated from various countries, the United States alone having lost through drainage some 45 million acres of an original 127 million acres of water area. One mortality factor most conspicuous in the United States is lead-poisoning through ingestion of shotgun pellets; this has been estimated to cause 2-3% of deaths among North American wildfowl. The trouble arises not only from the number of shooters, but also from the number of times they insist on firing at birds more or less out of range; indeed, it seems possible that many of these sportsmen kill more ducks by poisoning them with spent pellets than they ever bring down out of the sky. Although necessarily tending to lack unity, this final volume does much to improve the balance and enhance the value of the work as a whole. It also adds to its impact as an instrument for bringing about more global and less parochial approaches to ornithology. E. M. Nicholson ALSO RECEIVED Arktis och Tropik. By Kai Curry-Lindahl. Bonniers, Stockholm, 1963. Sw. Kr. 33.50. Birds at my Door. By E. Catherine Clements. Faber and Faber, London, 1963. 16s. Birds of the Labrador Peninsula and Adjacent Areas. By W. E. Clyde Todd. Toronto University Press, Toronto, and Oxford University Press, London, 1964. £7 4s. E cological Studies of the Mute Swan ( Cygnus olor) in Southeastern Sweden. By Bjorn E. Berglund, Kai Curry-Lindahl, Hans Luther, Viking Olsson, Wilhelm Rodhe and Gunnar Sellerberg. Acta Vertebratica, vol. 2, no. 2, 1963. Sw. Kr. 25. Nordens Djurvarld. By Kai Curry-Lindahl. Forum, Stockholm, 1963. Sw. Kr. 187. Okologie der Tiere — 1. Autokologie. By Fritz Schwerdtfeger. Verlag Paul Parey, Hamburg and Berlin, 1963. DM68. The Colourful World of Birds. By Jean Dorst. Paul Hamlyn, London, 1964. 15 s. Very Fine Company. By Jo Heriot. Harvil Press, London, 1963. 21s. Letters The need to support conservation societies Sirs, — Reading ‘News and comment’ in the April issue (Brit. Birds , 57: 185-186), I was interested in Raymond Cordero’s reference to the grow- ing membership of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. In this connection, however, he stressed the need for much more support 334 NEWS AND COMMENT for this and other organisations with similar aims. I should like to endorse this plea with special reference to the British Section of the International Council for Bird Preservation. It is surely in their own interest for all bird-watchers to help the I.C.B.P. since it is of limited use to protect birds in this country if there is a danger that they will never arrive here because they have already been destroyed elsewhere. To take but one example, the I.C.B.P. has done sterling work in campaigning against oil pollution. At the same time, if there is a shortage of marshland and other specialised habitats, it is chiefly because they have been destroyed in the richer countries whose wealth has grown in the process of these developments. The fate of many species may depend on the preservation of such areas in the less deve- loped countries of southern Europe and Africa and the least we can do, if we do not want our errors to be repeated elsewhere, is to give financial support to the I.C.B.P. and other bodies operating beyond our own frontiers. J. M. Stainton [The Secretary of the British Section of the I.C.B.P. is Miss Phyllis Barclay-Smith, c/o British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, London S.W.7. — Eds.] Common Terns breeding inland in Yorkshire Sirs, — There is no reference to Yorkshire in a recent editorial comment listing the inland areas of England in which the Common Tern Sterna hirundo has nested (Brit. Birds , 57: 128). We therefore wish to point out that in June and July 1961, as briefly mentioned in the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union Ornithological Report for that year (p. 99), a pair of these terns hatched and reared two young on one of a number of shingle islets at Blaxton gravel-pits, Yorkshire; these pits are about 40 miles from the nearest sea at Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire (though much less from the Humber). In 1962 a pair twice attempted to breed at the same pits, but the first nest was apparently robbed after nearly three weeks and the second was deserted after more than a fortnight. The birds did not try again in 1963. A. E. Platt and J. Burley News and comment Edited by Raymond Cordero Failure of second Osprey nest. — Although three young were raised this year in the Osprey nest on the Loch Garten reserve, the eggs of a second pair elsewhere in Speyside failed to hatch, the birds sitting well beyond the normal incubation period. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds obtained a licence from the Nature 335 BRITISH BIRDS Conservancy to collect the one egg that remained so that it could be analysed for toxic residues and the results are expected shortly. Last year a second pair’s eggs were likewise unsuccessful and analysis of one of them revealed traces of chemical pesticides, although it is not known whether these caused its failure. O.B.E. for George Waterston. — Our warmest congratulations go to George Waterston on the O.B.E. awarded to him on 13th June in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to bird protection in Scotland. Widely regarded as the personification of Scottish ornithology and especially admired by all who have ventured north of the Border, George Waterston has been the Scottish Representa- tive of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds since 1955 and played a leading part in encouraging the return of the Osprey. I.C.B.P. conference in Northern Ireland. — -The eighth conference of the European Section of the International Council for Bird Preservation was held in Newcastle, Co. Down, from 1st to 6th June and was attended by representatives of thirteen national sections and of several other international organisations concerned with wildlife. A whole session was devoted to questions concerning the effects on the environment of the use of organo-chloride pesticides as seed dressings, sprays, dust and sheep dips in agriculture, horticulture and forestry. Many reports showed that these pesticides have resulted in pronounced decreases in bird populations, and alarming evidence was given of sterility in different groups of birds. It also emerged that, in view of the complicated analyses required to establish the presence of toxic chemicals in bodies, the situation may be more serious in many countries than was previously believed. A resolution was unanimously adopted urging all govern- ments to keep a constant check on the level of contamination of the environment in general and of animal and human organs in particular, and to prohibit at the earliest possible moment the use of aldrin, dieldrin, heptachlor and other preparations with similarly harmful effects. The conference also resolved that every government which contracted to the 1954 International Convention for the Prevention of the Pollution of the Sea by Oil, but which has not yet accepted the 1962 amendments, be urged to do so as speedily as possible. The British Government is among those which have accepted. Other subjects discussed included the international trade in wild birds for caging, the problem of collisions between birds and aircraft, and the pollution of inland waters. The recommendations made by the Working Conference on Birds of Prey at Caen in April (see ‘News and comment’, June 1964) were unanimously adopted (incidentally, the papers and discussions of that conference are to be published by the I.C.B.P.). Professor Sven Horstadius (Sweden) was re-elected Chairman and Dr. Zoltan Tildy (Hungary) Vice-Chairman. Annual report of the British Section of the I.C.B.P. — The 1963 report of the International Council for Bird Preservation’s British Section particularly mentions that the increase in ‘activities of armed hooligans and the acquisition and use of dangerous weapons by irresponsible persons’ is causing much concern and that consultations are being held with the National Farmers’ Union about the possibility of further legislation being introduced to deal with this problem. On a happier note, the report mentions the formation of a Malta National Section, an act of considerable importance to other European countries ‘in view of the great destruc- tion of migratory birds on the island’. Although the British Government has accepted, albeit somewhat slowly, the 336 RECENT REPORTS amendments to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution of the Sea by Oil, it has still failed to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of Birds, Paris 1950, and this is a ‘matter of considerable embarrassment to members of the British Section when attending international meetings’. Copies of the report can be bought, price three shillings, from the I.C.B.P., c/o Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London S.W.7. A new filmstrip. — A new filmstrip showing thirty nests of British birds, mostly with eggs, has been issued by Educational Publications Ltd., East Ardsley, Wake- field, Yorkshire. The photographs and accompanying notes arc by P. J. K. Burton. The first bird photograph. — The first photograph of a wild bird was for long considered to be the portrait of a Lapwing on eggs taken by remote control by R. B. Lodge in 1895. However, at this year’s annual general meeting of the Merseyside Naturalists’ Association there was exhibited a photograph of gulls in flight at Southport pier taken by Benjamin Wyles, a local chemist, in 1888. Wildlife artists’ exhibition. — We should like to remind readers that the Society of Wildlife Artists opened its inaugural exhibition in London at the galleries of the Federation of British Artists, 6£ Suffolk Street, London S.W.i, on 13th August (see ‘News and comment’, March 1964). This is a unique opportunity to see work not only by famous artists, but also by many other talented painters who may be less well known. Recent reports By I. J. F erguson-Lees (These are largely unchecked reports, not authenticated records) This summary covers the rarer species in May, June and July, and also a few April reports received too late for the June issue {Brit. Birds, 57: 259-260). SOUTHERN AND SOUTH-EASTERN BIRDS IN MAY AND JUNE One of the features of late spring in recent years has been a scatter of vagrants from southern and south-eastern Europe which have overshot their range. This year a wider variety than usual was headed by a remarkable influx of no less than twelve (as against the normal one or two) Little Bitterns Ixobrycbus minutus in the south of the British Isles from Co. Wexford, Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, Pembrokeshire and Gloucestershire to Hampshire, Sussex, Kent and south Lincolnshire. There was no real concentration of dates, the extremes being 26th April and 3rd June, and about equal numbers of both sexes were involved; three were trapped (until this year only one Little Bittern had been ringed here) and three others were found dead or dying. Other Continental herons were less well represented, however. Although Purple Herons Ardea purpurea appeared at Sandwich Bay (Kent) on 8th April and 17th May and Dungeness (Kent) on 20th May, there were no further Night Herons Nyc/icorax nycticorax in the spring after the two in Northamptonshire on 27th April (57: 260) and the only Little Egret Egret ta garget ta was one at Little Paxton (Huntingdonshire) on 19th May, though an unidentified egret arrived from the sea at Selsey Bill (Sussex) on 3 1st May. Spoonbills Platalea leucorodia were reported 337 BRITISH BIRDS in Norfolk (up to four), Suffolk, Kent and Devon, but this is not unusual. A White Stork Ciconia ciconia near Inverness on 1 9th April and what was presumably the same bird near Fort Augustus (Inverness-shire) from 21st April to 10th May may or may not have been genuinely wild, while a Flamingo Phoenicopterus ruber at Fonthill Lake (Wiltshire) in the second half of May was almost certainly an escape. One feature missing from the normal May-June pattern was any large-scale influx of Black Terns Chlidonias niger. Nevertheless, a total of four (about the average) White- winged Black Terns C. leucopterus , all in summer plumage, were seen on Benbecula (Outer Flebrides) and at Sandwich Bay on 23 rd and 29th May and on Brownsea Island and Lodmoor (both Dorset) on 3rd and 7th June, and a Whiskered Tern C. hybrida appeared at King George VI Reservoir (Middlesex) from 22nd to 24th June. Another species which now appears annually is the Red-footed Falcon Falco vespertinus and this year at least four were reported on Unst (Shetland) from 19th to 29th May, at Sandwich Bay from 23rd to 30th May, at Nursling old gravel-pit (Hampshire) on 30th May, and at Sandwich Bay again from 21st June (when a Kite Milvus tnilvus was also seen) into July. Hoopoes Upupa epops were widely reported in southern counties from Kent to Cos. Wexford and Wicklow and as far north as Yorkshire, Co. Durham and Caernarvonshire in April and the first three weeks of May, with stragglers into June including one on Skokholm (Pembrokeshire) as late as the 26th. Bee-eaters Merops apiaster were seen in Co. Cork on 26th April, at Portland Bill (Dorset) from 27th to 30th May and at Minsmere (Suffolk) on 8th June, while what appears to have been a Blue-cheeked Bee-eater M. superciliosus was watched at Benacre (Suffolk) on 28th May. Even more remark- able, however, was a Needle-tailed SwTift Cbaetura caudacuta at Cape Clear Island (Co. Cork) on 20th June; there are only three previous records of this species, tire last as long ago as 1931. Turning now to the passerines, an influx of Golden Orioles Oriolus oriolus from 8th May into early June was mostly in southern counties, from Co. Cork and the Isles of Scilly round to East Anglia and Lincolnshire (including one far inland in Oxfordshire), but included as many as six or seven up in Orkney. The Subalpine Warbler Sylvia cantillans at Portland from 19th to 24th April and the Red-rumped Swallow Hirundo daurica at Ruxley (Kent) on 25th April (57: 260) were matched by another male Subalpine Warbler on Fair Isle (Shetland) on 23rd and 24th April and two more Red-rumped Swallows at Littlebrook (Kent) and Spurn (Yorkshire) on 23rd April and 3rd May. Holme (Norfolk) had its second Woodchat Shrike Lanins senator of the spring (cf. 57: 260) on 24th May and a total of seven was made up by others at Salthouse Heath (Norfolk) on 23rd April, North Ronaldsay (Orkney) on 8th May, Lundy (Devon) from 12th to 17th May, Bardsey Island (Caernarvon- shire) on 26th May and Spurn from 7th to 29th June: this is more than in any year since the numbers dropped sharply away after i960 (57: 276). At the same time, a Lesser Grey Shrike L. minor was seen on South Uist (Outer Hebrides) on 29th May. Two Short-toed Larks Calandrella cinerea appeared on Fair Isle on 15 th and 18th May, the latter staying until the 20th, and one on Skokholm on 27th and 28th June: there were only five spring records in the preceding six years. A female Black- eared Wheatear Oenantbe hispanica on Fair Isle on 19th May was the first in the British Isles since 1956 and a Black Wheatear O. leucura at Portnoo (Co. Donegal) on 10th June the first since 1954. There are, in fact, only four previous records of the latter and the same applies to the Collared Flycatcher Muscicapa albicollis, of which an adult male was found dead near Ravenglass (Cumberland) on 2nd June. A female Red-breasted Flycatcher M. parva was trapped at Holme on 24th May. Warblers included an Icterine Warbler Hippolais icterina on Great Saltcc (Co. Wexford) from 17th to 19th May and five others at Bardsey (two), Fair Isle, Spurn and Holme between 28th May and 2nd June: several of these were in full song and spring records 338 L RECENT REPORTS are, in any case, usually limited to one or two a year ; soon afterwards. Melodious Warblers H. polyglolta were trapped on Skokholm and Fair Isle on ioth-nth and 1 2th June. Great Reed Warblers Acrocepbalus artmdinaceus appeared at Minsmere, Fair Isle, Cape Clear and Sidlesham (Sussex) between 26th May and 25th June, the Fair Isle and Sussex birds being trapped, and Savi’s Warblers Eocustclla luscinioides included one at Minsmere for at least a month from 20th April. A male Black- headed Bunting Emberi^a melanocepbala on Bardsey on 16th May may have been a wild bird, but the usual doubts must apply to male Red-headed Buntings E. bnmiceps at Lundy, St. Kilda (Outer Hebrides) and Portland between 10th and 30th May. OTHER EUROPEAN AND ASIATIC SPECIES There were also a number of records in May and June of Palearctic birds which do not form part of the same southern and south-eastern pattern. Some of these were Scandinavian species and other ones which occur with some regularity at almost any season. There were, for example, at least nine Mediterranean Black-headed Gulls Earns melanocephalus on the south coast between Dorset and Kent in April and May, as well as one at Cley (Norfolk) from 20th to 27th May and one on Bardsey on 26th June (the first recorded in Wales). On the other hand, Gull-billed Terns Gelo- chelidon nilotica were reported only from Selsey on five dates between 19th April and 24th May. Kentish Plovers Charadrius alexandrinus appeared in Yorkshire in April and at two localities in Norfolk in May, but more unusual was the total of eight Temminck’s Stints Calidris temminckii in Hampshire, Kent, Norfolk, Lincoln- shire, Yorkshire and Shetland between 12th May and 15 th June. Among passerines, several Serins Serinus catiarius arc of particular interest in view of the way this species in spreading closer on the Continent: a male at Dungcness from 4th to 7th April was only the second to be ringed over here; there was then a female at Spurn on 8th May and one at Fair Isle on 29th May, about which time there were also probably two on St. Agnes (Isles of Scilly). The spring passage of Bluethroats Cyanosylvia svecica, after single ones at Portland and Dungeness in the second week of April (57: 260), was concentrated between 19th May and 4th June, with a total of eight at Fair Isle and Unst, North Ronaldsay, Spurn and Portland. Other unusual spring passerines included an Ortolan Bunting E. bortulana on Fair Isle on 26th April; a Barred Warbler Sylvia rti soria on North Ronaldsay on 7th May; two Red-throated Pipits Antbus cervinus at Hauxley (Northumberland) on 9th and 10th May; a Richard’s Pipit A. novaeseelattdiae on Fair Isle on 21st May; a Tawny Pipit A campestris on the Isle of May (Fife) from 26th to 29th May; a female Scarlet Grosbeak Carpodacus erytbrinus at Spurn on 26th May; and a Greenish Warbler Phylloscopus trocbiloides at Spurn on 6th June. TRANSATLANTIC VAGRANTS IN SPRING Although autumn is the usual time for Nearctic vagrants, we sometimes get one or two in spring. This year, however, a total of nine American birds of seven different species wras quite remarkable. The drake Green-winged Teal Anas crecca carolinen- sis in Norfolk in early April (57: 260) was followed by another at Slimbridge (Gloucestershire) on 3rd and 4th May. These two might conceivably have over- wintered here, but the same is hardly likely to apply to five American waders: a Buff-breasted Sandpiper Tryngites snbruficollis at Salthouse (Norfolk) on nth and 1 2th May; a Lesser Yellowlegs Tringa flavipes near-by at Cley on the 17th; a Pectoral Sandpiper Calidris melanotos on Cape Clear from the 21st to the 23rd; and two dowitchers Eimnodromus sp. on Unst on the 23rd-24th and Havergate Island (Suffolk) on 1st June. The Buff-breasted Sandpiper has only twice before been recorded in the British Isles in spring and is a western arctic species which is unknown on the Atlantic coast of North America at this season (52: 205-215); 339 L 4 AUb 1764 BRITISH BIRDS P vj R Ci IAS £ equally remarkable were the two dowitchers as neither species had previously been identified over here in spring or summer. Meanwhile, if this were not enough, a Song Sparrow Melospi^a melodia was trapped at Spurn on 18th May, having been in the area since the 13 th, and a male Lazuli Bunting Passerina amoena arrived in Orkney on the 3 1st only to be shot by a boy a week later; the body was recovered and the skin preserved. There is only one previous record of a Song Sparrow in Europe (Fair Isle, April-May 1959), while the Lazuli Bunting has never before been found over here. Both these buntings fit into the spring pattern, such as it is, of American passerines in Europe and, if genuine vagrants, are most likely to have come over on ships (56: 204-217). However, we learn that a number of Lazuli Buntings have recently been imported as cage birds. A Nearctic influence was further suggested by a Sabine’s Gull Xenia sabini off Great Saltee on 13th May and several Pomarine Skuas Stercorarius pomarinus at Portland on 15 th and 21st April, at Selsey on 9th (four) and 10th May and at Fair Isle on 10th June. Both these species have a comparatively limited distribution in the Old World and both are rarely recorded here in spring. JULY AND THE BEGINNING OF THE AUTUMN PASSAGE The first rarities of the autumn were almost a continuation of the spring. Three more American birds appeared in July. These were yet another do witcher, this time identified as a Long-billed Dowitcher L. scolopaceus in full summer plumage, at Shotton Pools (Flintshire) from the 10th to at least the 21st; a Pectoral Sandpiper at the same locality on the 12th; and an adult Semipalmated Sandpiper Calidris pusilla on Skokholm on the 20th and 21st, which was trapped on the latter day (there are only two previous records of this species and this was the first to be ringed here). Also, another adult Sabine’s Gull appeared at Gibraltar Point (Lincolnshire) on the 19th. Earlier, right at the beginning of the month, there was a first-year Night Heron near Skibbereen (Co. Cork) on the 3rd; yet another Little Bittern at Oxwich (Glamorgan) on the 4th ; and an itinerant Cattle Egret Ardeola ibis which was seen in Westmorland, Dumfries and Lancashire on various dates between the 3rd and the 26th; the last may well prove to have been an escape, though it gains support from the coincidence of the Night Heron and Little Bittern. Other July birds included a young Short-toed Lark on Fair Isle from the 9th to the nth (trapped on the 10th), and a White-winged Black Tern and Caspian Tern Hydro- progne caspia at Spurn on the 24th and 26th respectively, as well as more Spoonbills (now including Dorset) Mediterranean Gulls (Kent and Sussex), Hoopoes (Kent and Hertfordshire) and Red-headed Buntings (Fair Isle and Bardsey). WIDESPREAD INFLUX OF QUAIL The Quail Coturnix coturnix is normally a scarce summer visitor and the last big influx was in 1953 when 31 1 were recorded in almost every county of England and many parts of Scotland and Wales (49: 161-166). However, a widespread invasion this summer seems likely to have been on a similar scale. The first were reported in south coast counties in early May and as far north as Lincoln by the 12th. Evidence of passage in mid-May was provided by several on such islands as Great Saltee, Skokholm and the Isle of May and again in early June when the species occurred at, for example, Fair Isle and the South Bishop Lighthouse (Pembroke- shire). By the middle of June Quail had been heard calling in some 35 counties of England, Wales and Scotland and it was described as ‘an above average year’ in Ireland. To take but two examples, there were at this time seven on the mosslands of South Manchester where the species had not been recorded for at least 30 years, and at least twelve were calling on Fair Isle from mid-June into July. Further records will be welcomed. 340 there's another watcher using WRAY binoculars Yet another watcher has discovered the advantages of the WRAY Eleven. So light, clear of vision, with wide angle observance and maximum light transmis- sion. Designed for a purpose. A most reasonable price. £38-10-0. Plus Purchase Tax 7/1 WRAY (Optical Works) LTD. BROMLEY, KENT. Tel. RAV. 0112 New ROSS BINOCULARS 10 x40 Ross Solaross. This is probably the best buy in the Ross Solaross range and we would be inclined to think that it repre- sents the best value obtainable today in a British glass of good quality. It is beauti- fully balanced and streamlined, weighs only 26 oz. and is fairly compact with a height of 6J in. We are supplying with this bino- cular a first quality English-made hide case. Inclusive cost £19 19s. Od. Where high power is required, we would suggest the Ross 16x60 at £32 8s. 8d. with hide case The pick of the world's great instruments on 14 days’ free trial A new type of Zeiss binocular. The 8 x 30B DIALYT is revolutionary in design and performance, weather proof and suitable for spectacle wearers £49 15s. JAPANESE BINOCULARS If they are good, they can be very, very good and we have selected certain models which we can recom- mend with the utmost confidence and which we market under our own 8x 30 centre focus and coated £12 10s. 10 x 50 centre focus and coated £18 1 0s. 6x30 ARMY BINOCULARS An excellent general-purpose binocu- lar of good performance, which will stand up to a great deal of rough usage (cost approximately £20) £7 15s. Od. New hide case optional extra at 25s. SEND FOR NEW ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE CHARLES FRANK LTD. 67-75 Saltmarket Glasgow C.1. Phone. BELL 2106/7 Est. 1907 Britain’s greatest stocks of New, Used and Ex-Govt. Binoculars, Telescopes and Navigational Equipment. Accredited agents for ROSS, BARR & STROUD, WRAY and ZEISS (both East and West Zones) For wildfowling or when extremely high light transmission is required, we would suggest the Canadian Naval 7x50 binocular at £24 or the new Russian 7x50 at £16 16s. Od. Both glasses are exceptionally good and it would be difficult to decide which is the better buy. The West Zone Zeiss 8x50 is possibly the 'ideal' wildfowling glass and is available at £96 18s. Od. TELESCOPES We have a host of models from which to choose and can recommend the following: Ex-Admiralty 16x40 single-draw, micrometer focusing £5 IBs. 6d. Pocket 3-draw telescope, magnifica- tion 25 X : an excellent auxiliary to your binoculars £2 2s. Od. Nickel Supra IS to 60x: a tremen- dous advance in portable telescope design £36 12s. Od. The Charles Frank PANCRATIC 30 x to 55 x £7 17s. 6d. The Charles Frank 22 X OG 50 mm. PRISMATIC with tripod £22 10s. Od. From Russia, we have a MAKSUTOV triple turret telescope of fantastic power and performance. Wt. 32 lb., price £250, details on request I Notice to Contributors British Birds publishes material dealing with original observations on the birds of Britain and western Europe, or, where appropriate, on birds of this area as observed in other parts of their range. Except for records of rarities, papers and notes are normally accepted only on condition that the material is not being offered to any other journal. Photographs (glossy prints showing good contrast) and sketches are welcomed. Proofs of all contributions are sent to authors before publication. After publication, 25 separates of papers are sent free to authors (two or more authors of one paper receive 15 copies each); additional copies, for which a charge is made, can be provided if ordered when the proofs are returned. Papers should be typewritten with double spacing, and on one side of the sheet only. Shorter contributions, if not typed, must be clearly written and well spaced. Notes should be worded as concisely as possible, and drawn up in the form in which they will be printed, with signature in block capitals and the writer’s address clearly written on the same sheet. If more than one note is submitted, each should be on a separate sheet, with signature and address repeated. Certain conventions of style and layout are essential to preserve the uniformity of any publication. Authors of papers in particular, especially of those containing systematic lists, reference lists, tables, etc., should consult the ones in this issue as a g guide to general presentation. English names of species should have capital initials for each word, except after a hyphen (e.g. Willow Warbler, Black-tailed > Godwit), but group terms should not (e.g. warblers, godwits). English names are t those used in The Handbook of British Birds , with the exception of the changes listed in British Birds in January 1953 (46: 2-3). The scientific name of each species should be underlined (but not put in brackets) immediately after the first mention of the English name. Subspecific names should not be used except where they are relevant to the discussion. It is sometimes more convenient to list scientific names in an appendix. Dates should take the form Tst January 1964’ and no other, except in tables where they may be abbreviated to Tst Jan.’, ‘Jan. 1st’, or ceven ‘Jan. T, whichever most suits the layout of the table concerned. It is particu- larly requested that authors should pay attention to reference lists, which otherwise cause much unnecessary work. These should take the following form: Tucker, B. W. (1949): ‘Species and subspecies: a review for general ornitholo- gists’. Brit. Birds, 42: 1 29-1 34. Witherby, H. F. (1894): Forest Birds: Their Haunts and Habits. London, p. 34. Various other conventions concerning references, including their use in the text, 1 should be noted by consulting examples in this issue. Tables should be numbered with arabic numerals, and the title typed above in the style used in this issue. They must either fit into the width of a page, or be designed to fit a whole page lengthways. All tables should be self-explanatory Figures should be numbered with arabic numerals, and the captions typed on a ■ separate sheet. All line-drawings should be in indian ink on good quality’ drawing paper (not of an absorbent nature) or, where necessary, on graph paper, but this must be light blue or very pale grey. It is always most important to consider how •sach drawing will fit into the page. The neat insertion of lettering, numbers, mows, etc., is perhaps the most difficult part of indian ink drawing and, unless he las had considerable experience of this kind of work, an author should seek the lid of a skilled draughtsman. The publishers thank those who have supplied back num- bers in response to the advertisement in July, but sufficient have now been received. Recent publications available from WITHERBY’S BOOKSHOP Bent’s Life Histories of North American Wood Warblers, Parts 1 and 2. Paperback edition, illustrated, unabridged. 20s. each. Bent’s North American Flycatchers, Larks, Swallows and their Allies. Paperback edition, illustrated, unabridged. 22s. Varda — the Flight of a Falcon by Robert Murphy. Illustrated by Keith Shackleton. 21s. A Tapestry of British Bird Song recorded by V. C. Lewis. A 12-inch L.P. record with explanatory notes. 32s. Bird Life in the Royal Parks 1961-62. Report by the Committee on Bird Sanctuaries in the Royal Parks of Eng- land and Wales. Illustrated. H.M.S.O. 3s. 6d. The British Amphibians and Reptiles by Malcolm Smith. Third edition. 18 colour photographs, 33 black and white photographs. ‘New Naturalist’ series. 35s. The Life of Birds by Joel Carl Welty. 84s. The Waterfowl of the World, Vol. IV, by Jean Delacour. Illustrated by Peter Scott. 6 gns. Birds of the London Area by the London Natural History Society. A revised edition with a new set of excellent illus- trations. 42s. The Shell Gardens Book. 320 pages of brilliant and original writing on gardens. Illustrated with 12 double-page colour plates, 120 photographs and 38 line drawings. 21s. Birds of the Atlantic Islands, Vol. I, by D. A. Bannerman. 84s. The Birds of the British Isles, Vol. XII, by D. A. Bannerman and G. E. Lodge. 63s. The Handbook of British Mammals edited by H. N. Southern. The first complete handbook of British mammals to be pub- lished in this country. Written by members of the Mammal Society of the British Isles, edited by H. N. Southern and illustrated mainly by Robert Gillmor. 512 pages, 55 text figures, 60 photographs. 37s. 6d. Please address all enquiries to The Manager, Witherby’s Bookshop 61/62 Watling Street, London, F..C.4 or telephone City 5405 ALL BOOKS SENT POST FREE Printed in England by Diemer & Reynolds Ltd., Eastcotts Road, Bedford Published by H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Watling Street, E.C.4 British Birds Residues of organo-chlorine insecticides in a Golden Eagle Adam Watson and Neville C. Morgan A study of Swift weights T. W. Gladwin and B. S. Nau Studies of less familiar birds : 129 — Cetti’s Warbler M. D. England and I. J. Ferguson-Lees (with four plates) Rook numbers in Nottinghamshire over 35 years A. Dobbs Notes News and comment Review ■ — Principal Contents Yol. 57 No. 9 September THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE British Birds AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY JOURNAL Editors Stanley Cramp, I. J. Ferguson-Lees, P. A. D. Hollom, E. M. Nicholson Photographic Editor Eric Hosking Editorial Address 30 St. Leonard’s Avenue, Bedford 'News and Comment' Parities Committee Raymond Cordero D. D. Harber Rohan Lodge, Wadhurst Park 59 Eridge Road Wadhurst Sussex Eastbourne, Sussex Contents of Volume 57, Number 9, September 1964 Page Residues of organo-chlorine insecticides in a Golden Eagle. By Dr. Adam Watson and Neville C. Morgan . . . . . . . . . . . . 341 A study of Swift weights. By T. W. Gladwin and B. S. Nau . . . . 344 Studies of less familiar birds: 129 — Cetti’s Warbler. Photographs by M. D. England (plates 54-573). Text by I. J. Ferguson-Lees .. .. 357 Rook numbers in Nottinghamshire over 3 5 years. By A. Dobbs . . . . 360 Notes: — Moorhen walking underwater (R. J. Salmon) . . . . . . 364 Redstart nesting on ground (J. M. Bayldon) . . . . . . . . 365 Cetti’s Warbler in Hampshire (Dr. C. Suffern and I. J. Ferguson-Lees) . . 363 Cetti’s Warbler in Sussex (D. D. Harber) (plate 37b) . . . . . . 366 Reviews : — Vara Fdglar i Norden ( Our Birds in the North), vol. 4, edited by Kai Curry- Lindahl. Reviewed by Dr. H. M. S. Blair . . . . . . . . 367 News and comment. Edited by Raymond Cordero . . . . . . . . 372 Annual subscription £2 6s. (including postage and despatch) pavablc to H. F. Sc G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Wading Street, London, E.C.4 Zeiss Binoculars of entirely new design: Dialyt 8x30B giving equal performance with or without spectacles This delightfully elegant and compact new model from Carl Zeiss has an entirely new prism system which gives an amazing reduction in size. The special design also gives the fullest field of view — 130 yards at 1000 — to spectacle wearers and to the naked eye alike. Price £49.15.0 Write forthe latest camera, binocular and sunglass booklets to the sole U.K. importers. DEGENHARDT & CO. LTD • CARL ZEISS HOUSE 20/22 Mortimer Street • London, W.1 • LANgham 6097 (9 lines) ZB. 83 A unique and wonderful record A TAPESTRY OF BRITISH BIRR SOAR FIRST-EVER FULL-LENGTH LP OF BRITISH BIRD SONG The dawn chorus . . . ‘recitals’ by more than 50 birds... song of the nightingale— all this is wonderfully captured for you by Victor C. Lewis. With the record comes a 4-page leaflet giving notes on each of the species heard. JAMES FISHER writes of this record: " All the top songsters are really beauti- fully done, and all the birds’ voices are woven into an accurate and heart- wanning evocation of the wild.” HMV CLP1723 (mono) HIS MASTER'S VOICE Available from all His Master’s Voice record dealers. • Ill mil llli li m imiriiii ii hi t M l. Recoids Ltd , KM. I. House. ?0 Manchester Square, London W I RINGING TRAPS and COLOURED RINGS fast colours . . . fast service From a small WINDOWSILL Trap (17/6) to a medium size DUPLEX (43/6) or a really large GREENRIGG (104/9), as specialists in BIRD RINGING EQUIPMENT we can meet your needs. Send 6d. for ‘RINGING’ Catalogue A58 which includes Coloured Rings, Registers, Clap and Flue Nets, etc. FEEDING DEVICES and NEST BOXESofall types are illus- trated in our 'BIRD SANC- TUARY’Cata- logue (6d.) DEPARTMENT II, BIRDCRAFT GREENRIGG WORKS WOODFORD GREEN, ESSEX Birds of the RITISH ISLES by D. A. BANNERMAN now complete in 12 volumes • Lord Alanbrooke, in his Foreword to Volume I, writes that this is a ‘book to which bird lovers will turn, not so much for reference (valuable as it may be for such purposes) as for the sheer enjoyment of reading about birds and of revelling in their beautiful pictures’ — an opinion which has been endorsed many times over by eminent ornithologists and amateur naturalists alike • Single volumes or sets available on deferred terms For full particulars of Banncrman’s ‘Birds of the British Isles’ write to The Globe Publishing Co. Ltd 24 Whitcomb Street London, W.C.2 Name Address B.B.12I A - British Birds Vol. 57 No. 9 September 1964 Residues of organo-chlorine insecticides in a Golden Eagle By Adam Watson and Neville C. Morgan Nature Conservancy Unit of Grouse Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and Moorland Ecology for Scotland, Scientific Services ‘.On 1 2TH April 1963 a female Golden Eagle Aquila cbrjsae/os was found dead on the ground about 250 metres from a pine-tree eyrie near Braemar, Aberdeenshire. The eyrie was empty, but newly built-up and thickly lined with fresh green pine shoots. The bird had been dead for only a few days and was sent for post- mortem examination to the Veterinary Laboratory at Lasswade, Midlothian. There J. W. Macdonald found that it had died in very poor condition and weighed only 4,050 grams: it was affected by tuberculosis and there were typical lesions in the liver and spleen; the ovary was inactive and the oviduct was regressing. Subsequent examination for phosphorus and strychnine poisoning was negative. The body was later examined for organo-chlorine insecticides at the Tabic 1. Quantities of organo-chlorine insecticides in a Golden Eagle Aquila cbrysaetos from Braemar, Aberdeenshire, in April 1963 The weight in brackets after each category of tissue shows the size of the sample analysed, while the amounts of the insecticides are given in parts per million Hcptachlor Lindane epoxide Dieldrin DDE Brain (13.0 gm.) O.O5 0.006 0.05 0.07 Fat (14.0 gm.) O.I4 0.17 i-75 5.8 Muscle (26.5 gm.) 0.06 0.01 0.14 0.3 Liver (13.0 gm.) 0.02 0.008 0.08 0.17 341 BRITISH BIRDS laboratory of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland, Scientific Services, Edinburgh. The results are given in table i where it will be seen that the levels were in general fairly low, but the amount of DDE in the fat was higher than might have been expected. The insecticides were considered unlikely to have caused death, in fact, although they may well have contributed to the bird’s poor condition. Eagles feeding on dead sheep often swallow wool, which later appears in their pellets. As organo-chlorine insecticides have been used in sheep dips since the second world war, eagles which often eat sheep carrion, such as those in the western Highlands, might be expec- ted to be affected by these toxic chemicals and ten eagle eggs collected from seven eyries in that area in 1963 all contained residues (Lockie and Ratcliffe 1964). However, the eagle that died near Braemar was from an area of deer forest where the only sheep were occasional strays. This case therefore shows how predatory birds may accumu- late persistent organo-chlorine residues even in areas where little or no insecticide is used in normal agricultural practice. There are three ways in which this may have happened: (1) The eagle may have acquired it before staying in this sheep-free area. Unfortunately there is no experimental evidence on the maxi- mum time any of the organo-chlorine insecticides can persist in the fat of predatory birds. The dead eagle, which was made easily recog- nisable by some patches of white in its plumage, had been paired and resident in the area for at least six months before its death. (2) The eagle may have obtained the insecticide, through its food chain, from treated crops within or near its hunting range. In fact, however, there was no arable land within its normal range and the surrounding region consisted almost entirely of deer forest. The nearest arable farming was in two small areas totalling approximately fifty hectares about four kilometres to the east and a third area of another fifty hectares lying eight kilometres in the same direction; all three were fenced to exclude Red Deer Cervus elaphits and no eagles were seen hunting in them. By comparison, the average area of ground per eagle pair in this region was 4,000 hectares (Watson 1957). To the north, west and south there was no arable farming for thirty kilometres. (3) Birds and mammals may have moved into the area from regions with intensive arable farming, carrying insecticide residues in their fat, and then been eaten by the eagle. Rooks Corpus frugilegus , Carrion Crows C. corone and Woodpigeons Columba palumbus show seasonal movements into this hunting range every year, either breeding there after spending the winter lower down in Deeside (Carrion Crows and Woodpigeons) or moving there in late summer after breeding on low- land agricultural land (Rooks). Organo-chlorine insecticides have 342 INSECTICIDE RESIDUES IN A GOLDEN EAGLE been found in the flesh or eggs of all three species in Scotland (Morgan and Hamilton, unpublished data), although not necessarily in lethal amounts. However, only one Rook and one Carrion Crow have been recorded as prey at eagle nests in this region, and such items make up a minute part of the diet. Detailed study of the food of eagles in this area (Watson 1957, Brown and Watson 1964) showed that they fed almost entirely on Red Grouse Lagoptts lagopus scoticus. Ptarmigan JL. mutus. Rabbits Orjctolagus cuniculus. Mountain Hares Lepus timidus and Red Deer carrion (though Rabbits ceased to play an important part after myxomatosis in 1955). We cannot say to what extent any of these possibilities accounted for the insecticide content of this particular eagle. The cause of death was probably avian tuberculosis, but even this may have been only a contributory factor. At any rate, the finding of the corpse provided an opportunity, unlikely to arise often with this species, of analysing various organs for residues; in fact, this was the first Golden Eagle to be examined in this way. It is well known that there can be a concentration of organo-chlorine insecticides in a food chain and that predators at the top may thereby be more vulnerable than animals lower down (Hunt and Bischoff i960). Only a minute fraction of eagle range in Scotland is sheep-free, but in spite of their position at the top of the food chain there, the few eagles in such places might be considered comparatively unlikely to become contaminated. The residues in this individual, although small, therefore take on a greater significance. It would clearly be valuable to study the distribution of organo- chlorine residues throughout an animal community in an area where there is no insecticide use, in order to determine the extent and methods of translocation of such chemicals. This would be a useful supple- ment to work done in areas with high insecticide use, where it may not be possible to measure the amounts coming from other regions in animal tissues, water supplies and so on. We wish to record our thanks to Miss E. Miller who carried out the insecticide analyses. SUMMARY The body tissues, especially the fat, of a Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaeios found dead in a deer-forest area of north-east Scotland contained small amounts of organo- chlorine insecticides, though it was considered unlikely that these caused its death. However, their appearance was not expected in an individual which had been resident for at least six months in a hunting range where there were no sheep and no arable farms. REFERENCES Brown, L. H., and Watson, A. (1964): ‘The Golden Eagle in relation to its food supply’. Ibis, 106: 78-100. 343 BRITISH BIRDS Hunt, E. G., and Biscitoff, A. I. (i960): ‘Inimical effects on wild life of periodic DDD applications to Clear Lake5. Calif. Fish & Gam, 46: 91-106. Lockie, J. D., and Ratcliffe, D. A. (1964): ‘Insecticides and Scottish Golden Eagles’. Brit. Birds, 57: 89-102. Watson, A. (1957): ‘The breeding success of Golden Eagles in the north-east Highlands’. Scot. Nat., 69: 153-169. A study of Swift weights By T. W . Gladwin and B. S. Nau Rye Meads Ringing Group INTRODUCTION Nearly all 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 was then determined. In 1962 large numbers were trapped during particularly unseason- able weather. Analysis of these weights revealed significant losses during abnormally cold conditions and evidenced hardship otherwise indicated by unusual behaviour and mortality. On several days in both years sufficiently large numbers were weighed for diurnal changes to be calculated. Again, such variations were found to be chiefly dependent on the weather. METHODS All the Swifts were caught in mist nets, each held by two ‘operators’ who raised it quickly whenever a Swift flew low between them. Best efficiency was obtained by lowering the net to the ground as soon as one had entered it. In this way the bird would normally drop into the grass and be covered by the net in which it would otherwise have become entangled. It was then put into a ventilated wooden box with minimum delay. Swifts have a very powerful grip and this method saved the operators from much of the pain which results when sharp claws sink into the quick of a fingernail. Weights were obtained to the nearest o. 1 gram with a spring balance of the type supplied by the British Trust for Ornithology. Losses due to defecation were ignored. The temperatures used were those recorded on the Air Ministry roof, London, taken to the nearest o.i° Fahrenheit and Centigrade. POPULATIONS AND FEEDING BEHAVIOUR Rye Meads is situated on the Hertfordshire/Essex border at the con- fluence of the Rivers Lea and Stort. Large gatherings of feeding 344 A STUDY OF SWIFT WEIGHTS Swifts occur there on most summer evenings over an area of lagoons about 5 8 acres in extent with densely vegetated gravel banks. W inged and other insect life is abundant around these lagoons in season. In normal conditions the Swifts feed too high to be caught in hand- operated mist nets and it is only at times of cold or windy weather that they are readily trapped in significant numbers. Except at times of passage or inclement weather, the presence of large numbers much before evening is exceptional. The evening gatherings mostly contain between 500 and 1,000 birds although numbers greatly in excess of this are not unusual. It is believed that Rye Meads is a major feeding centre for Swifts from sites up to 25 miles away, partly because some have been recovered at such colonies in the same season as they were ringed and partly because the evening gatherings contain much greater numbers than nest within a radius of a few miles. These evening concentrations normally dispers laterally shortly before sunset when they presumably return to their colonies. Sometimes, however, as also observed by Lack (1956, p. 136) at Tring, Hertfordshire, the majority rise vertically in a spiralling column until lost to view; it seems highly probable that they then roost on the wing. The Swifts normally gather in two or three loose groups, each of which has a distinct focal point that is constantly moving over a fixed ‘track’. The groups usually patrol those parts where the lagoon banks are close to, and parallel with, belts of trees; each complete cycle around the feeding track lasts from five to ten minutes. Only at times of very windy or cold weather do they concentrate almost ex- clusively over water. They may then fly very close to the surface, possibly because the onlv insects available are newly hatched aquatic forms. In very extreme conditions, as in May 1962, they may continue attempting to feed until it is probably too late for them to return to their nests (Lack 1956 referred to the work of Weitnauer 1947 who showed that Swifts are unable to enter their nest-holes in poor light). On most occasions when large numbers are present throughout the day, and when sufficient food appears to be available, the situation is more complex. The population on these occasions constantly changes and although there may never be more than a hundred present at any one time, several thousand individuals must visit the site during the dav. This supposition is substantiated by a low retrap rate and little or no difference in the average weights in successive periods throughout the day, despite the availability of food. RESULTS Table 1 summarises the weights and numbers of Swifts caught through the summer of 1962. These have been divided into two groups according to whether the maximum day temperature on each trapping 345 BRITISH BIRDS occasion was above or below 6o° F (i 5 .6° C). Those days on which the Swifts were flying too high to be trapped have been omitted from the analysis and, as a result, table 1 tends to understate the difference between the numbers caught in each temperature range. In spite of this, an average of nearly four times as many was trapped on the colder days. Table x. Average numbers and weights of Swifts Apus aptis trapped in 1962 at Rye Meads, Hertfordshire, on cold and hot days respectively The average catch per day is based on the preceding column and ignores the days when no Swifts were caught Total days Total days Average Average Standard Maximum when trapping when Swifts catch weight deviation temperature attempted caught per day in grams of weight 6o° F or less 13 12 51 39.5 3.19 More than 6o° F 35 18 13 42.8 3.44 A significant difference between the average weights on hot and cold days can also be seen. A comparison of these averages in table 1 with the standard error of their difference (0.26) indicates that the dis- crepancy between the two values is unlikely to have been due to random errors in the sampling of a single population. Lack (1956) gave the normal midsummer weight of an adult Swift as about 43 grams and this is in good agreement with the average of 42.8 grams for 237 full grown birds caught at Rye Meads on days when the maximum temperature exceeded 6o° F. A number of other authors have recorded the effects of unusual cold on Swifts (Koskimies 1961, Smith 1856, Watson 1930). The summers of 1962 and 1963 were very different in character. In 1962 there were few days when the maximum day temperature was above the seasonal average and no Swifts were caught on any such occasion. In 1963 there were comparatively few cold periods and these were generally of shorter duration than those in 1962. All but nineteen of the Swifts caught on warm days in 1963 were trapped on 20th June following several days of inclement weather. The average weight on this day was 36.9 grams. Even ignoring the bias from this source, the correlation between temperature and weight so clearly brought out by the figures for 1962 was less evident in 1963, but it will be shown that there was, in fact, a general correlation between weight and maximum day temperature in both years. None the less, one is led to suspect that other factors may be involved since, in any case, the apparent correlation between weight and temperature is unlikely to be a direct cause-and-effect relationship but probably operates through, 346 A STUDY OF SWIFT WEIGHTS Table 2. Weights in grams of Swifts Apus apus at Rye Meads, Hertfordshire, in 1962 and 1963 on days when at least five were caught Date Total Average weighed weight Weight Standard range deviation 1962 April 29th 5 47-3 45.2-51.3 May 3rd 14 46.3 41.5-49.6 Jth 84 43.8 36.2-50.2 2.39 1 2th 6 39.8 37-4-44-5 19th 59 38.3 32.1-48.4 2-75 20th 47 39-5 35.2-44.2 1.94 24th 10 41.8 38.1-49.0 27 th 129 v-w 00 v» 31.1-46.1 2.70 29th 5 38.3 35.0-41.2 30th 9 39-7 35.0-44.5 31st 27 39.6 35.0-44.7 2.65 June 2nd 16 41.6 37.0-46.3 3rd 9 41.8 37.6-44.9 7th 5 45.0 42.2-48.7 10th 42 44-7 38.4-50.6 2.63 nth 208 41.5 36.3-49.4 2.42 July 5th 76 36.8 33.3-42.9 1.81 1 ith 29 39-3 35-7-43-5 2.15 1 2 th 5 39-9 OO 1 K> b 14th 20 40.0 36.9-44.0 15 th 24 37-3 32.6-40.3 11963 '•May 2nd 12 48.2 44.1-5 1.5 nth 107 44.6 36.6-54.6 2.99 1 2 th 382 43. 1 35-7-49-5 2.48 15 th 14 44.0 41.0-47.7 1 8th 181 44.2 38.7-51.9 2.64 19th 56 43-9 37.6-49.5 2-44 2 1 St 56 43.6 37.2-55.6 3.63 23rd 81 41.7 35.5-49.1 2-77 25th 19 44.0 40.7-52.1 26th 15 45-7 42.3-50.0 June 1 6th 135 38.5 34.1-46.2 2.07 20th 85 36.9 30.9-41.3 i-77 22nd 15 37.8 35.4-41.3 23 rd 109 38.0 33.1-42.7 2.05 28 th 9 37-9 35.7-41.0 29th 398 36.4 30.8-44.5 2.12 30 th 34 36.2 32.9-41.2 1.93 July 6th 7 37-9 34.9-39.1 14th 26 37.6 33.4-44.2 2.3c 347 BRITISH BIRDS Fig. i a. Maximum daily temperatures recorded on the Air Ministry roof, London, from ist May to 20th July 1962. The average maxima for these dates are plotted as a continuous line Fig. ib. Average weights of Swifts Apus apus trapped at Rye Meads, Hertford- shire, in 1962. Samples containing less than ten birds have been omitted for instance, the abundance of food, which consists solely of winged insects and aerial plankton (Lack and Owen 1955)- This situation contrasts with that of the seed-eating Greenfinch Chloris chloris and other passerines at air temperatures near freezing, when there appears to be a direct link between temperature and the metabolism of the bird (Lloyd- Evans and Nau in press, Helms and Drury i960). Table 2 summarises the weight statistics of the Swifts caught in 1962 and 1963. The average daily weights given in this table have been plotted alongside the maximum daily temperatures in figs. 1 and 2. Inspection of fig. 1 shows how closely the weights are correlated with the maximum daily temperatures. At first sight one might be tempted 348 A STUDY OF SWIFT WEIGHTS to conclude that weight decreases through the season, but, except for the initial drop from the high level on first arrival, the evidence sug- gests that, given average conditions, it would remain near the 43 gram level. Thus the return of warm weather in early June 1962 resulted in a rise of the average to about 45 grams compared with 38 grams during the abnormally cold spell in late May. Again, weight losses at the beginning of July were recovered when the weather became warmer between the nth and the 14th, only to be lost again when it became colder on the 1 5 th. A dramatic fall in weight on successive davs was also experienced on 10th and nth June 1962, when the temperature fell sharply after a heat wave. 349 BRITISH BIRDS These dramatic fluctuations in 1962 give a valuable lead in inter- preting the 1963 weights, which were generally less erratic. In May, and to a lesser extent in June, it is possible to trace the correlation between temperature and weight quite closely, but in considering the 1963 figures it should be pointed out that on occasion there was a time lapse before weights responded to a sudden change in temperature. From a general comparison of the relative positions of the temperature and weight curves in figs. 1 and 2, it is concluded that when the temperature rises or falls below normal the weights of Swifts tend to do likewise. Figs. 3 and 4 trace the weight ‘histories’ of birds retrapped during the study period. These clearly illustrate individual variations similar to the general pattern obtained from the numerical analysis of the averages. It is therefore beyond doubt that the weight variations can in general be regarded as applicable to a finite population. The possibility of a fall in weight over the course of the breeding season, such as might be due to nesting stresses in adults, cannot be completely ruled out. Idowever, the Swifts caught at Rye Meads certainly included many adults (as evidenced by food carrying) and the present data show no conclusive weight trend independent of tempera- ture. DIURNAL WEIGHT VARIATION The amounts by which weights change during the day are obviously dependent on the availability of insects, which, in turn, is largely con- trolled by the weather. Calculation of these weight variations is complicated by an inability to measure the rate of turnover in the population as replete birds are replaced by hungry ones. Further, since few Swifts were trapped twice on the same day, one must have recourse to procedures other than a direct comparison of the weights of individuals. On three occasions, nth June 1962 and 12th May and 29th June 1963, sufficient numbers were caught to allow diurnal variations to be reasonably calculated. Fig. 5 shows the average weights of the birds trapped in successive periods throughout each of these days. It can be seen that the results varied considerably and it is interesting to compare the trends in relation to the conditions immediately before and at the time. 1 1 lb June 1962. The day was cold and overcast, and this caused the Swifts to feed lower than usual. Although some ‘heavy’ migrants were present, the average weight of 44.7 grams for 42 birds weighed on the previous day indicated that they had fully recovered from the extreme hardship experienced at the end of May and the beginning of June. From the 9th to the nth the maximum day temperature 35° A STUDY OF SWIFT WEIGHTS each bird 44- 40- 36- r r i 1 1 1 — IO JO 31 I O .20 30 MAY TUNE Fig. 4. Variations in weights of individual Swifts Apus apus caught twice on different days at Rye Meads, Hertfordshire, in 1963. Lines connect the weights of each bird 351 BRITISH BIRDS dropped by 180 F (io° C) and the average of 41.5 grams for the 208 birds caught on the day under consideration shows the effects of the return of cold weather and of the resulting scarcity of flying insects. The best straight line describing the weight increases was found to be given by W=4o.33 -|-o.i34t, where W is the weight in grams and t the time in hours. The standard error was found to be ±0-5 9 grams and the coefficient of correlation 0.72. It can be shown that the agreement Fig. 5 . Average weights of Swifts Apus apus at Rye Meads, Hertfordshire, in each hourly period on nth June 1962 and 12th May and 29th June 1963. The numbers to which each average refers are shown against the appropriate plot 352 A STUDY OF SWIFT WEIGHTS between the line and the data is unlikely to be due to random effects, the probability being less than 5% by t-test. On the face of it, the rate of increase of weight of 0.134 grams per hour does not seem to be unreasonable, amounting as it does to about 2 grams per day. How- ever, as will be seen, this increase was comparatively small. nth May 1963. This was a cloudy day with average temperatures and a light wind. Insects were particularly numerous, although low flying. Some 4,000 to 5,000 Swifts were feeding low over the lagoons for most of the day together with about 200 Swallows Htrundo rustica , 20 House Martins Delichon urbica and 300 Sand Martins Kiparia riparia. A total of 582 Swifts were caught and averaged 43.1 grams, a near- normal figure which followed a period of warm sunny weather. The distribution of weights indicated the proportion of migrants to be small, although in view of the date it would be unwise to form any firm conclusion about this. The rate of increase of weight on this day would at first seem to be 0.43 grams per hour between 09.00 and 12.00 hours and apparently ‘flattening out’ thereafter, but this latter effect can be entirely attributed to changes in the population. Fig. 6 shows the variations in the weights of individual birds caught twice on this day and the preceding one, and it is clear that the trends observed in the averages understate the true increases which, in fact, continued through the afternoon. 29th June 1963. This was a very cold day with 7/8 cloud cover, intermittent rain and a light wind. Insects were few and, as can be seen in fig. 5, weights tended to fall slightly, as was to be expected in view of the scarcity of food. There were never more than 1,000 Swifts present at any one time and the population changed continuouslv throughout the day. However, it is highly probable that the apparent small loss of weight was real and not the result of sampling a changing population. All three Swifts trapped twice during the day showed small losses over periods of not less than two hours. Despite the apparently close correlation between weight, weather and the availability of food in the three instances discussed above, one must not forget that the situation is essentially complex as the popula- tion being sampled on each day may have been changing. The birds caught were, perhaps, the particularly hungry new arrivals. Support for this hypothesis is provided by the weight changes of the ‘same- day’ retraps in early May 1963, shown in fig. 6. The difference be- tween the weight changes of individuals and of samples through the day is remarkable. Thus on 1 2th May, for instance, when the averages of samples during the afternoon were very similar, the retraps showed quite large variations: six birds increased by an average of 0.80 grams per hour. On the previous day, too, retraps had a high average in- crease of 0.56 grams per hour between 13.00 and 15.30 hours GMT. 353 BRITISH BIRDS Three birds in fig. 6 show a fall in weight, all on 1 2th May, but, in view of the similarity between the rest, one is tempted to suppose that the average weight changes on these two days is likely to have been somewhere near the average for the birds with increasing weight. Although it is clear that some at least of the Swifts present on 12th May 1963 were not transitory — there were, after all, several retraps — the samples obtained from hour to hour do not seem to have been truly representative of a simple population and are therefore not valid for Fig. 6. Variations in weights of individual Swifts Apus apus caught twice on the same day at Rye Meads, Hertfordshire, on nth and 12th May 1963 354 A STUDY OF SWIFT WEIGHTS the purpose of investigating weight changes through the day. One is led to the tentative generalisation that weight data obtained from Swifts netted while feeding will be biased by the fact that one is catch- ing the hungrier and lighter individuals. Further investigation of the validity of this argument is beyond the scope of the present work in view of the limitations of the catching technique employed for Swifts at Rye Meads. To conclude this section on diurnal variation, it may be said that the best conservative estimate which can be made from the data presented here is that during the afternoons of i ith and 12th May 1963 the weight was increasing at about 0.72 grams per hour, a figure based on eight individuals which were each caught twice on the same day. ACCURACY OF WEIGHTS As remarked earlier, weights were recorded to the nearest o. 1 gram with a spring balance of the type supplied by the British Trust for Orni- thology. These balances are graduated in half-gram intervals, each of which covers nearly one-eighth of an inch, and the above accuracy was obtained by visual interpolation. The values so obtained were therefore more vulnerable to human error than is desirable. Whilst this in no way alters the general results, it is interesting to consider whether or not the above claims to accuracy are justified. In a large sample one would theoretically expect each integer to occur in the decimal position with about equal frequency. However, as can be seen in table 3, this did not happen. The high frequency of o and 5 and the low frequency of 4, 8 and 9 indicate a tendency to round the latter figures to the nearest half-gram. A x2 test reveals that this bias is unlikely to have arisen from random effects (P44 the national census revealed a considerable increase to 10,163 issts, but did not include three areas which held 228 nests in 1958 and 47 in 1962; if 143 (the 1962 figure minus the average percentage iflerence for the rest of the countv between 1944 and 1962) is added to low for these, the estimated total for 1944 was 10,306 nests, or 12.2 . Numbers of nests of Rooks Conus frttgilegus in Nottinghamshire, 1928-62, in relation to acreages under crops and grass (excluding rough grazing) Total crops and grass Total grass Total crops Grain alone % grain of crops Total nests Nests per sq. mile 423,633 219,260 204,373 93,i7i 45.6 6,576 7.8 415.581 225,525 190,056 82,515 43-4 6,113 7-2 400,022 187,137 212,885 124,442 58.5 10,306 12.2 396,144 195,316 200,828 142,280 70.8 17,028 20.2 392.439 194,631 197,808 149,036 75-3 10,609 12.6 361 BRITISH BIRDS Fig. i . Numbers of nests of Rooks Corvus frugi legits in Nottinghamshire during 1928-62 in relation to acreages under grain, other crops and grass per square mile. In 1958 a complete census showed another large increase with 17,028 nests, or 20.2 per square mile. Against this back- ground it will be seen that the 1962 figure of 10,609 nests involved a drop of 37.7% on the 1958 figure and was very near to that for 1944. Roebuck did not discuss the slight decrease from 1928 to 1932 and may have considered it to be a normal fluctuation. However, the increases from 1932 to 1944 and from 1944 to 1958 were far too large to come within this category. It is possible that the war years resulted in less shooting at rookeries, but there is no evidence to support this and it is more likely that changes in farming practice were the main cause. Table 1 quotes official statistics to show the numbers of acres under grain, other crops and grass and the relationship between the percentages under grain and the numbers of Rook nests; fig. 1 shows the same data in graph form and it is remarkable how the Rook line corresponds with the fall and rise in the grain acreage from 1928 to 1958. It seems probable that the resulting increase in ploughing, particularly from the late 1930’s onwards, tended to make more grain and animal food available for Rooks. In 1961, however, a further increase in the acreage under grain did not result in a corresponding increase in Rook population; instead, as we have seen, the Rooks fell back almost to their 1944 level. This decrease was far too large to be due to counting errors or normal fluctuations and some important new factor was clearly involved. In this connection, it may be significant that the springs of i960 and 1961, 362 NUMBERS OF NESTS OF FkOOKS (CONTINUOUS LINE) ROOK NUMBERS IN NOTTINGHAMSHIRE [Table 2. Reports of deaths of Rooks Corvus frugikgus in Nottinghamshire in i960 and 1961 )ate Locality Observer Remarks Springs 1960-61 Staunton prings 1960-61 Welbeck bipril i960 Ruddington 2th April i960 Annesley 960-61 Saundby spring 1961 Eaton pring 1961 Clifton tpring 1961 Wollaton and Trowcll ppring 1961 Wysall and Costock .'pring 1961 Thoresby 1 5th March 1961 Annesley E. G. Staunton L. Needham A. R. Johnson per P. J. Condcr A. F. Eminson A. R. Peel Landowner per Miss H. Mann L. A. Brown D. Jannaway per P. J. Conder per P. J. Conder ‘Numbers of dead Rooks and pigeons’ ‘Many dead Rooks, Jackdaws and pigeons’ ‘One Rook in flight fell strug- gling to the ground and died slowly’ ‘5+ Rooks dead with many other species’ ‘Decline traced from i960 and decrease continued in 1961 . . . we have been less troubled by Rooks on laid corn at harvest than for many years’ ‘Dead Rooks below rookery . . . nobody shoots at this spot’ ‘40 pairs (of Rooks) began nesting but all died’ ‘Some (dead) Rooks and other species were reported’ ‘Dead Rooks and Wood- pigeons’ ‘Pigeons and game-birds (dead) in large numbers with other species’ ‘At least one Rook (dead) . . . there may have been others’ especially the latter, saw the largest mass casualties of birds in many arts of Britain through the increased use of chlorinated hydrocarbon \:ed dressings (Cramp and Conder 1961, Cramp, Conder and Ash 1962). lany Rooks were involved and corpses from various counties were town to contain pesticide residues, but unfortunately, so far as lottinghamshire was concerned, no link between the use of seed ressings and the marked decrease of Rooks could be proved as no Dedal search was made at or around rookeries in the county and only ne Nottinghamshire Rook was analysed (though the result was posi- ve in that case). However, the reports of deaths of Rooks sum- larised in table 2 are strongly suggestive of a large-scale mortality. A oluntary ban on the use of the more toxic seed dressings was agreed in jly 1961 and mass bird deaths from this source then declined con- derably (Cramp, Conder and Ash 1963). 363 BRITISH BIRDS The results of any future census of Rooks in Nottinghamshire should therefore be most interesting. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank Stanley Cramp for his considerable help in the prepara- tion of this short paper and I am also grateful to P. J. Conder of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds for additional information on Rook casualties in Nottinghamshire, to James Fisher for earlier figures and to David Wilson of the British Trust for Ornithology for making available the literature on Nottinghamshire rookeries in 1928. SUMMARY A series of censuses of nests of Rooks Corvns frugilegus in Nottinghamshire began with a total of 6,576 in 1928; there was then a slight decrease to 6,113 by 1932, followed by a considerable increase to 10,306 by 1944 and an even larger one to 17,028 by 1958; finally, a sudden drop of 37.7% to 10,609 to°k place by 1962. The increases to 1944 and 1958 may have been largely due to the much greater acreage under grain. However, the decrease by 1962 took place despite a further increase in grain during 1959-61 and it is suggested that deaths from toxic seed dressings were probably mainly responsible. REFERENCES Cramp, S., and Conder, P. J. (1961) : The Deaths of Birds and Mammals connected with Toxic Chemicals in the first half of i960. Report No. 1 of the B.T.O.-R.S.P.B. Committee on Toxic Chemicals. and Ash, J. S. (1962): Deaths of Birds and Mammals from Toxic Chemicals, January-] une 1961. The second report of the Joint Committee of the B.T.O. and R.S.P.B. on Toxic Chemicals, in collaboration with the Game Research Association. (1963): Deaths of Birds and Mammals from Toxic Chemicals. September 1 961-Aiigtist 1962. The third report of .he Joint Committee of the B.T.O. and R.S.P.B. on Toxic Chemicals, in collaboration with th>. Game Research Association. Roebuck, A. (1933): ‘A survey of Rooks in the Midlands’. Brit. Birds, 27: 4-23. Notes Moorhen walking underw ater. — In view of the controversy men- tioned 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 time, the following observation of one walking underwater seems worth noting. On 31st May 1964, near Bolventor, Cornwall, I saw a Moorhen walk right across the bottom of the River Fowey where it is 15 feet wide, three feet deep and has a clear gravel bed which could not have given the bird anything to grip with its feet. Observed from directly above, its head was stretched forward and its wings kept close to its Hanks. R. J. Salmon 364 NOTES Redstart nesting on ground. — On 6th June 1964, on the banks of the River Coquet, Northumberland, John D. Clift and I saw a male Redstart Phoenicians phoenicurus flitting from branch to branch in a silver birch Betula pendula. He was carrying food and so we began to search the tree for a likely hole. We were most surprised, however, when we disturbed the female from a nest right on the ground among some dead ferns ; this contained five recently hatched young. The Redstart is a fairly common breeding species in Northumber- land, but we know of no previous record of such a nest site. What made it all the more remarkable was the abundance of suitable holes close by in oaks Quercus robnr , silver birches, conifers and even loose stonewalls. J. M. Bayldon 'Cetti’s Warbler in Hampshire. — On 4th March 1961, at Titchfield Haven, Hampshire, C.S. heard a rich, fruity song-phrase from a bird •which remained hidden in the reeds; it was strange to him and, although it was repeated a few times at intervals of two or three : minutes, he was unable to identify it. The next day the bird was still singing irregularly and it continued to be very skulking, but C.S. glimpsed it briefly and so did D. Price, M. H. Terry and S. L. White among others. During the following fortnight it was seen briefly or heard by countless observers, including H. G. and W. B. Alexander, Dr. J. S. Ash, D. F. Billett, R. FI. Charlwood, D. D. Harber, P. A. D. 'Hollom, D. I. M. Wallace and I.J.F.-L., and it became increasingly clear that it was a Cetti’s Warbler Cettia cetti , a species with which -several of those concerned were familiar abroad. Any remaining doubts were finally resolved on 19th March when the bird was trapped in a mist-net by M. J. Carter and P. R. Colston, ringed by J. A. Miller and seen in the hand by about 25 people. The following description is based on a detailed examination made by I.J.F.-L.: Upper-parts: crown and nape dull chestnut-brown with olive wash; mantle and back also chestnut-brown but more rufous; rump and upper tail-coverts as mantle and back but slightly brighter. Sides of bead: very narrow buffish-white superciliary in front of and over eye, but fading out behind; greyish patch just above superciliary and buffish-white line immediately below eye; lores dark grey; ear-coverts pale brownish-grey. Under-parts: chin white; throat white tipped with grey; upper breast white with grey wash; lower breast and belly white; under tail-coverts dark brown with broad off-white tips and distal fringes; flanks as under tail-coverts, but browns darker and off-whites slightly greyer; under wing-coverts greyish-white and pale brown. Wings and tail: primaries and secondaries dark brown with chestnut fringes to outer webs, particularly towards bases of feathers and more striking on secondaries; greater coverts with similar fringes, these becoming broader towards inner wing; median and lesser coverts even more conspicuously fringed with chestnut; rcctriccs black-brown with chestnut outer webs and only ten in number, right- 365 BRITISH BIRDS hand one of central pair not fully developed. Soft parts: bill black-brown, lower mandible pinkish-horn at base; inside mouth varying from pinkish to orange-yellow; iris dark brown; legs and feet flesh-brown with dusky yellow soles; claws grey. Measurements: wing 63 mm., tail 68 mm. (outermost feathers 15 mm. shorter than the full-grown one of the central pair), tarsus 23.5 mm., bill from skull 15 mm., bill width at nostrils 5 mm. Wing-formula: 4th primary longest, 5th fractionally shorter, 3rd and 6th —1.5 mm., 7th —5 mm., 10th —9 mm., 2nd —9.5 mm., 1st 11 mm. longer than primary-coverts; 3rd (not 2nd) to 6th emarginated, the last only slightly. After it had been examined, the bird was returned to the area of reeds and brambles which it had been occupying and it remained there until at least 10th April. C. Suffern and I. J. Ferguson-Lees Cetti’s Warbler in Sussex. — On 9th October 1962, while mist-netting on the Crumbles, near Eastbourne, Sussex, I was fortunate enough to catch a Cetti’s Warbler Cettia cetti. To secure confirmation of the record, I took the bird home to Eastbourne with me and showed it to R. H. Charlwood who took a number of photographs; one of these, showing the characteristic tail, is reproduced here as plate 57b. We also made a detailed examination and the following is a summary of our notes : Upper-parts: darkish chestnut, the crown and nape only slightly less rufous than the rest; dull white stripe over and behind eye and a little whitish under eye; ear-coverts grey-brown. Under-parts: chin, breast and middle of belly whitish (not a bright white) ; sides of throat and sides of breast greyish-brown ; flanks and under tail-coverts darker and browner, and the latter tipped whitish. Wings and tail: wings dark brownish with a little whitish along inner webs ; under wing-coverts whitish mixed with brownish; tail dark brown with outer edges of the feathers noticeably chestnut. Soft parts: legs pinkish; bill brownish with base of lower mandible pinkish; iris very dark brown. Measurements and structure: wing 60 mm., tail 63 mm., tarsus 22 mm., bill 13 mm.; 1st primary noticeably long and broad and projecting 10.5 mm. beyond the longest primary coverts, 2nd primary shorter than 10th, 4th and 5th primaries longest with 3rd almost as long; 3rd to 6th primaries emarginated on outer webs; tail had ten feathers and was very rounded, the four central feathers being about the same length but longer than the rest which were graduated. The bird struck us as having remarkably short and rounded wings for its size. It was eventually released in a marshy locality on the out- skirts of Eastbourne. D. D. Harber [We apologise for the delay over the publication of the full details of these two records. Following the rejection of the three quoted in The Handbook, which are now numbered among the Hastings Rarities (see Bril. Birds, 55: 299-384, especially 342 and 366-367), they are the first and second for Britain. Some photographs of the species at the nest appear on plates 54-56 and the accompanying text (pages 357-359) outlines the recent spread in France with which these two occurrences were doubtless linked. — Eds.] . 366 - Review ara Faglar i Norden (Our Birds in the North). Second edition dited by Kai Curry-Lindahl (Swedish text). Bokforlaget Natur i ch Cultur, Stockholm, 1963. Volume IV, 701 pages; coloured nd black-and-white plates and maps. Four volumes: Sw. Kr. ;30. 'his important history of the Swedish avifauna is now brought to a .iccessful conclusion. Much of this fourth volume is taken up in 1 jmpleting the review of resident birds and regular visitors. These >ssays are followed by shorter notes on species and races which cannot classed under either heading and a final section deals with birds not c2t recorded from Sweden but known to occur elsewhere in Fenno- icandia. Several of the species in the main section have only recently estab- 'shed themselves in Sweden, and a gratifying proportion of the remain- eer have become more numerous and more widely distributed within ie last two or three decades. It is surprising to find that while the 1 /hite Stork Ciconia ciconia , Black Stork C. nigra , Roller Coracias mrrulns and Hoopoe Upupa epops have all disappeared, the Golden '■'riole Oriolus oriolus has gained what appears to be a secure footing i : the extreme south. Once no more than a waif, the Red-breasted flycatcher Muscicapa parva is now a regular, if scarce, summer visitor to bland, Gotland and Smaland (where the first nest was seen in 1944) id a stray has even wandered into Lapland. One of the more iccessful colonists is the Scarlet Grosbeak Carpodacus erytbrinus : first corded nesting in 1938, it made rapid progress throughout the ^o’s id today is found in several localities in the eastern provinces. Even ■ ore striking has been the spread of the Rustic Bunting Emberi^a I'stica which, since it was first recorded breeding in 1897, has spread /er a wide area from Jamtland northwards. The Black Redstart boenicurus ochruros is now an annual visitor to the extreme south, here it is known to have nested at intervals since 1880. While losing r round elsewhere, the Grasshopper Warbler l. oats fella naevia has found ingenial surroundings in Sweden: first identified in 1913, it now feeds from Smaland northwards to Giistrikland, and has been heard far north as Haparanda. Other species increasing and spreading northwards are the Nightin- ile L/tscinia megarbync/jos, Marsh Warbler Acrocephahts palustris, Reed arbler A. scirpaceus, Great Reed Warbler A. arundinaceus , Icterine 'arbler Hippolais icterina , Whitethroat Sylvia communis (nesting in ipland in 1938), Lesser Whitethroat S. curruca. Wood Warbler 367 BRITISH BIRDS Phylloscopus sibilatrix, Goldcrest Regulus regulus , Collared Flycatcher Muscicapa albicollis, Grey Wagtail Motacilla cinerea and Starling Sturms vulgaris. The list unfortunately also includes the Jackdaw Corvus monedula , which seems everywhere to be doing far too well, to the detriment of such attractive birds as the Stock Dove Columba oenas. There can, on the other hand, be no deploring the return of the Raven Corvus corax to many of its old haunts : in Dalsland, for example, where Ravens w7ere long ranked as scarce visitors, as many as 300 can now be seen together and the breeding-stock is estimated to be at least 40 pairs (they first settled in the province in the i94o’s, when a manure shortage compelled local farmers to rely on slaughter-house offal). Ornithologists regretting the decline of the Red-backed Shrike Lanius cristatus collurio in Britain may take comfort from its recovery in parts of Sweden. In short, the general picture seems most encouraging, if the reader can ignore an ominous paragraph attributing a scarcity of Yellowhammers Emberi^a citrine l la in some districts to the introduction of agricultural chemicals. Corn Buntings E. calandra have also de- creased catastrophically, but they began to do so earlier and, in any case this is not the first time this century that this species has shown considerable fluctuations. As in the previous volumes, Dr. Curry-Lindahl attaches due importance to racial forms and their distribution. The Willow Warbler Phylloscopus trochilus is represented by both trochilus and acredula, the two intermingling over a broad zone in Bohusliin and Gotland. Again, the Grey-headed Wagtail Motacilla flava thmbergi breeds alongside the Blue-headed form M. f. flava in Varmland and Dalarna, and the Yellow Wagtail M. f. flavissima has once been known to nest in Skane. Nuthatches Sitta europaea reported from northern Sweden are presumed to be examples of the eastern race asiatica , although none appears to have been obtained. Once again the reviewer must content himself with only scattered extracts from the sterling field-notes contained in the essays by Dr. Curry-Lindahl and his associates. Amongst the more outstanding is Dr. P. O. Swanberg’s account of the Nutcracker Nucifraga caryocatactes. As this early breeder may lay with the mercury at — 170 C, the snugly- felted nest must be warmed from the moment the first egg appears. The male takes a full share in the hatching of the chicks, his brood- patches being as prominent as those on the female. During incuba- tion the sitting bird does not rise from the nest until its partner has alighted on the rim. The number of eggs is dependent on food- supply, with clutches of four or five most frequent when nuts are plentiful. Dr. Swanberg also gives an excellent eye-witness account of Nutcrackers storing food in autumn: they will collect hazel-nuts from as far as six kilometres away and one wras seen to disgorge no 368 REVIEWS t ;wer than 1 8 nuts when it returned. Every winter, according to Dr. iurry-Lindahl, the native Nutcrackers are reinforced by immigrants of hie Slender-billed race N. c. macrorhjnchus, sometimes in vast numbers, ad at least one pair remained to breed after the 1954 ‘invasion’, ully as interesting are Dr. Viking Olsson’s notes on the Great Grey hrike Lanins excubitor in winter. Then, he has found, this formidable ttle bird prefers fur to feather: of 191 victims identified, no fewer lan 164 were voles or mice. Birds ranging in size from Goldcrests to ullfinches Pjrrhula pyrrhula and Nuthatches are hunted only when nail mammals are few and far between or hidden by deep snow. A ipture is stripped of fur or plumage before being dismembered, and le viscera always discarded. Although a Great Grev Shrike will ; 'turn to finish a meal partly consumed some hours before, Dr. Olsson ( oes not believe that this species relies to any large extent on stored food. To turn briefly to other essays, Dr. Curry-Lindahl swells the calen- ar of misdeeds committed by the Hooded Crow Corvus corone comix ith a newly-acquired habit of robbing fish-traps and nets set beneath ne ice. In his account of the Fieldfare Tardus pilaris he recalls the \ell-known preference of the Merlin Valeo columbarius for nesting-sites u or near colonies of that thrush, and he also cites instances of Field- i res associating with shrikes of four species (not all, of course, in weden). To the list of species mimicked by the Bluethroat Cyano- Ivia svecica, E. Rosenberg adds the Chifl'chaff Phylloscopus colljbita, rossbill Loxia curvirostra. Great Snipe Gallinago media and Water Rail alius aqua liens. In Sweden the favourite resorts of the Arctic Red- ■ jll Cardnelis hornemanni lie above the tree-line, but in some vears this •tractive finch has been found nesting just within the birch woods. Hr. Curry-Lindahl has encountered Two-barred Crossbills L. leucoptera -sociating with both Common Crossbills and Parrot Crossbills L. ’ tyopsittacus and feeding on the seed dropped by these more power- lly-billed birds. The essay on the Brambling Fringilla montifringilla r raws a vivid, almost dramatic, picture of the flocks gathering at roost Skane in the great ‘Brambling Winter’ of 1916-17: millions slept in :.:e one roost alone (so many that the consumption of beechmast in .e surrounding woods was estimated at between six and seven tons lilv !) and, as the flocks assembled for the night, a Goshawk Accipiier utilis would make one successful raid after another on the crowded trees. Turning now to the section on ‘accidental’ visitors to Sweden, ese vary in status from waifs identified but once to birds of frequent, most regular occurrence, such as the Great Northern Diver Gavia imer. Storm Petrel Hjdrobafes pelagicus, Iceland Gull Larus g/aucoides id Turtle Dove Streptopelia turtur (the last with two pages of records), ve of these species — the Pallid Harrier Circus macrourus , Little Owl [them nodua. Greenish Warbler Phylloscopus trochiloides. Serin Serinus 369 BRITISH BIRDS canarius and Little Bunting Emberiga pusilla — have even bred in Sweden. The Little Owl has been recorded nesting once and the Little Bunting twice. Five Serins’ nests were found in Skane during 1942-46, which, together with numerous reports of singing males elsewhere and in later years, suggests that this generally spreading species may also be extending its range in Scandinavia. On the other hand, the nesting of a pair of Greenish Warblers in 1953 and the incursion of Pallid Harriers in 1952 (when no fewer than five pairs reared broods) have been attributed to abnormal conditions favouring ‘prolonged migration’ from the south-east. A very high proportion of the rarer ‘accidental’ visitors have been added to the Swedish list since 1930, nearly thirty of them within the last decade. While some of these had no doubt escaped recognition earlier, the histories of a few do suggest that they are visiting Scan- dinavia more frequently than in the past: some forty River Warblers 'Locustella fluviatilis , for example, have been seen or heard since the first in 1939. A list of the casual visitors detected recently invites comparison with a similar list of the newcomers recorded in Britain over the same period. The two differ as one might expect. Exclud- ing those native to Iceland, such as Barrow’s Goldeneye Bucephala islandica and the Harlequin Duck Histrionicus histrionicus , only five Nearctic forms figure in the Swedish list. These include only one American passerine, the Yellow-headed Blackbird Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus , and that had probably escaped from captivity. Pre- dominating instead are wanderers from the east and south. Those not yet recorded in Britain are the Pygmy Cormorant Phalacrocorax pygmaeus , Falcated Teal Anas falcata , Imperial Eagle Aquila heliaca (two of which even wintered in Sweden and moulted there into adult plumage), Tawny Eagle A. rapax , Lesser Spotted Eagle A. pornarina, Booted Eagle Hieraetus pennatus , Short-toed Eagle Circaetus gallicus , Saker Falco cherrug , Lanner F. biarmicus, Greater Sand Plover Chara- drius leschenauliii. Paroquet Auklet Cyclorrhynchns psittacula, Azure Tit Varus cyamts and Desert Warbler Sylvia nana. Some eastern and southern forms, on the other hand, have been recognised in Sweden far less frequently than in Britain: Dr. Curry-Lindahl quotes only solitary records of the Yellow-breasted Bunting Emberiga aureola and Yellow-browed Warbler Phylloscopus inornatus (as against three of Pallas’s Warbler P. proregulus), while the Woodchat Shrike Lanins senator only found a place on the Swedish list in 1952 and a Firecrest Regains ignicapillus identified in 1959 remains unique. In discussing the first two volumes of this work (Brit. Birds , 54: 74-78), the reviewer commented on the omission of any reference to recent Norwegian records of the tundra form of the Peregrine Falco peregrinus caeruliceps. This, he now finds, Dr. Curry-Lindahl had 370 REVIEW'S reserved for the section on birds unrecorded in Sw'eden but encoun- -ered in one of the other Scandinavian countries. Many of these are ao more than other races of species already represented in Sweden, such as the southern forms of the Crested Tit Pants cristatus , Nuthatch . ind Treecreeper Certhia familiaris, all of which nest in Denmark. On he other hand, Denmark and Norway, with their western coasts, have laturally attracted a higher proportion of transatlantic visitors than . uther Sw’eden or Finland (but still no American passerines). The ^Norwegian list also includes such Arctic wanderers as the Spectacled I Eider So materia fischeri and Ross’s Gull R hodostethia rosea, while Mediter- ranean and eastern forms are again conspicuous amongst the rarities ; letected in Denmark, Norway and Finland: to refer only to the larger aptors, two Black Vultures Aegyphis monacbtts found their way to Denmark as recently as 1943, five Griffon Vultures Gyps fulvus ranged i'S far north as Finland betw-een 1919 and i960, and a Pallas’s Sea lagle Haliaetus leucorjphus was killed in Norway in 1949. The Red-rumped Swallow Hirundo dattrica appears in both the Danish and Norwegian lists, but, while it is rtfula that has straggled to the former ountry, one obtained on the frontier between Norw'ay and Finland ’ as been assigned to the nominate dattrica. A brief appendix gives details of twro additions to the Swedish wifauna in 1962, the Pratincole Glareola pratincola and Sabine’s Gull \ lent a sabini (the discovery in 1961 of a breeding-colony of Storm Vetrels and Leach’s Petrels Oceanodroma leucorrboa on the coast of Norway was presumably made knowm too late for inclusion in the otes on these species). A systematic list of all the birds recorded r:om Fenno-Scandia and an index to the entire wmrk conclude this nal volume. Space, w?e are told, could not be allotted to a biblio- raphy and readers anxious to consult books and papers quoted in the . ixt are referred to certain earlier v'orks, as well as the journal Sveriges ' ia/ttr and the Zoological Record. The colour photographs have all the shortcomings to which atten- on has been drawn in the review's of the earlier volumes, but no fault m be found with the black-and-w'hite plate, after Allan Brooks, Drtraying three eiders — the Pacific Soniateria mollissima v-nigra, r oectacled and Steller’s S. stelleri. The many excellent photographs elude a number of unusual studies such as the two of a Pallid Harrier a Swedish nest in 1952 and a charming picture of a brooding Arctic edpoll, which shows how' much this species can differ in appearance om the Mealy Redpoll Cardttelis f. flammea. Of particular interest so are three photographs of Nutcrackers by Dr. Swanberg — one of brood of small young being fed in a snow-rimmed nest, another of an lult carrying a load of hazel-nuts and a third of one digging up its dden hoard. 37i BRITISH BIRDS With this new edition, Dr. Curry-Lindahl and his associates bring up-to-date a history of the birds of Sweden already deservedly known as comprehensive and reliable. The demand for such a work will naturally be greatest in Scandinavia, but it offers a wealth of biological information and ornithologists elsewhere may well consult it with profit. H. M. S. Blair News and comment Edited by Raymond Cordero A new conservation headquarters. — An extension to the buildings of the Zoologi- cal Society in London, to be built as part of a generous grant of £100,000 to the Society by the Wolfson Foundation, will house a number of organisations partic- ularly or exclusively concerned with conservation. It will be the headquarters of the Council of Nature, the Fauna Preservation Society, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (London office), the World Wildlife Fund (campaign headquarters and British national appeal) and possibly other voluntary organisations. A step towards greater liaison. — At the instigation of the British Trust for Ornithology, a joint consultative committee of that body, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the British Ornithologists’ Union has been set up with the object of creating greater liaison between them in relation to scientific research and legislative problems as well as of co-ordination of dates of conferences and meetings. Each body is represented by three of its members. The new committee has no executive function and no mandatory powers. Forthcoming B.T.O. and B.O.U. meetings. — The annual general meeting of the British Trust for Ornithology will be held at 5.30 p.m. on Wednesday 14th October in Overseas House, Park Place, St. James’s Street, London, S.W.i. The meeting will be followed by the annual dinner which this year will be more on the lines of a buffet supper. The autumn scientific meeting of the British Ornithologists’ Union will be in the form of a symposium on ‘The New Taxonomy’ (with special reference to birds) and will take place from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday 7th November in the Meeting Room in the Offices of the Zoological Society, Regent’s Park, London, N.W.i. The Union’s annual conference for 1965 will be held in The Library, Scarborough, Yorkshire, from 2nd to 5 th April, with a main theme of ‘Sea Birds’. Honour for Nature Conservancy’s Director-General. — E. M. Nicholson, Direc- tor-General of the Nature Conservancy and since 1951 one of the editors of British Birds, was recently accorded an honorary Doctorate of Civil Laws by the University of Aberdeen. Tragic Death of Loke Wan Tho. — The world lost an internationally known ornithologist and brilliant bird photographer when Loke Wan Tho was killed in an air crash in Formosa on 18th June at the age of 49. His wife. Mavis, died with him. Loke Wan Tho was a successful business man (he was chairman of Malayan Airways at the time of his death), but had a wide and deep interest in art and in birds. He had illustrated a number of books with his bird photographs and his own book, A Company of Birds, was published in Britain in 1957. 372 / Recent publications available from WITHERBY’S BOOKSHOP The Wild Life of India by E. P. Gee. Illustrated with 76 plates, 12 in colour. 192 pages. 30s. Bent’s Life Histories of North American Wood Warblers, Parts 1 and 2. Paperback edition, illustrated, unabridged. 20s. each. Bent’s North American Flycatchers, Larks, Swallows and their Allies. Paperback edition, illustrated, unabridged. 22s. Varda — the Flight of a Falcon by Robert Murphy. Illustrated by Keith Shackleton. 21s. A Tapestry of British Bird Song recorded by V. C. Lewis. A 12-inch L.P. record with explanatory notes. 32s. Bird Life in the Royal Parks 1961-62. Report by the Committee on Bird Sanctuaries in the Royal Parks of Eng- land and Wales. Illustrated. H.M.S.O. 3s. 6d. The British Amphibians and Reptiles by Malcolm Smith. Third edition. 18 colour photographs, 33 black and white photographs. ‘New Naturalist’ series. 35s. The Life of Birds by Joel Carl Welty. 84s. The Waterfowl of the World, Vol. IV, by Jean Delacour. Illustrated by Peter Scott. 6 gns. Birds of the London Area by the London Natural History Society. A revised edition with a new set of excellent illus- trations. 42s. The Shell Gardens Book. 320 pages of brilliant and original writing on gardens. Illustrated with 12 double-page colour plates, 120 photographs and 38 line drawings. 21s. Birds of the Atlantic Islands, Vol. I, by D. A. Bannerman. 84s. The Birds of the British Isles, Vol. XII, by D. A. Bannerman and G. E. Lodge. 63s. The Handbook of British Mammals edited by H. N. Southern. The first complete handbook of British mammals to be pub- lished in this country. Written by members of the Mammal Society of the British Isles, edited by H. N. Southern and illustrated mainly by Robert Gillmor. 512 pages, 55 text figures, 60 photographs. 37s. 6d. Please address all enquiries to The Manager, Witherby’s Bookshop 61/62 Watling Street, London, E.C.4 or telephone City 5405 ALL BOOKS SENT POST FREE The West Wales Naturalists' Trust Ltd (formerly the West Wales Field Society) Membership of the Trust is open to all who are interested in the study and conservation of wild life in Wales. The annual subscription of £1 Is. Od. (£1 by Bankers’ Order) entitles members to: (a) free issue of Nature in Wales which appears half-yearly; (b) field excursions, lectures and meetings; (c) visit, without landing fee, the island sanctuaries and nature reserves of Skomer, St. Margaret’s, Skokholm, Cardigan Island and Grassholm (owned by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and wardened by the Trust). The activities of the Trust include the co-operative study of animals, birds and seals and the recording of their distribution and habits. PUBLICATIONS (post free): The Birds of Carmarthenshire by G. C. S. Ingram and H. Morrey Salmon, 5s.; A List of Pembrokeshire Plants by F. L. Rees, 3s.; Skokholm Bird Observatory Reports for each year to 1963, 3s. each; Nature in Wales, back numbers, 3s. THE WEST WALES NATURALISTS’ TRUST LTD 4 Victoria Place, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire SMALL ADVERTISEMENTS Zoological Record Section Aves 1962 This indispensable biblio- graphy, compiled by Lt.-Col. W. P. C. Tenison, D.S.O., is an annual list of ornithological literature in all parts of the world. Full references are given with authors and titles, and they are indexed under species, subjects and countries. The latest issue covers over 2,500 articles and books pub- lished mainly in 1962 and is obtainable, at a cost of 21s. (including postage), from The Zoological Society of London REGENT’S PARK LONDON, N.W.I 12/- for 3 lines (minimum); 4/- for each extra line or part thereof. For the use of a Box Number there is an extra charge of //- African bird-watching safari. Three weeks in Kenya, Uganda and Cameroon, experi- enced guides, 31st Jan. 1965. Approx. £250 from Copenhagen. Details lrom Dr. R. J. Raines, 7 Caulfield Drive, Greasby, Cheshire. Blakcney, N. Norfolk bird centre. Cottage, sleeps 4, all electric, flush toilet, 1st Oct. onwards, 4 gns. p.w., less week-ends. Box SR78. For sale. 17 vols. British Birds, 1947-63, £16. London Naturalist and London Biro Report, 1946-62, £6. Crawford, I* Atkinson Road, Sunderland, Co. Durham. Notice to Contributors British Birds publishes material dealing with original observations on the birds of Britain and western Europe, or, where appropriate, on birds of this area as observed in other parts of their range. Except for records of rarities, papers and notes are normally accepted only on condition that the material is not being offered to any other journal. Photographs (glossy prints showing good contrast) and sketches are welcomed. Proofs of all contributions are sent to authors before publication. After publication, 25 separates of papers are sent free to authors (two ot more authors of one paper receive 1 5 copies each) ; additional copies, for which a charge is made, can be provided if ordered when the proofs are returned. Papers should be typewritten with double spacing, and on one side of the sheet only. Shorter contributions, if not typed, must be clearly written and well spaced. Notes should be worded as concisely as possible, and drawn up in the form in which they will be printed, with signature in block capitals and the writer’s address . clearly written on the same sheet. If more than one note is submitted, each should be on a separate sheet, with signature and address repeated. Certain conventions of style and layout are essential to preserve the uniformity of any publication. Authors of papers in particular, especially of those containing s systematic lists, reference lists, tables, etc., should consult the ones in this issue as a .guide to general presentation. English names of species should have capital initials for each word, except after a hyphen (e.g. Willow Warbler, Black-tailed Godwit), but group terms should not (e.g. warblers, godwits). English names arc those used in The Handbook of British Birds, with the exception of the changes listed in British Birds in January 1953 (46: 2-3). The scientific name of each species should be underlined (but not put in brackets) immediately after the first mention of the English name. Subspecific names should not be used except where they are r relevant to the discussion. It is sometimes more convenient to list scientific names in an appendix. Dates should take the form ‘1st January 1964’ and no other, except in tables where they may be abbreviated to ‘1st Jan.’, ‘Jan. 1st’, or . even ‘Jan. 1’, whichever most suits the layout of the table concerned. It is particu- larly requested that authors should pay attention to reference lists, which otherwise cause much unnecessary work. These should take the following form: Tucker, B. W. (1949): ‘Species and subspecies: a review for general ornitholo- gists’. Brit. Birds, 42: 1 29-1 34. Witherby, H. F. (1894): Forest Birds: Their Haunts and Habits. London, p. 34. Various other conventions concerning references, including their use in the text, -should be noted by consulting examples in this issue. Tables should be numbered with arabic numerals, and the title typed above in the style used in this issue. They must either fit into the width of a page, or be designed to fit a whole page lengthways. All tables should be self-explanatory. Figures should be numbered w'ith arabic numerals, and die captions typed on a separate sheet. All line-drawings should be in indian ink on good quality' drawing paper (not of an absorbent nature) or, where necessary, on graph paper, but this must be light blue or very pale grey. It is always most important to consider how each drawing will fit into the page. The neat insertion of lettering, numbers, arrows, etc., is perhaps the most difficult part of indian ink drawing and, unless he has had considerable experience of this kind of work, an author should seek the aid of a skilled draughtsman. SEND The pick of the world's great instruments on 14 days' free trial FOR NEW ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE CHARLES FRANK LTD. 67-75 Saltmarket Glasgow Cl Phone. BELL 2106/7 Est. 1907 Britain's greatest stocks of New, Used and Ex-Govt. Binoculars, Telescopes and Navigational Equipment. New ROSS BINOCULARS 10 X40 Ross Solaross. This is probably the best buy in the Ross Solaross range and we would be inclined to think that it repre- sents the best value obtainable today in a British glass of good quality. It is beauti- fully balanced and streamlined, weighs only 26 oz. and is fairly compact with a height of 6| in. We are supplying with this bino- cular a first quality English-made hide case. Inclusive cost £19 19s. Od. Where high power is required, we would suggest the Ross 16x60 at £32 8s. 8d. with hide case A new type of Zeiss binocular. The 8x30B DIALYT is revolutionary in design and performance, weather proof and suitable for spectacle wearers £49 15$ JAPANESE BINOCULARS If they are good, they can be very, very good and we have selected certain models which we can recom- mend with the utmost confidence and which we market under our own name: 8 x 30 centre focus and coated £12 10s. 10 x 50 centre focus and coated £18 10s. 6x 30 ARMY BINOCULARS An excellent general-purpose binocu- lar of good performance, which will stand up to a great deal of rough usage (cost approximately £20) £7 15s. Od. TELESCOPES We have a host of models from which to choose and can recommend the following: Ex-Admiralty 16x40 single-draw, micrometer focusing £5 IBs. 6d. Pocket 3-draw telescope, magnifica- tion 25 x: an excellent auxiliary to your binoculars £2 2s. Od. Nickel Supra 15 to 60 x : a tremen- dous advance in portable telescope design £36 12s. Od. The Charles Frank PANCRATIC 30 x to 55 x £7 17s. 6d. The Charles Frank 22x OG 50mm. PRISMATIC with tripod £22 I0e. 0d. New hide case optional extra at 25s. For wildfowling or when extremely high light transmission is required, we would suggest the Canadian Naval 7x50 binocular at £24 or the new Russian 7x50 at £16 16s. Od. Both glasses are exceptionally good and it would be difficult to decide which is the better buy. The West Zone Zeiss 8x50 is possibly the ‘ideal* wildfowling glass and is available at £96 18s. Od. Accredited agents for ROSS, BARR & STROUD, WRAY and ZEISS (both East and West Zones) From Russia, we have a MAKSUTOV triple turret telescope of fantastic power and performance. Wt. 32 lb., price £250, details on request Printed in England by Diciner & Reynolds Ltd., Eastcotts Road, Bedford Published by 11. F. & G. Withcrby Ltd., 61/62 Watling Street, E.C.4 British Birds Principal Contents SPECIAL FEATURE The effects of the severe winter of 1962/63 on birds in Britain H. M. Dobinson and A. J. Richards (with four plates) Notes Letters News and comment Recent reports Vol. 57 No. TO October 1964 THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE British Birds AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY JOURNAL Editors Stanley Cramp, I. J. Ferguson-Lees, P. A. D. Hollom, E. M. Nicholson Photographic Editor Eric Hosking Editorial Address 30 St. Leonard’s Avenue, Bedford 'News and Comment' Rarities Committee Raymond Cordero D D. Haiber Rohan Lodge, Wadhurst Park 59 Eridge Road Wadhurst Sussex Eastbourne, Sussex Contents of Volume 57, Number 10, October 1964 Page The effects of the severe winter of 1962/63 on birds in Britain. By H. M. Dobinson and A. J. Richards (plates 58-61) .. .. .. .. 373 Notes: — Feeding methods of Long-tailed Skuas (D. G. Bell'i . . . . . . 434 Great Spotted Woodpecker obtaining marble galls (C. J. O. Harrison) . . 435 Notes on the food of the Black-bellied Dipper (Bryan L. Sage) . . . . 435 Blackbird eating own eggs (T. P. Walsh) . . . . . . . . . . 436 Letter : — New names for auks (Dr, W. R. P. Bourne) . . . . . . . . 436 Requests for information: — Status of Bewick’s Swans in Great Britain and Ireland (M. A. Ogilvie) , . 439 Colour-marked Ringed Plovers from Sweden (Goran Roos) . . . . 439 News and comment. Edited by Raymond Cordero . . . . . . . . 439 Recent reports. By I. J. Ferguson-Lees . . . . . . . . . . 441 Annual subscription £2 6s (including postage and despatch) payable to H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Wathng Street, London, E.C 4 there's another watcher jsing WRAY binoculars 'Yet another watcher has discovered the d vantages of the WRAY Eleven. a light, clear of vision, with wide angle toservance and maximum light transmis- icn. designed for a purpose, most reasonable price. £38-10-0. us Purchase Tax 7/1 IWRAY (Optical Works) LTD. BROMLEY, KENT. Tel. RAY. 0112 A Mosaic of Islands KENNETH WILLIAMSON and J. MORTON BOYD Islands have always attracted the traveller and the naturalist. The authors, both well-known naturalists, have recorded here many of the interesting experiences which they had while studying the wild life of some of the most inaccessible places in and around the British Isles 2IS. A Guide to the Birds of Sussex G. DES FORGES and D. D. HARBER This guide summarises the status and distribution of all birds which the authors admit to the Sussex List and also gives information on migration under each species 30s. OLIVER & BOYD BOOKS ON BIBOS Catalogue on request WHELDON & WESLEY LTD Lytton Lodge Codicote, Hitchin, Herts BY APPOINTMENT TO H.R.H. THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH SUPPLIER: OF NEST BOXES & FEEDING DEVICES GREENRIGG WORKS (DEPT. 11) WOODFORD GREEN, Send 6d. for ‘Bird Sanc- tuary’ Catalogue illustra- ting all types of ‘Birdcraft’ NESTBOXES & FEED- ING DEVICES, also Builder’s Yard 18/6, Ser- ies B 42/6, Snack-bar 8/9 ‘Greenrigg are responsible for the best types available' ( Parks Journal) Xmas Gift Novelties also included British Birds Vol. 57 No. io October 1964 The effects of the severe winter of 1962/63 on birds in Britain By H. M. Dobinson and A. J. Richards (Plates 58-61) CONTENTS (1) Introduction 373 (11) Nest record cards as evidence (2) Data obtained 376 of breeding strength 403 (3) The questionnaire 377 ( 1 2) Effects observed abroad 405 (4) The weather 381 (13) The winter of 1961/62 407 (5) Hard weather movements . . 382 (14) Comparison with previous (6) Numbers abnormally present hard winters 408 or absent 387 (15) Systematic list of species 410 (7) Birds found dead 390 (16) Acknowledgements 428 (8) Less usual foods 395 (17) Summary 430 (9) Condition of birds during the (18) References 43i winter 398 (19) Appendix of scientific names 10) Comparison of breeding not in the systematic list 434 strength 399 (i) INTRODUCTION It has been the custom after exceptionally severe winters to include in this journal a paper estimating the effects on birds in Britain. Hard winters are relatively infrequent and since the last such analysis, covering 1946/47 (Ticehurst and Hartley 1948),* there has been a great expansion of amateur ornithology. The severe weather of 1962/63 therefore presented an opportunity of attempting a more ambitious assessment than in the past. We are still falling far short of the amount of detail that is desirable, however, and it is hoped that by the next hard *The winter of 1955/56 was considerably more severe than is normal, but was not the subject of any particular British study. Nevertheless, comments on its effects on our birds are to be found in Burton and Owen (1957), Philips Price (1961), Seel 4961) and Beven (1963), while general papers on the Continent included those by Geroudet (1956) and l’iechocki (1957). 373 Location of Observers ■ area defined □ area undefined Fig. i . Areas of the Brit Isles from which reports of i effects on birds of the 1962/63 w ter were received. Filled squa: show where the si2es of the an concerned were defined (see pa 376), and open squares where th were not. Also marked are t boundaries of the broad regions England referred to in the text ai listed at the foot of this pa (drawn by Robert Gillmor) England, SE : England , E : Midlands, E : Midlands, I V: England , SW : England, N W: Midlands, N: England, NE: Regions of England referred to in the text Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire Essex, Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk* Norfolk, Lincolnshire Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Nottinghamshire Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire, Staffordshire Dorset, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall Cheshire, Lancashire, Westmorland, Cumberland Derbyshire, West Yorkshire North and East Yorkshire, Co. Durham, Northumberland 374 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF 1962/63 iirds found Dead Minimum 4-7 2.8 2.3 2.4 2.0 § Deviation — O.I — 0.6 -i-5 -1.4 -0.9 § Maximum 4.8 4.8 4.2 3-3 4.8 § Deviation — 2.1 — 2.0 2.3 -2.7 — i-3 u Minimum 0.8 — 0.8 — x.6 -i-5 -0.5 q Deviation -2.4 -2.4 -3-9 -3.6 -2.4 g Maximum 0.6 — 0.8 — O.I 1.6 2.6 < Deviation — 6.1 -7-3 -6.3 -4.4 -3-1 Z Minimum -2-7 “5-3 -5-5 -3-i — 2.1 — ■ Deviation -5-5 -6.7 -7-i -4.4 -3-2 g Maximum 2.2 1.2 i-4 1.4 3-2 2 Deviation -5-i -5-9 -5-4 -J-2 -3-5 « Minimum -1.4 -3-3 -3.8 -4.1 -3-2 £ Deviation -3-9 -4-5 -3.0 -5-5 -4-3 a Maximum 9.9 9-3 9.1 8.7' 8.4 0 Deviation -0.3 -0.7 -0.5 -0.8 -0.3 < Minimum 4.0 2.3 2.2 i-3 1.2 Deviation + 0.8 + 0.5 + 0.5 -0.5 — 0.8 However, the winter was not merely exceptional for temperature. Sunshine at Kew was 11% above average, and precipitation 22% below average, between 1st December 1962 and 31st March 1963. To sum up, then, the winter of 1962/63 was roughlv divisible into three periods. A normal November and early December was inter- rupted by frosts and freezing fog (but little snow) in the first week of December. The hard weather started on the 20th ; blizzards from the 26th to the 28th covered the country with snow and this lay in many parts until March. A very cold but sunnv period at the end of January was followed by cold and unsettled weather in February, with sunshine and showers of sleet and snow alternating. The thaw came at the beginning of March, and rain and wind helped to clear Britain of snow and ice by the 10th of that month. (5) HARD WEATHER MOVEMENTS There is much evidence to show that large-scale movements of birds occurred during the hard weather. Unfortunately, however, many difficulties beset any detailed analysis. The picture is consequently 382 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF 1962/63 much less clear than one would wish. Our data come from four sources: sightings of visible passage; inferences from changes in population size; ringing recoveries; and radar. Each category covers a particular aspect of the problem, and each adds more to the general picture. Records of visible passage, sent to us directly or through the I.O.P.s, are perhaps potentially misleading evidence and have to be treated with great caution, as it is now clear that many migrating birds often fly above the level of ordinary observation. Another difficulty is to know whether records of visible passage refer to birds moving a great dis- tance. Reports of large scale Starling* and Woodpigeon passage north and east in early January may refer to local feeding or roosting movements, particularly when not correlated with radar or other data. It is of course impossible to select data on an arbitrary principle, and :thus all have been incorporated. The most indirect evidence is that from the changes in population during the winter. This has the disadvantage remarked on in section 6 tthat sudden absence of a species does not necessarily imply departure, .and that evidence from other localities, visible passage and the possibi- lity of death should all be taken into consideration. In many cases, however, population change can provide strong circumstantial (.evidence of movements. Ringing data can be very valuable in showing directions of movc- rment, but only very limited samples are available, so that the picture ■ obtained could be distorted. In the present context, birds both rringed and recovered within the period under consideration are clearly i )f greatest value, but exceptional recoveries (e.g. Linnet) may also be .useful if several vears are considered. J Radar is now an invaluable asset, and we are extremely grateful to Or. E. Eastwood and his colleagues at Marconi for their co-operation and the time they spent in showing us their film records of birds over cast and south-east England. Our data are too scanty for detailed correlation of the radar and visible passage records, but we have attempted as much as possible. Our data on hard weather movements are presented in the systematic ist (section 1 5) and chronologically here. ! December The hard winter can be said to have started with December. There was hard frost throughout the country from the ist to the 8th, with now (chiefly in the north), and winds light and southerly: conditions /ere therefore good for passage. This apparently initiated movement zest and south, particularly of Lapwings, Skylarks, Fieldfares and Red- * Scientific names of species are given in the systematic list (section 15) on pages 12-428 or in the appendix on page 434. 383 wings, although reports of Golden Plovers, Snipe, Blackbirds, Meadow Pipits and Linnets moving were also received. This passage slackened with the onset of the thaw on the 9th, and the little recorded for the next ten days is assignable to typical winter movement: Golden Plovers, Fieldfares, Redwings and, in particular, Lapwings being the birds chiefly involved. The first sign of the weather to follow showed on the 20th with a heavy frost. On the 22nd another sharp frost proved to be the first of 35 days of uninterrupted countrv-wide minimum temperatures below freezing point. This change was immediately followed by passage, probably mostly from Scandinavia, of grebes, ducks, waders (especially Lapwings), Skylarks, Fieldfares, Redwings, Song Thrushes, Black- birds, Starlings and such semi-rarities as Bewick’s Swans and Lapland Buntings, all moving west or south before a light easterly wind. On Christmas Day passage was in progress on a large scale. Then on Boxing Day most of the country suffered a severe blizzard. Fleavy passage was recorded, especially on the east coast, and the continued snowfall of the 27th and the 28th led to further passage. The dominant species flying west and south were Lapwings and Skylarks, of which manv millions must have poured into and through the countrv in this period. Passage was wholesale, and countrywide, as was clear from radar evidence, but large-scale immigration, especially from Cap Gris Nez or Cherbourg, made the picture complicated and many species were involved for the first time in the winter; these included such birds as Herons, White-fronted Geese, Woodlarks, Greenfinches, Bramblings and Snow Buntings. Most sight records were of birds flying south- west or, near the south coast, north-west, and the appalling conditions may have forced many flocks to fly lower than usual and often within visual range. January In the first ten days temperatures were as much as 1 20 C below freezing, winds were light northerly or easterly and there was light snowfall, so conditions were again good for passage. Consequentlv the passage which had begun on 20th December lasted till 1 3th January, a period of three weeks. The prolongation of very severe weather, accompanied by improved passage conditions, may have induced many birds to move which had not yet done so, and it was during early January that ‘abnormal’ movements into towns and to unfrozen shorelines resulted in spectacular congregations of the hungry and dying. Furthermore, the cold conditions of central Europe had become harsher than usual by early January, and it seems probable that many of the birds recorded passing through Britain in this period were of Continental origin. Radar reports on every dav available show heavv immigration from the EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF I 9 6 2 6 3 .ow Countries into Kent, often accompanied by passage from mid- France into south-west England. Reports indicate that passage slackened on the 2nd and 3rd, but a loeavy departure south and south-west on the evening of the 4th con- inued through the 5 th and reached a peak on the 6th and 7th. Radar nd sight records agree on this picture, and it seems likely that the •assage on the 6th was the heaviest and most widespread of the winter, .apwings and Golden Plovers ceased to play an important role in the reports and Woodpigeons increased, although the extent to which the . itter were involved in genuine passage is uncertain. Skylarks, ieldfares and Redwings were the birds most frequently recorded and 1 uge numbers passed through the country in the first week of January. Movement slackened on the 8th, but then from the 9th till the nth .. idar showed birds arriving from the Low Countries and Scandinavia, rad influxes were also extensively reported from the east coast on the :2th. It is possible that much of the movement from the 9th till the ith was above the level of visibility, for many influxes inland were . icorded. Skylarks were the chief participants on the east coast, but uany other species included Chaffinches, Bramblings, Corn Buntings nd especiallv Linnets. A slight thaw occurred on the 15 th and 16th, but Continental immi- rration continued on the latter day with Skylarks still being seen. On ae 17th the easterly winds dropped and heavy frost and snow returned, here was then an influx of Fieldfares and Redwings throughout the ountry, all travelling westward, but we have little indication of any t:her passage until the 29th when there were again heavy frosts and so light movements over many parts of Britain. These were not in it' correlated direction and may have been the result of high-flving ceding movements in the clearer conditions. There was some immi- r ration north-west from France on the 30th, however, which correla- d with influxes of Skylarks into eight counties. t ibruary 1 ibruary started with temperatures still below freezing and heavy snow owers. The snow may have led to a considerable immigration rtected by radar on the east coast. This reached a peak on the 2nd i .d 3rd. Again, a wide varietv of species accompanied the Skylarks, ith Woodpigeons and Fieldfares predominant, and Greenfinches, c idpolls, Chaffinches, Bramblings, Yellowhammers, Corn Buntings d Reed Buntings in smaller numbers. On the 7th there was a thaw, and rain fell until the 10th. Snow turned on the nth. Arrivals of Fieldfares on the 10th and Skylarks d Starlings on the 13th heralded the start of the Lapwing return on e 15 th. Ducks on the 16th, Skvlarks and Redwings on the 17th, and steadv trickle of ducks and thrushes to the 22nd, occurred during 385 BRITISH BIRDS bleak but somewhat milder weather. On the 23rd and 24th considerable Skylark return was accompanied by a number of finch species, as well as Fieldfares and Starlings, but heavy movement did not start until the 27th. A radar record of heavy immigration into England from the south-west and south-east, passing north and north-east through Britain, continued through the night, and a departure presumed to be of Starlings was added in the morning. Sight records suggest that Skylarks and Fieldfares figured most pro- minently in these movements, although other thrushes and Lapwings were apparently also involved. March There was no radar record for 2nd or 3rd March, but the same pattern of movement as at the end of February was recorded on the 4th. On the other hand, sight records documented a large return from the 2nd to the 7th; during this time there was a sudden thaw on the 5th, which Fig. 5. Movements of four species recorded in the British Isles during the 1962/63 winter, compiled from the numbers of records of each species over three- day periods: any records of passage involving twenty or more birds, regardless of direction, and all records of departure or arrival arc included (drawn by A. J. Richards) 386 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF 1962/63 marked the end of the hard weather. Lapwings and Skylarks were predominant in this return, and again many millions of birds were involved. Golden Plovers, Woodpigeons and Fieldfares also figured in large numbers, but Redwings and finch species were not recorded. The radar record for this period clearly shows heavy north-east movement continuously over Britain from north and north-west France, departing north-east from east Britain by the 7th. Dawn influxes of Starlings into this movement are clear, and this species may have been more important than the sight records suggest. For the rest of the month, a slow return of ducks, White-fronted Geese, Lapwings, Skylarks, Fieldfares, Linnets and Chaffinches con- tinued north into Britain and then east into the Continent. Tempera- tures remained above freezing and winds chiefly moderate, although radar shows that some days were more favoured for movement, in particular the 14th, 16th, 19th, 20th, 21st and 25 th and especially the 27th, on all of which easterly passage occurred. Summary Fig. 5 illustrates movement observed or inferred for Skylarks, Lapwings, Fieldfares and Redwings from 1st November till 31st March. These figures have been compiled from the numbers of 1 records of each species over three-day periods. Any records of passage concerning 20 or more birds, regardless of direction, and all 1 records of departure or arrival are included.* Although far from accurate, and not a quantitative measure, this method shows the periods of chief movement quite effectively. The return of Lapwings and Fieldfares is sharply distinguished from that of Redwings, and the •successive waves of immigration by Skylarks from the Continent are also characteristic. The chief periods of movement, 3rd-8th Decem- ber, 2 1 st December-8th January, i2th-i5th January and 27th February- 6th March, are clearly marked. No account of radar observations can be included in fig. 5, so a distinct bias for recording movement which occurred in conditions when birds flew low must result. However, as most of the recorded radar movements were within the peak periods, it would seem that high-level movement was also occurring at the same time. (6) NUMBERS ABNORMALLY PRESENT OR ABSENT In an attempt to discover the status of birds in Britain during the hard winter, a section on the questionnaire requested observers to indicate whether a species was more common or less common in their areas during the period in question. This yielded a mass of data, which has served two major purposes. Firstly, it has confirmed indirectly the nformation on passage, showing that large-scale movements into and *This is radically different from the method adopted in I.O.P. analyses, but seems o be most suitable here. 387 BRITISH BIRDS out of the country did occur, and it has helped considerably to widen and consolidate our findings about these movements. Secondly, it has served to show the fate of those birds which did not emigrate: how they congregated in towns and on open water, sewage farms and spoil heaps, and when and where they disappeared, due to death or late departure. The interpretation of these data involved several problems. One was whether reports of absence in fact indicated the death or the departure, or both, of the species concerned. In many cases, it was possible to infer the meaning from other data. For example, wide- spread reports of absence of Lapwings from late December onwards were accompanied by observations of large Lapwing movements west and south-west, and large increases in south-west England and Ireland. Few Lapwings were found dead over the country which they had vacated, but heavy mortality subsequently occurred in south-west England and Ireland. In many cases, however, a clear inference of this nature is not possible. Lapwings are large birds with obvious corpses which take some time to disintegrate. Discussion in section 7 makes it clear that little reliance can be placed on finding corpses of smaller species. Some species, such as tits, Yellowhammers and Reed Buntings, be- came unusually frequent in towns, thus accounting for widespread reports of absence from rural areas. In the cases of other species, however, absence from large areas could not be explained in terms of movement: these were small birds whose corpses would disappear rapidly and their absence during the winter probably reflected very heavy mortality. Nevertheless, such species as Long-tailed Tits, Treecreepers, Gold- crests and, in particular. Wrens, although they dropped heavily in breeding strength, disappeared even more completely during the winter. There is a suggestion (section 15) that their troglodyte habits may have hidden Wrens from view and it may be that some of these other small birds merely became very sluggish and retiring, and con- sequently difficult to observe. Again, although there is no suggestion of any movement, emigration may have occurred, particularly in the case of Goldcrests. There is, in fact, no fullv satisfactory explanation to date for the sudden re-appearance in reduced numbers of these species during March and April. The conclusions drawn from the data are included in the systematic list (section 1 5); species are not included when the evidence on move- ment is slender (less than ten records). In some cases, numbers of reports are quoted in order to give some idea of the scale of unusual presence or absence. This has two major snags. Firstly, no indica- tion of the scale of influx or decrease is given: anything from observa- tions of none to a decrease counts as ‘abnormallv absent’. Secondly, 388 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF 1962/63 observers reported normal numbers so erratically that no account could be taken of the results and the scale of abundance or scarcity created by reports quoted is thus prejudiced towards over-estimation in one direction or the other. Only in the cases of a few species, such as those already cited, is an almost total lack of observations during the winter an assured fact. Others may bear an approximation to the OTAL WATER BIRDS % 50- 25 . . I—'-- ' ! \ °v dec JAN fsa MAR NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR HRUSHES WADERS 50- 25- — r=t — _ 10V DEC JAN r£5 MAR AILS GULLS 50- 25- iov ' DEC JAN 1 Fe"s ' MAR NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR ? i G . 6 . Proportions of birds found dead in the British Isles month by month from November 1962 to March 1963. The ‘total’ section covers all species and not only :he groups analysed separately; ‘water birds’ include divers, grebes, ducks, geese md swans, while ‘rails’ cover the Water Rail, Moorhen and Coot ( drawn by A. J. Richards) 389 BRITISH BIRDS degree of absence or abundance with reference to the reports quoted, but this must be of a qualitative rather than a quantitative nature. (7) BIRDS FOUND DEAD Perhaps the most dramatic evidence of the effects of a hard winter are the number of birds found dead. In the winter of 1962/63 observers reported to us a total of over 1 5,000 corpses that were counted, besides a further 81 reports of ‘many’ corpses and no reports of ‘a few’ or ‘several’. In addition, Ash (1964) examined and weighed 332 dead birds of 46 species, and also discussed the races of some of these. The histograms in fig. 6 illustrate the monthly variation of the mortality for different groups of species, while table 2 gives the totals for each species. The composite picture is of heavy mortality in both January and February. As observers were probably more active in February and many of the corpses counted were fairly old, it would seem that slightly more than half the mortality may have occurred in January. (The figures for March probably relate very largely to corpses found then but lying for several weeks previously.) Coots, Moorhens and thrushes seem to have been the first to die. In their cases the heaviest mortality was in January. Woodpigeons and Starlings also suffered more losses in January than later; and Oyster- catchers and Lapwings were succumbing then, ahead of the other waders. However, the mortality of wildfowl seems to have been later. For this group, roughly two-thirds of the corpses found were in February. The rivers and larger areas of standing water had taken some time to freeze over and perhaps wildfowl are somewhat hardier than smaller birds. Another group that only suffered late were the gulls : there was a marked February peak and a large proportion were found in March. Here again the slow freezing of the foreshore presumably allowed longer survival, and there was plenty of opportunity for scavenging (Crisp 1964). It is not clear, in fact, why they succumbed as much as they did. The list in table 2 includes most of the common birds present during the winter, and so it is interesting to see which species are missing. The most important are probably Lesser Black-backed Gull, Jay, Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Coal Tit, Marsh Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Gold- crest, Redpoll, Crossbill and Tree Sparrow. In the cases of the Tree- creeper and Goldcrest, and to a lesser extent the tits, their small size may have meant that dead birds were not found*; however corpses of other small birds were found, including those of Grey Wagtails and Linnets which would not normally be near human habitation. Lesser Black-backed Gulls probably emigrated. For the other species in this category, however, mortality may have been slight. *One Goldcrest was found dead according to a report in the Western Morning News. 39° EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF 1962/63 Table 2. Birds found dead in Britain, November 1962-March 1963 Total records Nov Dec Jan Feb Bodies Mar Undated counted Estimates Few Sev Man hroatcd Diver 9 I 22 I I 23 ^Northern Diver 5 1 3 I I 6 roated Diver 21 20 97 34 I 152 1 Crested Grebe 23 I 40 113 38 4 196 ..•eked Grebe 9 5 8 13 ian Grebe I I I recked Grebe I I I [ Grebe I I 2 6 5 1 14 I S Shearwater I I I r * 10 2 14 D 31 tt I I I 2 17 7 27 i! rant 7 2 3 2 7 I I 1 24 IO II I 20 42 I II I 5 3 I 2 12 di 3° 2 51 64 7 3 127 1 1 13 7 8 2 6 23 I r.i 25 3 35 l52 13 22 207 5 2 5 I 8 cer 3 3 I 4 9 I l6 6 4 27 Duck 20 32 34 l6 I 83 d 9 I 3 7 I 12 icyc 5 4 2 I 7 ■ Scoter 6 6 27 3 36 t Dn Scoter 19 14 108 13 3° 165 8 I 8 28 3 40 easted Merganser 6 I 6 I 8 1 ider 7 4 3 3 IO 3 2 I 3 cck 38 6 126 412 89 77 710 ag Goose I 2 2 fronted Goose 5 22 IO 2 34 roose I 5 5 toted Goose I 2 2 joose 6 3 22 I 26 1 Goose 2 2 2 wan 40 I 4 37 65 IO 14 131 1 wer Swan 7 2 3 3 I 9 ’s Swan 2 2 17 19 :d 3 I 2 I 4 4 3 I I 5 rouse 2 2 I 3 gc 6 3 3 0 I Rail 19 13 !3 I 13 42 I I en 42 1 34 76 16 71 297 4 2 43 260 154 17 173 604 I 3 1 etcher 33 312 69 26 373 780 2 I 2 33 8 304 114 160 297 883 2 1 5 391 BRITISH BIRDS Total Bodies Estimates records Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Undated counted Few Sev Many Ringed Plover 7 I 3 14 18 1 Grey Plover 7 3 20 5 28 Golden Plover 14 d 9 8 21 53 1 Turnstone 6 6 12 2 29 49 Snipe 22 I 18 22 3 u 59 I 2 Jack Snipe 3 2 2 I Woodcock 39 3 44 3D 9 ro OO 609 2 3 I Curlew 44 3 87 184 65 177 516 1 5 Black-tailed Godwit 5 5 8 13 Bar-tailed Godwit 8 6 D I 5 27 Green Sandpiper I I I Redshank 36 130 O OO r<~\ 58 53 621 I 4 Greenshank 2 7 5 12 Knot 20 34 122 6 49 21 I 3 Purple Sandpiper I 3 3 Dunlin 22 I 34 59 6 66 166 I Sanderling I I I Great Skua I I I Great Black-backed Gull 7 I 42 5 I 49 Herring Gull 25 3i 64 IO 18 123 Common Gull 30 2 9 63 173 36 28 311 I Glaucous Gull I I I Black-headed Gull 39 2 13 140 194 96 IOO 545 Kittiwake 8 21 I 22 Razorbill 22 33 46 12 4 95 I Guillemot 20 2 69 D5 18 2 226 Puffin I I I Stock Dove 2 I I 2 Rock Dove I I I Woodpigcon 69 6 5 262 226 77 3. 03 3»749 5 2 15 Barn Owl 14 7 3 I 21 32 I I Little Owl 9 6 I I 8 2 I Tawny Owl I I I Short-eared Owl I I I Kingfisher I 2 2 Green Woodpecker IO 5 2 I 8 I I Great Spotted Woodpecker 3 2 2 I Lesser Spotted Woodpecker I I I Skylark 27 I 28 13 19 24 85 2 3 Raven I 3 3 Carrion Crow 9 I 2 6 I IO 2 Rook II 2 I I 2 15 2 Jackdaw 5 I 8 2 I I Magpie 3 2 I 3 Chough 3 2 3 I 6 Great Tit 7 I 6 I I I IO Blue Tit 12 2 I 2 7 I I 23 Wren 18 I *3 8 2 9 33 3 I I 39 2 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF 1962/63 Total Bodies Estimates records Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Undated counted Few Sev Many c ; Thrush 11 I 7 1 4 2 13 i/are 38 2 7 43 36 29 60 177 2 3 Thrush 52 I 7 51 66 17 75 217 4 I 4 ing 77 3 12 382 227 3° I 2 1 775 5 3 9 bird 62 I II 65 36 26 60 199 5 6 chat 2 I I I u 13 IO I 3 2 16 3 I ock 6 2 2 3 7 I I ow Pipit D 3 7 7 y 6 25 I Pipit 3 I 4 3 ■Wagtail 7 3 I 6 IO I X Wagtail 2 I I 2 ' >g 49 5 416 168 208 536 1 .3 3 3 9 I 5 inch I X I 5 ifinch 8 12 22 3 37 I I inch 1 0 I itt 3 I 2 3 3 I O I rich 1 I I inch l6 2 23 14 4 43 1 b sling 3 1 I 1 3 ..vhammer 2 I I I Bunting 1 I I Bunting 3 I I 2 I e : Sparrow II 2 4 8 I 13 3 1,613 22 126 3.394 00 0 T>275 6,083 13,308 78 32 81 At the other extreme, we can short-list the species of which most corpses were found. Neither the total of records nor the total of corpses is satisfactory in its own right, and so this list is confined to ■species of which at least ioo individuals were found dead and of which there were at least 20 reports of casualties — indicating, therefore, fairly widespread mortality on a considerable scale. The species concerned are : Red-throated Diver Great Crested Grebe Mallard Wigeon Shclduck Mute Swan Moorhen Coot Oystercatcher Lapwing Woodcock Curlew Redshank Knot Dunlin Herring Gull Common Gull Black-headed Gull Guillemot Woodpigeon Fieldfare Song Thrush Redwing Blackbird Starling The three species which seem to have been most affected are the Wood- pigeon, Starling and Redwing in that order, though no allowance has been made for bias. 393 BRITISH BIRDS Boyd (1964) found that for 24 wildfowl species there was a strong association between specific abundance and numbers found dead. Unfortunately there is no good evidence yet of the specific abundance of species other than wildfowl and so it is impossible to make the same calculation for them; but it would seem likely that a similar situation held good for the waders (except Woodcock and Snipe), though not for the passerines. In severe conditions almost all wildfowl and waders are deprived of their food sources, while most passerines are often still able to find food quite apart from the supplies offered by man. Another striking point in table 2 is the discrepancy between species we might expect to be similar. Only 59 dead Snipe were found, but no less than 609 dead Woodcock; the lack of Snipe is especially notice- able as most waders seem to have been found dead in approximate order of specific abundance. Tawny Owls (with only one casualty reported) fared notably better than Barn and Little Owls (with 14 and nine records of 32 and 8+ individuals respectively). Green Wood- peckers were also found dead more often than Great and Lesser Spotted. On the other hand, the numbers of corpses of thrushes seemed to reflect the relative hardiness and abundance of the various species: only eleven records of Mistle Thrushes (15 birds) compared with 52 of Song Thrushes (217 birds), and only 38 records of Field- fares (177 birds) compared with 77 of Redwings (775 birds). Similarly, while the totals of records of dead Moorhens and Coots were similar (42 and 45), the average numbers of individuals in each count were 8.2 and 1 5 . 1 respectively, thus reflecting the greater gregariousness of the Coot. The distribution of the records of birds found dead is shown in fig. 2 on page 375. Coastal counts were probably increased by oiling. The species that topped the list of corpses were not the same as those whose breeding levels fell most, presumably because many of the birds found dead were immigrants while our own populations of the same species may have survived better elsewhere; but it is important to recognise the limitations of such data which may be biased in several ways. Firstly, it is much easier — and consequently more interesting — to count the dead birds along a mile of foreshore than over a hundred acres of farmland or ten acres of woodland, and so a large proportion of the counting effort was spent on the coast with a consequent infla- tion of the numbers there. Secondly, it may be that some corpses are more palatable to predators than others; we have observed on Cape Clear, Co. Cork, that dead Lapwings lie with meat still on the bones long after almost all other corpses have been cleared, which suggests that they are not sought by scavengers. Thirdly, whether there is a difference in palatibility or not, the activity of scavengers is great and may seriously deplete the numbers of corpses found, especially of small 394 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF 1962/63 birds. * Fourthly, it is of course much easier to find the corpse of a large and conspicuous species than that of a small passerine. evertheless, our list of dead birds is clear evidence of great mor- taity during the winter. A proportion of these would have died any way-some in any frost, others because they were oiled, and others still through disease, predation or accident-but this ‘normal’ mor- tality would have been unlikely to produce such numbers of corpses- the totals m January, February and March would probably have been little more than those in November and December. Evidence from ringing recoveries Further evidence of the heavy mortality was provided by a sudden R T O peC°Verie; ~ dnged birds- The numbers “ported to the B.T.O. Ringing Office reached an all-time peak in January and ' February, and were far above what might otherwise have been expected much as'a s'mJ f °f thc corPses had disappeared, in most cases without much as a single feather remaining to indicate the places where they had lain. 595 BRITISH BIRDS take unusual foods, and some of those most severely hit were never observed doing so. The latter include the Little Grebe, Kingfisher, Wren, Stonechat and Dartford Warbler (great would have been the surprise, no doubt, of an observer who had any of these appear on his bird-table; but some unusual species did come into gardens, and gardens were not the only places where unusual foods were taken). Other species which were badly affected, such as the Heron, Lapwing, Green Woodpecker, Goldcrest and Grey Wagtail, were only occasion- ally seen taking unusual foods; and Mistle and Song Thrushes seem to have taken fewer strange foods than the other thrushes (though Redwings were hard hit in spite of their greater adaptability). The two lists in this paragraph in fact account for a large proportion of the species that were definitely reduced by the winter. Secondly, there is evidence that when a new food habit has been learnt by a few individuals, it will spread quickly through most of the species. The opening of milk-bottles is the classic example of this (Fisher and Hinde 1949), while the appearance of Great Spotted Wood- peckers at bird-tables is something which has probably developed since the 1946/47 hard winter (Upton 1962) and may have had positive survival value this time. Grey Lag Geese began eating swedes during the 1946/47 winter and have continued to do so ever since in one part of Scotland (Kear 1962). One effect of a severe winter may therefore be to cause birds to discover new food supplies which they can then utilise afterwards, and in some cases this could help an eventual in- crease in numbers. The winter of 1962/63 may perhaps have done this for some species and, slender though the evidence is, attention might profitably be paid now to Reed Buntings, which were already beginning to acquire the habit of visiting gardens well away from water and did so on a much larger scale during the severe weather (reports direct and Ferguson-Lees 1963, Armitage 1964); Kent (1964) also discussed a possible change in the habitat of this species. Thirdly, the birds of this country are undoubtedly affected by man’s (and especially woman’s) charity at such times. This, as we have seen above, allows the bolder and more adaptable species to thrive, while the more timid suffer ‘naturally’; in consequence, there is an artificial ‘unbalance’ in our avifauna. Such feeding may not always be beneficial, however, and Kettlewell (1963) has pointed out that a temporary break in it may cause heavy mortality. A considerable proportion of the records involved unusual visitors to bird-tables, doorways and window-ledges. Apart from the species which regularly come close to habitation, the following were recorded. Red Grouse approached as far as the hens on a farm, which they joined for meals (while a Moorhen accepted the hens’ hospitality and roosted in a shed with them). Water Rails, Lapwings, Curlews, Knot and Woodcock were all bold enough to get as far as gardens, and Partridges 396 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF 1962/63 fed underneath bird-tables. Little Owls and Kestrels came to tables for food that was not intended to be provided — namely, the other birds feeding there — and there is also a record of both species taking hanging fat. The list of the boldest, that actually came on to bird- tables, is much longer and includes Snipe, Moorhen, Stock Dove, Herring Gull, Common Gull, Black-headed Gull, Green Woodpecker, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Skylark, Carrion Crow, Rook, Jackdaw, Magpie, Treecreeper, Mistle Thrush, Fieldfare, Meadow Pipit, Grey Wagtail, Siskin and Snow Bunting. At least 90 species were recorded taking food that was thought to be unusual, but lack of space unfortunately prevents us from giving much detail here, especially since the foods involved were very varied. General kitchen scraps accounted for a great number of the records, however, and also apples, which were in great abundance. The latter are, of course, a regular food of Fieldfares, Mistle Thrushes, Redwings, Blackbirds and, to a lesser extent, Song Thrushes and Starlings (plate 60 shows some of these species feeding in this way), but other birds which turned to them on occasion during the 1962/63 winter included Teal, Green Woodpecker, Woodpigeon, Great Tit and Blue Tit. ‘Swoop’, the now well-known mixture of various seeds and other foods specially prepared for wild birds, was widely used and, besides the species which regularly feed on it, was eaten by Knot, Skylark, Redwing, Brambling, Reed Bunting and Yellowhammer. There were also curious records of Skylarks eating brussels sprouts (L. G. Weller) and broccoli (T. B. Silcocks). Normal foods for some species were probably in good supply. 1962 seems to have been a good year for beechmast and acorns, and the Pams tits should have been able to hoard food and later find it again (Dr. C. M. Perrins and T. Royama). However, although Ash (1964) stated that there was a great abundance of natural foods, it does seem that this was somewhat local. Sixty-five observers reported on the berry crop and, of these, 3 1 said berries were scarce (five reported they were all taken in November and 1 3 more that they had gone by the end of December). Probably the large numbers of Redwings which came into the country in November helped to clear the berries faster than usual, and then the cold weather meant that those that were left were stripped by the end of January. Published references to food taken in the period record Brent Geese picking weed from the undersides of ice-floes (Crawshaw 1963), Song Thrushes taking periwinkles (reports direct, and Hope Jones 1964, Hunt 1964, Stevens 1964), and gulls feeding on dead razor-shells Ensis (Ash 1964). A few individuals showed a distinct taste for delicatessen. A Heron was seen eating some stale kippers, and a Redpoll picked the currants from a cake. A Robin also chose currants, though a Fieldfare prefer- 397 BRITISH BIRDS red oranges and a Moorhen ‘Kit-e-Kat’. But Redwings did best of the lot: among the items the}7 took were tongue and cooked peas, rich tea biscuit and cheese. (9) CONDITION OF BIRDS DURING THE WINTER The questionnaire did not include a section about the condition of birds during the winter, and consequently we received little informa- tion. From various sources we have come across the usual tale of suffering : of birds which were too weak to feed dying on door-steps from the east coast of England to the southern tip of Ireland; of starving Woodpigeons stripping brassicas and dropping dead under- neath; and of a Blackbird eating the corpse of another Blackbird while it was still warm. Records such as these convey to us — perhaps too emotionally — the meaning of the winter for individual birds. But they are no more than the inevitable concomitant of conditions when mortality is heavy; they are, indeed, merely the process of dying. Yet, while many birds suffered, others thrived. A species encoun- tering severe weather and shortage of food needs some system whereby enough individuals die for the rest to survive. It is probable that those which survive need to put on weight in order to do so ; there is evidence to show that birds regularly increase weight as the temperature falls (Baldwin and Kendeigh 1938) and the most probable explanation is that the fat serves as an insulating layer. Suggestions have been made that it also serves as a food reserve, but tiffs is hardly likely to apply here as a bird’s metabolism is so rapid that the supply would not normally outlast a day. Ringers operating during the severe weather had abundant evidence of the good condition of many individuals. They were asked to trap only where birds were healthy and feeding actively, but in such places they often found weights greatly in excess of the normal winter maxima. In particular, many Greenfinches were weighed. The average weight of 64 at a roost near Oxford on 21st January was as high as 33.4 grams, which is more than a gram above any monthly average in 1961 or 1964 (B. H. B. Dickinson and H. M. Dobinson). At Rye Meads, Hertfordshire, the average of 583 weighings in January 1963 was 32.2 grams, while the peak there was reached on 2nd February when seven averaged 34.3 grams; for comparison, the average in December 1962 was 29.7 grams (Lloyd- Evans and Nau 1964). Simi- larly, Greenfinch weights in Surrey were one to two grams up on the average for January and February (Dr. G. Beven). Turning to other species, I. Newton found that Bullfinches near Oxford also averaged about one gram heavier than in the same period in 1964; he points out that this species was probably taking more food than usual in the hard weather, thus increasing population pressure (this information will be expanded in a paper which he is 398 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF I 9 6 2 / 6 3 preparing). The average weight of Blackbirds at a roost in the Oxford area in January 1963 was 119 grams compared with 117 grams in January 1964, while in February 1963 it was 117 grams compared with only 102 grams in February 1964 (B. H. B. Dickinson and H. M. Dobinson). Otherwise, unfortunately, too few individuals of most species were caught for averages to be calculated, but maximum weights are still of interest, as some birds were extraordinarily heavy. Those we have heard of are shown in table 3 and compared with the mean dead weights quoted by Ash (1964) for the same period. All the records in this table are more than 25% heavier than the normal weight for the species concerned, so far as this is known. Table 3. Maximum weights of some birds trapped in Britain during January and February 1963, compared where possible with mean dead weights quoted by Ash (1964) All weights are in grams. Those marked with an asterisk have been expressed as ^decimals for the sake of uniformity, although the figures concerned were taken to the nearest half-gram Maximum Mean dead Locality weight weight SSkylark Rye Meads, Hertfordshire 56.0 \ «■, Clcethorpcs, Lincolnshire 55.8 f 25-7 1 Fieldfare Clecthorpes, Lincolnshire - ' Vlistle Thrush Bidston, Cheshire 147.0* 72.0 Soong Thrush Dungcness, Kent 91.0 \ Malltraeth, Anglesey 93.0* j 47-9 ! Blackbird Bagley Wood, Berkshire 141.0* Malltraeth, Anglesey 137.0* j 64.3 1 lobin Malltraeth, Anglesey 25-5 H-9 [Qunnock Rye Meads, Hertfordshire 28.0* 16.3 , 3-reenfinch Bagley Wood, Berkshire 40.0 Leicester 39.0 r 18. 1 tedpoll Reading, Berkshire 13.8 - Chaffinch Reading, Berkshire 29.5* 16.7 Bullfinch Wytham, Oxfordshire 26.7 - irambling Bookham, Surrey 34-3 l8.2 lorn Bunting Clcethorpcs, Lincolnshire 65.0 - r-’rec Sparrow Dungeness, Kent 24.9 \ Newcastle under Lyme, Staffordshire 23.7 / " Dr. G. Beven in Surrey trapped 20 birds of various species twice ' /ithin the hard weather period : eight put on weight, nine maintained t: and only three lost any. Increases in weight of birds caught twice uring the cold weather have also been quoted by Flope Jones (1964). (10) COMPARISON OF BREEDING STRENGTH ’able 4 gives, species by species, the total number of reports that we eceived of breeding strength in 1965 compared with 1962. It also 399 BRITISH BIRDS assesses the general change in breeding strength in terms of our categories. It must be emphasised that this is no more than a rough guide — the data we have worked on is not entirely quantitative and there are too many other variable factors, such as locality and habitat — but it is thought that, if species are to be compared, it is best to resolve the separate categories into some form of composite total.* An attempt at a quantitative figure is being prepared by Kenneth Williamson for publication in Bird Study. This will be based on a comparison of 49 farmland areas scattered over the country, and therefore likewise subject to regional and ecological differences. Nearly half of these 49 observers also sent their records to us, and these are included in the table here. It will be seen that the 23 species worst hit (composite categories A, AB or B, and at least three records) include ten species that depend on water or moist ground for feeding (Little Grebe, Heron, Bittern, Water Rail, Lapwing, Snipe, Redshank, Dunlin, Kingfisher and Grey Wag- tail). The list also includes our two smallest birds (Wren and Gold- crest) and two species never strongly established in Britain (Bearded Tit and Dartford Warbler). Eight of the remaining nine are com- monly affected by hard weather (Barn Owl, Short-eared Owl, Green Woodpecker, Woodlark, Long-tailed Tit, Treecreeper, Stonechat and Pied Wagtail). The nine species most severely affected appear from our records to be the Kingfisher, Grey Wagtail, Goldcrest, Stonechat, Wren, Barn Owl, Snipe, Long-tailed Tit and Green Woodpecker in that order, but the Water Rail, Little Grebe and Woodlark should possibly be included with them. The Wren is so often thought of as the species that suffers most that it is interesting to find it taking only fifth place in the list. Of the 23 species most affected, seven are mentioned by Voous (i960) as being commonly hit by hard winters, twelve are near the northern limit of their range in Europe and 20 are more or less seden- tary in Britain. Of the seven other species which are near their northern limit in Britain, we have good data for only two : one of these, the Great Crested Grebe, was somewhat reduced, while the other, the Goldfinch, is always partially migratory and seems to have emigrated almost completely in 1962/63. Species apparently not adversely affected by the weather include three, the Mallard, Buzzard and Blackbird, which were reported as suffering decreases abroad (section 12), though the number of Nest Record Cards received for the Mallard and Blackbird fell considerably (section 1 1). Oystercatchers were surprisingly unaffected, although 780 were found dead. Also seemingly unaffected were the Rook, Jay, Nuthatch, Dunnock, Greenfinch, Bullfinch and Yellowhammer. *This has been done by weighting the categories as follows: A, —4; AB, —3; B, — 2 ; BC, — 1 ; C, o ; and D, -f 2. 400 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF I 9 6 2 / 6 3 Table 4. Breeding strength of birds in Britain in 1963 expressed as a comparison with 1962 A = exterminated, AB=rcduction by about 95%, B=largc decrease, BC=small decrease, C= little or no change, and D= increase. Species with records of par- ticular interest are discussed in section 15, while those which do not appear there arc italicised here Total Composite A AB B BC c D records category Black-throated Diver 1 / C Great Crested Grebe I 8 3 6 2 20 BC Little Grebe 7 6 7 20 B Heron 3 21 2 8 34 B Bittern I I I 3 B Mallard 6 4 35 2 47 C Teal 4 6 IO BC ( Gadwall / I C '.Wigcon I I 2 BC Pintail / / B Shoveler 2 1 2 2 7 BC Tufted Duck i 5 2 8 C 1 Pochard 3 I 4 C K \ed-hreasted Merganser I 2 3 BC 1 Goosander I I B Ghelduck I 4 2 5 I 13 BC 1 Grey Lag Goose / / C 1 Canada Goose I 2 I 4 C 'Mute Swan 2 5 4 17 28 BC ' Juzzard 3 I 7 I I BC ' iparrowhauk I 3 4 BC 'Merlin I I C kestrel 3 6 3 20 2 34 BC Ted Grouse I I 2 4 BC Mack Grouse / / C led- legged Partridge / 3 2 12 BC ’artridge I IO I 24 36 BC 1 Vater Rail I I 6 8 B Moorhen 7 2 36 5 3° 3 83 BC .'oot 2 22 4 17 I 46 BC )ystercatchcr 3 12 I 16 C .apwing 6 I 50 3 18 3 81 B 1 iinged Plover 3 4 7 BC Golden Plover I 1 2 I 5 BC •nipe 8 I 21 I 5 36 B 1 Woodcock I 6 I IO 2 20 BC hrlew 3 D I 21 I 41 BC i edshank 2 21 4 4 31 B •unlin I 3 2 6 B '•real Black-hacked Gull / 4 BC esser Black-hacked Gull / / / 3 C 1 erring Gull 1 7 / 9 C onintnn Gull r / 2 BC lack-headed Gull 3 7 2 12 C rock Dove 3 7 3 9 4 26 BC 401 BRITISH BIRDS Total Composite A AB B BC C D records categc Rock Dove / / C Woodpigeon 1 4i 9 40 3 94 BC Collared Dove / / 2 D Barn Owl 8 I 7 I 5 22 B Little Owl 4 I II 2 II I 30 BC Tawny Owl I l6 I 20 2 40 BC Long-eared Owl I I 2 C Short-eared Owl 3 I I X 6 B Kingfisher 36 4 4 44 A Green Woodpecker 14 3 4i 5 8 7i B Great Spotted Woodpecker 5 25 8 34 I 73 BC Lesser Spotted Woodpecker 3 / JO 2 20 BC W ood/ark 3 3 3 7 B Skylark 27 8 52 2 89 BC Raven I I 8 IO C Carrion Crow 2 2 43 7 54 C Hooded Crow 3 3 C Rook 1 5 3 3i 6 46 C Jackdaw I 2 33 5 4i C Magpie 5 37 9 5i C Jay 3 2 3 27 5 40 C Chough I I I I 4 BC Great Tit 4 41 7 56 8 116 BC Blue Tit 2 39 I I 64 IO 126 BC Coal Tit 6 16 2 27 4 55 BC Marsh Tit I 14 I 27 I 44 BC Willow Tit I I I T5 5 23 C Long-tailed Tit 26 2 41 4 14 2 89 B Bearded Tit 3 3 B Nuthatch I 6 4 25 5 41 C Treecreeper 3 25 7 26 2 78 B Wren 47 H 118 5 13 2 200 B Dipper 3 2 / 12 I 19 BC Mistle Thrush IO I 27 II 38 2 89 BC Song Thrush 7 I 102 12 36 12 170 BC Blackbird 2 36 17 88 20 163 C Stonechat 21 2 II 9 2 45 AB Robin 9 I 57 18 48 5 138 BC Dartford Warbler I 2 I 4 B Goldcrest 43 7 39 2 3 94 AB D unnock 3 36 M 6l 19 133 C Meadow Pipit 2 2 27 5 9 2 47 BC Rock Pipit 2 I 7 IO BC Pied Wagtail 16 37 8 25 I 87 B Grey Wagtail 24 2 16 2 44 AB Starling I 6 3 53 17 80 C Hawfinch 4 4 8 BC Greenfinch I *9 7 52 13 92 C Goldfinch 4 19 3 3 6 7 69 BC Siskin 7 3 B Linnet 26 4 43 6 79 BC Twite 3 C 402 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF 1962/63 A AB B BC C D Total records Composite category Redpoll I 2 9 10 22 C Bullfinch 2 I 12 4 4i II 71 C Crossbill 2 2 D Chaffinch 3 38 1 1 5° 17 119 BC Yellowhammer I 19 5 36 10 71 C Corn Bunting / 2 2 6 4 ij C Cirl Bunting I / I 7 C Reed Bunting 3 17 5 23 3 51 BC House Sparrow I 3 31 IO 65 C Tree Sparrow 6 I 1 1 6 21 6 31 BC 'Summer visitors 9 0 26 8 83 31 177 — Totals 4i7 34 1,388 288 1,804 33i 4>302 - Numbers of some species probably increased slightly, notably of the 1 Carrion Crow, Jackdaw, Magpie, Starling, Redpoll and House 'Sparrow. Many of the commonest species belong in the group whose sub- 'Sequent breeding strength was only slightly affected by the weather. These include the Great Crested Grebe, Mute Swan, Kestrel, Moorhen, (.Coot, Curlew, Woodpigeon, Little Owl, Tawny Owl, Great and Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, Skylark, Great, Blue, Coal and Marsh Tits, Mistle and Song Thrushes, Robin, Meadow Pipit, Goldfinch, Linnet, Chaffinch, Reed Bunting and Tree Sparrow. The temporary absence of a large proportion of our own avifauna and the heavy mortality in Britain had made ornithologists and the mublic at large greatly aware of the effects on bird life, and apprehensive ■ of the reduction in breeding numbers that might result. Towards the t ;nd of the hard weather, many newspapers carried reports on this, the majority of them responsible and well-informed and usually written by >rnithologists. A good assessment was commonly made of the species most hit, with the comment that numbers would quickly return to normal; but we are unable to agree with James Fisher’s view, pub- i ished in the Sunday Times on 24th February 1963 and then repeated without acknowledgement) in at least five other newspapers, that ‘it eems likely that at least half the wild birds living in the country before ast Christmas are now dead’. (il) NEST RECORD CARDS AS EVIDENCE OF BREEDING STRENGTH figures for the number of Nest Record Cards completed during 1963 lave been supplied most kindly by H. Mayer-Gross, with the permis- ion of the British Trust for Ornithology, and have been compared vith the totals for 1962. 403 BRITISH BIRDS Table 5. Numbers of B.T.O. Nest Record Cards for 17 species where the 1963 total was as low as a quarter to three-quarters of the 1962 one, suggesting a drop in the population level Total cards Total cards 1963 total as in 1962 in 1963 percentage of 1962 Wren 151 35 23% Mistle Thrush 131 53 40% Skylark 157 64 41% Song Thrush 2,008 852 42% Pied Wagtail 126 54 43% Meadow Pipit IO9 50 46% Woodpigeon 481 23r 48% Lapwing 246 120 49% Moorhen 392 194 49% Reed Bunting T35 71 5 3% Linnet 733 424 58% Blackbird 3,109 2,000 64% Mallard 120 79 66% Dunnock 804 541 67% Coot 105 77 73% Robin 287 214 75% Tree Sparrow 350 261 75% A total of 15,033 cards were sent in for 1962, but this figure fell to 10,229* f°r I9^3- The number of clubs and individual observers reporting nests has not changed greatly in recent years, and was 180 in both 1962 and 1963. The effort devoted to searching for nests of common species is not known to vary greatly, though the total number of nests reported for some of the less common species can be greatly altered by special investigations. The number of clutches started by each pair of birds might vary from year to year and, as each clutch is recorded on a separate card, this could produce serious bias. H. Mayer-Gross (in lift.) considers that the finches and insectivores around Oxford had a more prolonged season in 1962 than in 1963, while the thrushes in that area made more attempts per pair in 1963. Nevertheless, for all the limitations of the data, the numbers of cards received often varied so much from 1962 to 1963 that there can be no doubt that changes in the population level were partly responsible. To illustrate this, table 5 lists 17 species for which more than 100 cards were submitted in 1962 and for which the 1963 total fell to 75% or less of the previous year’s figure. It will be seen that nine of these 17 species had dropped to between half and three-quarters of the 1962 total, while the remainder were at levels between two-fifths and half with one (the Wren) as low as a quarter. *Totals for Nest Record Cards show the figures as they stood at the time of writing and clearly cannot take into account the small numbers which trickle in late. 404 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF 1962/63 Of the 23 species that seem to have been worst hit on the basis of the figures from our questionnaire, only three (the Wren, Lapwing and Pied Wagtail) had more than 100 Nest Record Cards in 1962. For many of the other 20, the number of Nest Record Cards also fell heavily (for example, the Little Grebe dropped from 23 to three), but there were some exceptions (notably the Long-tailed Tit, which increased from 23 to 33). In the case of all but three of the species showing a marked fall in the number of Nest Record Cards (a drop to 75% or less of the 1962 figure, where this exceeded 100), there was also a decrease equivalent to B or BC in the records reported to us; the exceptions were the Mallard, Blackbird and Dunnock, all of which were classified as C in our results. Reciprocally, all but four of those species which fell into categories A, AB, B or BC showed a drop in the number of Nest Record Cards to 75% or less °f the 1962 total, where that exceeded 100; the exceptions were the Great Tit, Blue Tit, Coal Tit and Chaffinch (though the last was as near to it as 76%). There was a close similarity in the cards for oirds falling into our category C, except that for Yellowhammers the NMest Record Card total rose from 1 16 to 139 and for House Sparrows it f ell slightly from 266 to 236. With the species for which there were less than 100 Nest Record Cards in 1962, the sample is often too small for any conclusions to be ullv convincing. There is broad agreement, however, the only • triking discrepancies being increases in the Nest Record Cards for hree species for which we had concluded there had been a fall in lumbers; these were the Kestrel (increase from eleven to 20), Tawny Owl (increase from 24 to 36) and Long-tailed Tit (increase from 23 to 3). In conclusion, the evidence of changes in breeding strength supplied ' r toxic chemicals) a species is temporarily reduced or even wiped out —and, as this fact is very clear and very certain, the observer will laturally tend to report it. Hence a survey of this sort can be relied on o receive some alarming — but genuine — reports of losses which have ittle or no connection with severe weather. But what has also been very striking in the analysis is a tendency for he converse to be true as well: even in the most extreme conditions, /hen a species is suffering heavy losses throughout most of the ountry, there are usually some pockets where numbers change little, if tt all, and may even go up. The use of the questionnaire will have itelped to emphasise the need for such records also. It is, of course, com these pockets where survival is good that a species can spread to .sgain its former numbers, and it is because the pockets tend to be /ell scattered that the return to normal is commonly a quick affair, uch a recovery is also helped by the lack of competition. In the systematic list which follows, regional differences have been mentioned wherever these were apparent. With all the species taken agether, it was found that there was a slightly lower proportion of A ategory records in Scotland and Ireland than in England and Wales; aere were more B figures, in the first two countries, however, so that ae proportions of C and D were roughly equal. The figures were: A AB B BC C D ngland and Wales 10.1% 1.4% 31.5% 7-4% 4M% 7-i% :otland and Ireland 6.3% 1.4% 37-4% 3-9% 4M% 9-5% 411 BRITISH BIRDS In discussions of ringing recoveries the period referred to is January and February unless otherwise stated. Great Crested Grebe Pocliceps cristatus (20 reports: iA, 8B, 3BC, 6C, 2D: composite BC) Showed a tendency to move to rivers (Trent and Thames) from frozen reservoirs and gravel pits, and unusual numbers appeared off the south coast in January and February. Some movement south during this period. The reports of a B decrease were all south-east of a line from the Severn to the Wash, except for one record in Cheshire. No records from Ireland, where it is a very local breeder. Little Grebe Podiceps ruficollis (20 reports: 7A, 6B, 7C: composite B) More severely affected than the Great Crested Grebe, all the reports north of a line from the Severn to the Wash being A. The seven C reports south of this line therefore formed a sharp contrast, both with the other records for this species and with those for the Great Crested Grebe. Heron Ardea cinerea (34 reports: 3 A, 21B, 2BC, 8C: composite B) Reported absent during the winter from 16 inland localities scattered throughout England, but unusually frequent in a few areas (Hertfordshire and Huntingdon- shire). Movement on the south coast suggested that some emigration occurred, though there was only one foreign recovery (in France), and most of the 16 recoveries in the period involved distances of less than 50 miles. There was some suggestion from the records that the species suffered less severely in the south-west and in Ireland than elsewhere (though the Lough Neagh colony dropped by 40%). On the whole, however, the picture seemed to be of a general decline in most parts. This was supported by other analyses (Armitage 1964, Barnes 1964, Baillie 1964, Smith F. R. 1964, Tebbutt 1964*), though in Radnor there was apparently no loss (Smith A. J. 1964). Bittern Botaurus slellaris (3 reports: iA, iBC, iC: composite B) Absent from Minsmere, Suffolk, from December onwards, but reported from 14 localities inland, especially in the West Midlands; some of these birds were sub- sequently found dead. Six pairs returned to Minsmere to breed, compared with eight the previous year. Numbers also fell in Norfolk at Hickling, Horsey and Cley. Mallard Anas platyrhynchos (47 reports : 6B, 4BC, 3 5 C, 2D : composite C) At the onset of the hard weather, Mallard left most of their usual wintering haunts to congregate in great numbers in a few favoured localities, chiefly large rivers and estuaries, where unfrozen water remained. The estuaries of the Wharfe, Thames, Mersey and Test, and the Wash, all harboured large concentrations. Populations inland fell heavily, and dramatic decreases were reported from Cheshire and Leicestershire. In spite of the numbers found dead during the winter, this species seems to have suffered little reduction in its breeding strength, perhaps partly because the normal loss to sportsmen was smaller, but there was a tendency for a drop in south-east England. Nest record cards suggested a heavier fall than did the questionnaire results. Teal Anas crecca (10 reports: 4B, 6C: composite BC) Congregated on the banks of large unfrozen rivers (for example, the Trent) and estuaries (such as the Test) during the hard weather, and was absent from many usual *The annual reports of local societies are referred to by the name of the editor and the year of publication. 412 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF 1962/63 winter haunts inland. However, some numbers were reported from unfrozen sewage-farms during January. Clearly the breeding population of this species was not severely affected. Boyd (1964) suggested that serious mortality may have been avoided by extensive emigration. In fact, there were 150 recoveries abroad: more than usual were found in Iberia, but fewer in France than in the previous year’s hard weather. Wigeon Anas penelope (2 reports: iB, iC: composite BC) Most inland localities were vacated during January, when large numbers were ■ reported on the coast, especially in the Wash, Hampshire, Somerset and Devon. There was a return inland during March. Tufted Duck Aythya fidigtda (8 reports: iB, 5C, 2D: composite C) Thirteen reports of unusual numbers on the coast during January, February and March, and five reports of concentrations on the Thames and Trent when unfrozen. (Only the unfrozen reservoirs, such as Walton, Surrey, were inhabited, and ten eports of absence inland from smaller waters endorsed this pattern. Pochard Aythya ferina (4 reports: 3C, lD: composite C) Movements during the winter similar to those of the Tufted Duck, with congrcga- i ions on the coast and on unfrozen inland waters. Three reports from Ireland of unprecedented numbers on unfrozen waters. Goldeneye Encephala clangula (no breeding reports) •'requent on unfrozen waters inland during the winter, for example, the Thames, rent and Walton reservoir. Unusually common in several places on the west ■oast. Goosander Mergus merganser (1 report: iB) Congregated on unfrozen waters inland. Thus 300+ were present on Walton ieservoir, Surrey, during the hard spell and unusual numbers also occurred on ceveral large rivers. Shelduck Tadorna /adorna (13 reports: iA, 4B, 2BC, 5C, iD: composite BC) ix reports of unusual numbers during January in the west, while two east coast realities reported decreases. A total of 710 were found dead during the winter, id it seemed the breeding population was somewhat reduced. White-fronted Goose Anser albifrons (no breeding reports) arge numbers recorded from the Kent and Devon coasts; also abnormally common iland in the west and numerous other reports of unusual occurrences throughout ngland. Thirty-three of 36 reports involved increases, mostly of small numbers, bsent from Kirkcudbrightshire and Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, during January id February. Brent Goose Bran/a bernicla (no breeding reports) en reports during the winter, all of increases, especially in the west. Canada Goose Bran/a canadensis (4 reports: iBC, 2C, iD: composite C) bsent during the winter from many inland localities, for example, Hertfordshire, affordshire and Berkshire, but frequent on the south coast from Dorset to Devon. )ur were recovered in Pas dc Calais, apparently all from the same flock ringed near arrogate, Yorkshire; foreign recoveries are unusual. Another from the same cality was recovered in Carmarthenshire. 413 BRITISH BIRDS Mute Swan Cygnus olor (28 reports: 2A, 5B, 4BC, 17C: composite BC) Congregated on the large rivers, especially near towns. Some numbers on the coast, for example in Hampshire, while an influx in the Channel Islands indicated greater movement (compare section 12). Ringing recoveries suggested that those inland were more liable to die than ones on the coast, but there was little evidence from this source that movement occurred: the furthest recovery involved a distance of only 80 miles (Stafford to Oxford). However, one ringed on the Ijsselmeer in Holland in 1961 was found at Pagham, Sussex, on 6th February. Localities with decreases in the breeding strength were widely scattered. Boyd and Ogilvie (1964) reported a decline of about one-fifth and stated that winter mortality was much lower in the north-west than elsewhere. Whooper Swan Cygnus cygnus (no breeding reports) Unusually frequent throughout England and Ireland, but no reports on question- naires from Scotland. Large numbers reported inland, especially in February, all round the Fens and in Kent, London and Hampshire. Bewick’s Swan Cygnus columbianus (no breeding reports) Parties of up to 100 seen in the Fens and 80 in Co. Wicklow; unusually common inland throughout England and Ireland. Movement south-west was observed during January, especially in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetos (no reports on questionnaires) Buzzard Buteo buteo (11 reports: 3B, iBC, 7C: composite BC) Merlin Falco columbarius (x report: iC) Records for the north of England and Scotland, particularly those of Dr. D. A. Ratcliffe, as well as, in the case of the Buzzard, county reports for Herefordshire and Devon, suggest that losses, if any, were small and not important. For the Buzzard, this was in marked contrast to the situation abroad (section 12). Kestrel Falco tinnunculus (34 reports: 3 A, 6C, 3BC, 20C, 2D: composite BC) Both the records of increased numbers were from southern Scotland, where A. D. Watson reported that voles were common. Losses in England, however, may have been due to the fact that rodents can live beneath the snow. Red Grouse Lagopus lagopus scoticus (4 reports: iB, iBC, 2C: composite BC) In addition to the records in table 4, reports from Herefordshire and Devon sug- gested that losses were small. Dr. David Jenkins found that the species was un- affected in his study area on Deeside, Scotland. During the winter, local movements into the dales and even into towns were recorded in several places in Scotland, Westmorland, Yorkshire and Devon. Partridge Perdix perdix (36 reports: iA, 10B, iBC, 24C: composite BC) Losses were probably not large, and there was no part of the country where they were concentrated. ‘Figures from the National Game Census (Middleton 1964) show that, on average, there was a 20% decrease, but, except in the area of the Cotswolds, where many deaths were reported during the cold spell, this reduction is considered to have been due to the poor survival rate of young birds in the summer of 1962’ (Ash 1964). Water Rail Kallus aquaticus (8 reports : iA, iAB, 6B: composite B) Few though the records were, it was clear that the breeding population of this 414 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF I 9 6 2 / 6 3 species dropped heavily. During the winter there was a large number of inland records, due no doubt to its bold behaviour in these circumstances. Moorhen Gallinula cbloropus (83 reports: 7A, 2AB, 36B, 5BC, 30C, 3D: composite BC) Twenty-one of 22 reports during the winter indicated absence from January to March. Thus heavy losses presumably occurred as there was no indication of movement. The greatest drop in breeding strength appeared to be in the West Midlands and, on the whole, the species seemed to have suffered less in north, south-west and east England ; in fact, there were two reports of increases in Essex and one in Cambridge- shire. The three reports from Ireland were all C. Coot Fulica atra (46 reports: zA, 22B, 4BC, 17C, iD: composite BC) Fifteen of 19 inland reports during the winter involved decreases, while eleven of 14 coastal ones were of increases. Especially large numbers congregated on the coast in Dorset, Somerset and Devon during January. The distribution of losses seemed to be similar to that of the Moorhen, but there were no reports from Scotland or Ireland. The area where the species was hit most was west of a line from Liverpool through Warwickshire to the Severn cestuary, and the parts where it suffered least were cast of London and in the north of England. Oystercatcher Haema/opus ostralcgus (16 reports: 3B, 12C, iD: composite C) ’The data received did not suggest a great reduction in breeding numbers, even though 780 were found dead. P. J. Dare (in lilt.) informed us that in all the areas which he visited in Wales, northern England and Scotland, Oystercatchers were still -plentiful in the 1963 breeding season and, so far as he could ascertain, at about normal strength. lLapwing Vanellus vane l his (8 1 reports: 6A, 1AB, 50B, 3BC, 18C, 3D: composite B) 1 During the winter there were many reports of passage. Numbers left the country for Ireland and France in November and especially from 3rd to 8th December, but the really big movements were from 23rd to 28th December and from 3rd to 7th January. Scarcely any Lapwings were present in Britain during late January and ! February, although large numbers gathered in Ireland and suffered heavy mortality ' there, possibly from exhaustion rather than lack of food. The first ones returned to torth-west France about 10th February (Anon 1964) and to Britain in late February, ' the main influx beginning here on 5 th March. I.O.P. records are available and fig. 7* shows very clearly how the population was swollen by successive waves of passage and then fell virtually to zero during the lardcst weather. Of a total of 132 recoveries during the year, 52 were in January and 31 in Febru- 1 iry; 37 were from Spain, 24 from France, 12 from Portugal and ten from Ireland, fhc numbers of Lapwings in Iberia were vastly in excess of those reported at the ime of the cold weather during the previous winter. We could detect no regional variation in loss in breeding numbers from the infor- nation at our disposal. The picture seemed to be one of considerable decreases n all parts of Britain including Scotland. There are not enough data from Ireland o know what the position there was, but Ruttledge (1964) recorded that it was emarkablc to see more than a few there in the late summer and autumn of 1963. *These histograms in figs. 7 and 8 show the geometric means of the ratios of the ounts in each I.O.P. each week to the average count in that I.O.P. throughout the ■eriod covered by the histogram. Zero counts are taken as 0.01. 4H INDEX 1962 1963 HoV* OCT NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR. INDEX 280-1 260 240 *10jL WOODPlCEON INDEX INDEX INOfX l*5-i • 961 196) 1962 I96S igs. 7 ( opposite ) and 8. Population levels of thirteen species in the British Isles om ist October 1962 to 30th March 1963, calculated on a week-by-week basis from lland Observation Point returns (see footnote on page 41 5) ( drawn by Robert Gilltnor ) 417 BRITISH BIRDS Clearly, however, there were local pockets where numbers were maintained. B. S. Pashby, reporting for the Hull Scientific and Field Naturalists’ Club, com- mented that in low-lying areas of Yorkshire the population was well down, but that on the wolds it was up to strength. A similar patchiness was mentioned by Griffiths (1963), Macmillan (1963) and Dr. D. A. Ratcliffe {in Hit.). Ringed Plover Charadrius biaticula (7 reports: 3B, 4C: composite BC) During the winter large congregations formed on unfrozen stretches of the coast. There were nine ringing recoveries in January and two in February; two ringed in Essex were recovered in Cornwall, and another ringed in Essex was found on Ushant, France. Golden Plover Charadrius apricarius (5 reports: iA, iB, 2C, iD: composite BC) Movements during the winter coincided almost exactly with those of Lapwings. The only two ringing recoveries for the year were in Portugal and Spain on 4th and 5 th February. Snipe Gallinago gallinago (36 reports: 8 A, iAB, 21B, iBC, 5C: composite B) The numbers found dead were small and in marked contrast to the high figures for Woodcock (see section 7). It may be, therefore, that the mortality occurred out- side Britain. The species apparently invaded south-west England and Ireland in January, and was largely absent over the rest of the British Isles during February, although some sewage-farms remained unfrozen and provided possible refuges (for example, in Durham, Nottinghamshire and Hertfordshire). There were more ringing recoveries than usual, although the quantitative effect of the hard weather was probably masked by shooting ; the first recovery clearly due to the weather was on 1 3th January. Altogether there were twelve recoveries in France, four in Spain, two in Portugal, one in Morocco and six in Ireland. No regional variation in losses in breeding numbers can be detected. All the A reports, however, were in the section based on exact counts and were therefore probably the results of surveys of small areas. On the whole, it seemed that the species was heavily reduced all over the country. Woodcock Scolopax rusticola (20 reports: iA, 6B, iBC, 10C, 2D: composite BC) Four of the reports of decreases in the breeding population were in the north of England, two in Scotland and one in Ireland. In spite of the large numbers found dead, this species apparently maintained its breeding strength far more successfully than did the Snipe. It is probable, therefore, that the mortality observed did not involve the British breeding stock. This view was supported by records of many arriving on the east coast during December and early January and moving west into Wales, south-west England and Ireland as the hard weather set in. Numbers apparently remained high throughout the winter in these areas, although mortality was recorded and birds became very ‘tame’. Curlew Numenius arquala (41 reports: 3A, 15B, iBC, 21C, iD: composite BC) The records suggest that this species invaded the west of England and Ireland as the hard weather began, and that many died in Ireland. A marked return to England occurred about 5th March (cf. Lapwing). There were 24 recoveries in January and February; a quite exceptional total of nine of these were in France and the Channel Islands. Curlews apparently maintained their breeding strength well in Lancashire and most of Yorkshire, but to a variable extent elsewhere and, in particular, not so well in Scotland and Ireland. Spencer (1964) also commented that they were not so severely reduced in Lancashire as some other species, but the population in the 418 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF 1962/63 ,'ash in the autumn of 1963 was only 25% of the normal and heavy losses were so reported by Smith A. J. (1964) for Herefordshire and Barnes (1964) for Wilt- ire. Cabot (1964) estimated a mortality of 19% at Dawlish Warren, Devon, iring the cold weather. Redshank Tringa totanus (31 reports: 2A, 21B, 4BC, 4C: composite B) uring the winter some moved into the south-west, with concentrations in Sussex, ampshire, Somerset and Devon. Many deaths were recorded, although the timated mortality at Dawlish Warren, Devon, was only 9%. There was a total of ringing recoveries in the first two months of 1963, which is nearly double that for t c whole of 1962 (Spencer 1963). Clearly this species was badly hit. Heavy falls in breeding numbers apparently currcd throughout the country, though data arc inadequate for Scotland and 1 :land. In the Wash it was ‘the hardest hit of all the waders . . . population only- out 10% of the normal’. A. D. Watson reported that in Scotland some fields l :re lacking this species for the first time for perhaps twenty years. Local reports 1 mtioning heavy losses included those of Armitagc (1964), Barnes (1964) and icencer (1964). Dunlin Calidris alpina (6 reports: iA, 3B, 2C: composite B) inter concentrations were reported on ice-free shores in Ayr, Lincolnshire, Sussex, corset and Devon. There were several inland occurrences on river-banks, with up 60 on the Trent. VWhile the records submitted directly to us suggested that breeding numbers fell, decrease was noticeable in autumn 1963 on the Wash and the few ringing re- • series also indicated that mortality was low. Black-headed Gull Larus ridibundus ( 1 2 reports: 3B, 7C, 2D: composite C) ’. usually frequent in some towns during the winter, feeding in large numbers on ibish tips, but scarce on inland waters and rivers ; concentrations on the east coast, . example in Ayr, Essex and Kent. Sixty-one ringing recoveries during January mpared with 30 in January 1962; 59 in February. One ringed at Ravenglass, mberland, was found in Ireland ; eight others were recovered in France (more than lal) and one in Spain. 'Stock Dove Columba oenas (26 reports: 3 A, 7B, 3BC, 9C, 4D: composite BC) c ere was a suggestion in the records that losses in breeding numbers were most iceable in the West Midlands (all seven records for the area relate to decreases). 'odpigeon Columba pa l um bus (94 reports: iA, 41B, 9BC, 40C, 3D: composite BC) Drmous flocks recorded during January and February', especially in the south and ' >t, but totally absent from large areas, particularly from the north. Very big vements were noted in early' January, but these were random in direction and / have represented local feeding journeys. Nevertheless, passage south was Drded on the Hampshire coast and southerly and westerly migration occurred in [-January in Yorkshire and Kent, together with increases over the country as a 1 Die during 1 3th- 1 7th January'. The I.O. P. histogram (fig. 7) reflects the stionnaire findings. ■tonality was high and there were 73 recoveries in January and February, corn- ed with 87 in the whole of 1962. Recoveries of birds killed by the hard weather e recorded from 12th January onwards. No movement of more than 70 miles reported. )vcr the country as a whole the breeding population was considerably reduced, he Cambridgeshire areas studied by Dr. R. K. Murton (in ////.), the numbers in 419 BRITISH BIRDS March 1963 were down on those of March 1962 by about 15% and the breeding population was down by 36% ; he commented, ‘Allowing for various complicating factors, I would say that the effect of last winter was to reduce the Woodpigeon numbers by a quarter of the normal’. The fairly uniform mixture of B and C reports tended to suggest that the position was similar over the whole country. Stanley Cramp reported that numbers did not fall in the London squares. Barn Owl Tyto alba (22 reports: 8A, iAB, 7B, iBC, 5C: composite B) Little Owl Athene noctua (30 reports: 4A, iAB, 11B, 2BC, 11C, iD: composite BC) Tawny Owl Strix aluco (40 reports: iA, 16B, iBC, 20C, 2D: composite BC) Long-eared Owl Asia otus (2 reports: iB, iD: composite C) Short-eared Owl Asio flammeus (6 reports: 3A, iB, iC, iD: composite B) Barn Owls were very severely hit, especially in the south-west ; the majority of the A reports for this species were in counties round the Severn and most of the B reports were west of the Pennines. Little Owls decreased to some extent, especially in the south of England, while Tawny Owls were probably the species least affected: such losses as there were tended to be in the West Midlands and the south-west. The Short-eared Owl apparently suffered badly in England and Wales, but not in Scotland. Kingfisher Alcedo atthis (44 reports: 36A, 4AB, 4B: composite A) No Kingfishers were recorded after January for the rest of the winter (23 localities). There were no recoveries of ringed birds, and no other evidence that any movement occurred. One would have thought that Kingfishers reaching Ireland would have been able to survive there with ease, as the rivers stayed open. In Britain, however, no food was available, since not only were the rivers frozen but also the shore within a Kingfisher’s pouncing distance from any perch. It was probably the species worst affected. Most reports were of total extermina- tion and none on questionnaires of anything less than severe losses. Local analyses bore out this conclusion (Barnes 1964, Evans et al. 1964, Follett 1964, Griffiths 1964, Smith A. J. 1964 and Smith F. R. 1964). The only regional difference was the survival of a few birds on the Hampshire/Dorset border in apparently normal numbers (Ash 1964 and Report of Winchester College N.H.S. for 196 f). Green Woodpecker Picus viridis (71 reports: 14A, 3AB, 41B, 5BC, 8C: composite B) A heavy fall in numbers during the winter was reported from 22 localities. It appeared that those in the south-west were least affected. There was no indication that any movements occurred. I.O.P. data are given in fig. 7; the decrease in November is not explained, but may relate to a change in behaviour or distribution. Although losses were severe, they were also somewhat patchy. The species apparently declined most in a broad strip between Hampshire and north Devon in the south and the Wash and Shropshire in the north, while it also decreased con- siderably in south-east Scotland. Local variation was mentioned by Follett (1964), Griffiths (1964), Smith F. R. (1964) and Spencer (1964). Great Spotted Woodpecker Dendrocopos major (73 reports: 5A, 25B, 8BC, 34C, iD: composite BC) There was clear evidence (Williamson 1963a) of a substantial influx from the Con- tinent in late 1962. Records from Lincoln and Surrey reflected this increase and it is also shown in the I.O.P. histogram (fig. 7). However, nine of eleven question- naire reports during the winter showed temporary decreases. The species was less severely affected than the Green Woodpecker, and less affected than in other hard winters. The fact that it feeds above ground level and is increasingly visiting bird-tables (Upton 1962) no doubt helped; perhaps, also, sonic 420 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF I 962/63 the immigrants stayed to breed. There was no clear evidence of any regional riation in the losses. Skylark Alauda arvensis (89 reports: 27B, 8BC, 52C, 2D: composite BC) : imbers flying south-west and south over Britain in early December heralded a l departure in late December and early January, on average rather later than that the Lapwings. Large flocks occurred erratically throughout January and ! miary, and considerable movements south down the east coast in early February . rgested that influxes took place. Numbers remained in south-west England and land throughout the cold spell, with heavy mortality, but they came back in t mgth, along with birds from France, in the first week of March. The I.O.P. ords are given in fig. 7. fhe general impression was of a slight fall in breeding numbers over the whole intry, and only locally was this serious. As with many species, there was a t tain patchiness in the decline and comments in local analyses ranged from ‘the rid winter apparently had some influence on numbers, but clearly there was no jr nificant change’ (Smith A. J. 1964) to ‘very badly hit’ (Barnes 1964). Smith R. (1964) reported ‘numbers greatly reduced on moorland areas and to a lesser 2;ree on low levels’ in Devon. Nest Record Cards suggested a more serious i. uction than did the questionnaire findings. Raven Corvus corax (10 reports: iB, iBC, 8C: composite C) Carrion Crow Corvus corone (54 reports: 2B, 2BC, 43C, 7D: composite C) Hooded Crow Corvus corone comix (3 reports: 3C: composite C) Rook Corvus frugilegus (46 reports: iA, 5B, 3BC, 31C, 6D: composite C) Jackdaw Corvus monedula (41 reports: iB, 2BC, 33C, 5D: composite C) Magpie Pica pica (51 reports: 5B, 37C, 9D: composite C) Jay Garrulus glandarius (40 reports: 3 A, 2B, 3BC, 27C, 5D: composite C) l Chough Pyrrhocorax pyrrbocorax (4 reports: iAB, iB, iC, iD: composite BC) 1 2 crow family as a whole apparently fared very well. Only in the case of the rough was any decrease noted in aggregate and even there the evidence was 1 ider; further, a national survey organised by J. M. Harrop and M. P. M. Richards > wed that breeding pairs were present at most of the usual haunts in 1963. The ords for the Raven and Carrion and Hooded Crows showed almost no changes in \ parts of their ranges, and those for die Jay, while more various, produced no [ ional features. Magpies seemed to come through particularly well, as there : 'e more reports of increased numbers breeding than of decreases; most of the ureases were in the West Midlands and the north-west. Similarly, Rooks : arently fared well in all areas and four annual local censuses tended to bear this : : while numbers fell somewhat in Herefordshire (Smith A. J. 1964) and by 7.1% he Bristol area (J. D. R. Vernon in Hit.), there was a small increase in east Lanca- r e (L. E. Bouldin in lilt.) and a 4% increase in Huntingdonshire (Tebbutt 1964). Great Tit Parus major (116 reports: 4A, 41B, 7BC, 56C, 8D: composite BC) lue Tit Parus caeru/eus (1 26 reports: 2A, 39B, 11BC, 64C, 10D: composite BC) r : records for both these species are very similar. Influxes occurred in urban is in late January, with the result that large parties were seen feeding in gardens over the country, and there were corresponding decreases in rural districts, s may have been merely an extension of a normal habit, however, as Cramp ; 8) has recorded increases in Inner London at this period in most winters. ’ heeding numbers seem to have declined slightly throughout the country, except th of Edinburgh where there was no change. However, this conclusion is not ported by the results of the Breeding-bird Population Census nor by the Nest ord Cards. Reasons for the discrepancy are complex. 421 BRITISH BIRDS Coal Tit Parus ater (55 reports: 6A, 16B, 2BC, 27c, 4D: composite BC) May have suffered greater losses of breeding numbers in the West Midlands and Wales than elsewhere. As in the cases of the Great and Blue Tits, all three reports for Scotland north of Edinburgh were of no change. Over most of England losses seemed to have been generally light. Marsh Tit Partis palusiris (44 reports: iA, 148, iBC, 27C, iD: composite BC) As this species has a rather different distribution from the Great, Blue and Coal Tits (not occurring in Scotland or Ireland), it is interesting that the losses in breeding strength also occurred in different areas. These were apparently light in the West Midlands (and the one report of an increase came from Herefordshire), while in the east almost all the reports were of B (with the one A report from Surrey). Willow Tit Pants mon/amts (23 reports: iA, iB, iBC, 15C, 5D: composite C) The only tit with more records of increased numbers breeding than of decreases. No regional variation was apparent. Long-tailed Tit Aegithalos caudatus (89 reports: 26A, 2AB, 41B, 4BC, 14C, 2D: composite B) Twenty-eight reports of extinction or heavy decreases during the winter; there were also two reports of influxes, but no real indication that any movement occurred. The decrease in breeding strength was obviously great, but the species probably did not suffer as severely as in some previous hard winters; this may have been partly a result of the population having already fallen in the previous year (see section 1 3). Numbers of Nest Record Cards actually increased in 1963 (section 1 1). Losses were greatest in the south (except the south-west where they were all of B with no A records) and progressively less severe with increasing latitude; six of the ten reports for Scotland were of C. Bearded Tit Panurus biarniicus (3 reports: 3B: composite B) Present in small numbers in Norfolk and Suffolk throughout the winter. Eight were seen in Kent in December. The breeding population at Minsmere, Suffolk, fell from about 40 pairs to about ten, but M. J. Seago reported that the species survived well in Norfolk. Nuthatch Sitta europaea (41 reports: xA, 6B, 4BC, 25C, 5D: composite C) No indication that any movement occurred, but decreases during the winter were noted in six localities. Many reports indicated that there was little widespread mortality. All the losses in breeding strength were in Wales, south-west England and Here- fordshire; elsewhere there was no evidence that the species was reduced by the winter. While commenting that the north Yorkshire population had not apparently suffered much, Evans et al. (1964) suggested that the species’ habit of hoarding beechmast (in good supply in 1 962) and its increasing use of bird-tables might be helping it to survive. Treecreeper Certhia familiaris (78 reports: 15A, 3AB, 25B, 7BC, 26C, 2D: composite B) Eleven reports of total absence during the winter, and only one, in Suffolk, of an increase. There was no indication of any movement. This species apparently lost a considerable proportion of its breeding strength throughout the country, including Scotland. No regional variation could be detected. 422 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF 1962/6$ Wren Troglodytes troglodytes (200 reports: 47A, 15AB, 118B, 5BC, 13C, 2D: composite B) There seemed to be some evidence that individuals survived the winter by hiding way in such places as haystacks (Mrs. G. W. Tucker), large stones on a river fore- hore (A. J. Harthan) and rat holes (Hull Scientific and Field Naturalists' Club per 5. S. Pashby). Many observers commented on an apparent return after the hard weather was over, sometimes as late as April or May. The I.O.P. record for the jeriod (fig. 7) shows a decrease in mid-December and the beginning of a return in darch. However, while Wrens may migrate to some extent (Armstrong 1955), . here was no evidence from the ringing results that many left the country on this ■ccasion: the only foreign recovery in a total of 16 during the year was ringed at andwich Bay, Kent, and recovered in Pas de Calais. Some of the ‘return’ may have ecn due to birds becoming more evident when they started to sing or came out of 1 /inter hiding places. The reports based on exact counts indicated that losses in the breeding population I /ere greatest east of a line running from the mouth of the Plumber to the Isle of Wight; to a remarkable extent this line divided the records of A from those of B. tiecords were also of B in most of Scotland; and the same applied to Ireland (seven ' f eleven reports). The number of Nest Record Cards fell to 23% of the 1962 level. 4listle Thrush Turdus viscivorus (89 reports: 10A, iAB, 27B, 11BC, 38C, 2D: composite BC) I I large-scale departure occurred in late December and early January, and a return in rite March. Nineteen ringed birds were recovered in January and twelve in Febru- rry, compared with 41 in the whole of 1962; few involved distances of more than ve miles, but three were in France (none was recovered abroad in 1962). Generally reduced in breeding strength, but nowhere very severely hit; possibly jffered more in the western half of England than in the eastern. Apparently little •fleeted in Scotland, where six of seven reports were of C. Fieldfare Turdus pilaris (no breeding reports) \ . total of 69 reports produced a consistent picture. Fieldfares came into Britain uring November and especially December, with peaks building up until about the oth. With the onset of the hard weather a large-scale departure took place. This continued until 7th January and included fresh waves coming from the east and couth-east across the North Sea. Most apparently went to Normandy, but many i so entered south-west England and Ireland. Small numbers remained, mostly in rban areas such as London and Birmingham, while small influxes continued iroughout February. A large return occurred between 5 th and 8th March, and arties then stayed until April. I.O.P. records are shown in fig. 7. There were 22 recoveries between 9th January and mid-March, compared with : :ven in 1962: five of these were in France, one in Portugal and two in Belgium, ive others ringed abroad were recovered in England: two from Sweden, one from inland and one from Germany. ong Thrush Turdus pbilomelos (170 reports: 7A, iAB, 102B, 12BC, 36C, 12D: composite BC) movement south, and to a lesser extent south-west, out of the country occurred 1 late December and early January. Large numbers were reported in Ireland, but tc general pattern of directions in England suggested that most went to France. 3w were left in Britain in February, except in the south-west. A return was oserved in early March. I.O.P. records are given in fig. 8. No less than 172 ringed Song Thrushes were recovered in January and 73 in ibruary. Half of these had moved less than 50 miles, a sixth had gone to France, sixth to Wales and south-west England, about a tenth to Ireland and the rest else- here. 423 BRITISH BIRDS The species clearly lost a considerable proportion of its breeding population. The distribution of the changes was most interesting: five of the seven A reports were in the west (two in Somerset, one in Cornwall, one in Pembrokeshire and one in Breconshire) and almost all the increases were in the south-east (three in Essex and four others elsewhere in the Home Counties). Miss B. E. Bayliss commented on the fact that the numbers of Song Thrushes rose in Essex on 7th March and it certainly seems that there must have been an influx into that part of England. Redwing Turdus iliacus (no reports on questionnaires) As in the case of the Fieldfare, a consistent picture emerged from the 87 reports received. Redwings entered the country in November and peak numbers occurred about 20th December. From then on there was passage across the country, especially towards Ireland and to a lesser extent towards France. Vast numbers died wherever they stopped and scarcely any survived the winter in England (see I.O.P. records in fig. 8). Many stayed all winter in north Scotland, but there was heavy mortality there too. A small return was observed in early March. This species apparently differed from the Fieldfare by dying in far greater numbers, few individuals being seen after 10th January (suggesting that none came from the Continent after that date) and by tending to fly with Skylarks, while Fieldfares usually flew with Lapwings, Song Thrushes and finches. Ringed Redwings began to be recovered very quickly after the onset of the hard weather, the first being on 1st January. In all, 82 were recovered in the period, compared with only 30 in the whole of 1962. Half of these were less than 50 miles from the place of ringing, a fifth were in Wales and south-west England, a tenth in France, a tenth in Ireland, and slightly less in Iberia, Italy and south-east England. Besides these recoveries, 27 Redwings ringed abroad were found in Britain: eleven from Iceland, seven from Finland, four from Belgium, two from Denmark, and one each from Sweden, Germany and Switzerland. The small breeding population of Redwings in Scotland was not wiped out. Blackbird Turdus merula (163 reports: 2A, 36B, 17BC, 88C, 20D: composite C) There were only 25 reports of abnormal numbers (present or absent) during the winter, which suggested that the species was static. Some did leave the country in early January, but influxes were reported in February from Yorkshire, Lancashire, Wiltshire and Surrey, and it appeared that local movements were more general. The I.O.P. records in fig. 8 also indicate little movement. A total of 276 were recovered in January and 173 in February, which was certainly above the seasonal average, and recoveries continued above the normal level right into the summer, perhaps suggesting that part of the population had been left in poor condition. Only 9.4% of the recoveries in the hard weather period were in Ireland, 7.4% in west and south-west England and 3.4% in France, which was further evidence of little abnormal migration. Of 195 ringed after 1st October 1962 and recovered by xst March 1963, only 22% had moved more than 30 miles (the comparable figure for Song Thrushes was 48%) and many of those had been ringed and recovered early in the season. Although reports of decreases in breeding strength did outnumber those ot increases by three to one, the species apparently stood the winter well and in more than half the areas it was almost, if not completely, unaffected. No regional variation could be found. On the other hand, the numbers of Nest Record Cards suggested a greater reduction than did the questionnaire findings. Stonechat Saxicola torquata (45 reports: 21 A, 2AB, 11B, 9BC, 2C: composite AB) All of 25 reports on the winter status referred to almost if not complete absence. There were no reports of movement within the cold spell. One of two January ringing recoveries was local and the other was in Spain. 424 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF I 962/63 The drop in breeding numbers was very serious and, particularly as it followed a similar decrease in the preceding winter (section 1 3), the population was left at a very low level. As with many species, however, there were pockets where Stonechats were still to be found, particularly along the south coast (perhaps because migrating birds returning in the spring stopped on arrival there) but also in Cumberland. Local investigations also revealed serious losses (Follett 1964, Smith F. R. 1964, 'Spencer 1964, E. Hardy in lit/, and P. R. Foulkes-Roberts in lit/.). Robin Eri/hacus rubecula (138 reports: 9A, tAB, 57B, 18BC, 48C, 5D: composite BC) ■We received remarkably few reports on the winter status of this species. Such as ■there were gave a varied picture, suggesting some local movement, especially into t :owns, but no large-scale migration or mortality. The number of ringing recoveries wvas not exceptional, and most were local. There was apparently a considerable drop in breeding numbers uniformly across he whole of the British Isles including Scotland and Ireland, but no evidence that iny areas were particularly badly affected. Dartford Warbler Sylvia undata (4 reports: 1 A, 2B, iC: composite B) \W. A. Cadman described the Dartford Warbler as ‘decimated: four pairs remain in he whole New Forest’. C. R. Tubbs estimated that the New Forest population was • educed to an eighth or even a tenth of the sixty or so pairs which were left after the 1 961/62 winter (cf. Tubbs 1963). Ash (1964) considered that in March 1963 only our or five could be found in the whole of 1 lampshirc and Dorset, and that those vcrc all near the coast. In Dorset there were reports of single birds in three ocalities (C. R. Tubbs), and in Devon it was ‘reduced to a marginal remnant’ J. C. Follett). The Surrey population had been wiped out in the 1961/62 winter 1.. J. Ravnsford). In the Channel Islands, however, the species was unaffected. Goldcrest Regu/us regains (94 reports: 43A, 7AB, 39B, 2BC, 3C: composite AB) 1 1'hirty-thrce reports of complete absence during the winter, and populations re- named steady in only two areas in the south. No evidence of emigration. This was one of the species most severely affected. Some survived in south- ast and north England and in Scotland and Ireland; two reports from Sutherland were both of C. Except in these areas, however, most reports were of A. These onclusions were supported by numerous editors of county7 publications. Tunnock Prunella modular is (133 reports: 3 A, 36B, 14BC, 61C, 19D: composite C) ! ’here were only 18 reports of winter status and these suggested that, while Dun- i ocks were absent from some areas, they suffered no widespread decreases. There i ;ere no reports of movement and ringing recoveries were almost entirely local. O.P. records are given in fig. 8. The breeding population was generally little affected, though there was a sugges- on of more widespread reductions in the West Midlands and the Nest Record Cards (lowed a 33% drop. On the other hand, numbers increased over much of central nd eastern England between the latitudes of Cambridge and London. leadow Pipit An/bus pratensis (47 reports: 2A, 2AB, 27B, 5BC, 9C, 2D: composite BC) lany of our wintering birds apparently moved west into south-west England and ' reland and the species was largely absent from the north. In the south, however, onccntrations occurred on rubbish tips and sewage farms, in gardens, and especially n the shore-line. Ringing recoveries were a little above average, but the sample as still small: ten of 31 recoveries in the first three months of 1963 were in south ranee and Iberia, but that is not unusual for this species. 425 BRITISH BIRDS Unlike those of many species, the breeding numbers of Meadow Pipits seem to have been more severely affected in Ireland (2A, 3B, iC) and Scotland (5B) than elsewhere. Losses in England and Wales were most noticeable in Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Glamorgan and the Pennines. Pied Wagtail Motacilla alba (87 reports: 16A, 37B, BBC, 25C, iD: composite B) As with the Meadow Pipits, some clearly migrated west, but others stayed and con- centrated in towns and on the shore-line. Heavy mortality occurred, but numbers were present throughout the period, especially in the south. Ringing recoveries due to the weather began to be reported on 1st January, but there were only nine foreign recoveries (all in France and Iberia) and only two of the birds ringed after 1st October 1962 were found more than 30 miles away. Quite heavy losses in breeding numbers occurred, especially in a broad belt across the country between the latitudes of Cambridge and London (the part where Dunnocks, by contrast, increased): twelve reports for this area were of A. Not so seriously reduced in Scotland and Ireland. Grey Wagtail Motacilla citierea (44 reports: 24A, 2AB, 16B, 2C: composite AB) Fourteen reports of status during the winter all referred to complete absence. There was no evidence of emigration, however, and Sharrock (1964) has suggested that most British Grey Wagtails do not normally leave the country in the winter. Mortality may therefore have occurred fairly early on in the hard spell. Suffered very serious losses in breeding strength, especially in the south-east. Starling Sturnus vulgaris (80 reports: iA, 6B, 3BC, 53C, 17D: composite C) Large numbers out of the winter population moved south-west in early January, but the roosts were only partially diminished. Periodic influxes, especially in the south, suggested that arrivals from the Continent occurred throughout January and February. I.O.P. records are shown in fig. 8. Of the 329 recoveries of British- ringed Starlings reported in January and February, only three were on the Continent (two in France and one in Holland). There was no evidence that breeding numbers were affected by the winter; increases outnumbered decreases, particularly in the south-east. Hawfinch Coccotbraustes coccotbrausles (8 reports: 4B, 4C: composite BC) All the reports of B were in the Home Counties, and three of those of C were in die West Midlands and the north-west. Greenfinch Cbloris cbloris (92 reports: iA, 19B, 7BC, 52C, 13D: composite C) Some were seen moving west with other finches and there may have been emigra- tion, but arrivals were reported throughout the winter and large flocks were recorded in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Suffolk and London. Certainly there was no evidence of widespread absence over the country as a whole. I.O.P. records are shown in fig. 8. Ringing recoveries were above average in January. Breeding strength was clearly not seriously affected and numbers apparently increased in the south-east and east. Goldfinch Carduelis carduelis (69 reports: 4A, 19B, 3BC, 36C, 7D: composite BC) Some moved west and south during the winter, but reports suggested that there were scattered concentrations on sewage farms and kale crops. However, many observers noted an absence from breeding quarters until April or May. There was apparently a considerable reduction in the breeding populatiou in the north-west, but elsewhere it was only slight. 426 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF I 9 6 2 / 6 3 Linnet Carduelis cannabina (79 reports: 26B, 4BC, 43C, 6D: composite BC) ' ibout 20 reports during the winter, suggesting a picture similar to that shown by the roldlinch. Concentrations around waste heaps, kale crops and sewage farms were : resent throughout; movements also occurred to the west and south during early anuary. Particularly interesting was the recovery of one ringed in Noctingham- ! lire and found in Sardinia on 18th January, as this was considerably further south lan usual; there were also two recoveries from France, two from Belgium and one om Spain. Reductions in breeding numbers were reported particularly in the West Midlands rad the south-west, and were slight but general in most other parts, including cotland, though in the north of England no reductions at all were noted. Redpoll Carduelis jlammea (22 reports: xA, 2B, 9C, 10D: composite C) he only well-documented species with more reports of increases than of C. * lumbers rose considerably in the north of England (Northumberland, Cumberland, i Westmorland and Yorkshire), and to a lesser extent in other areas, and remained high uroughout the winter. This was probably the result of the influx the previous uatumn (cf. Great Spotted Woodpecker); unusual numbers had been recorded at ..xe I.O.P.s in October. I ullfinch Pyrrbula pyrrbula (71 reports: 2A, iAB, 12B, 4BC, 41C, 1 iD: composite C) ' In the evidence available this species apparently did not suffer from the winter at all. ! lost of the reports of decreases were from counties which also had increases and a . eneral redistribution could well have occurred. Crossbill Loxia curvirostra (2 reports: 2D: composite D) he increases were clearly a result of the irruption of the previous autumn (William- xon 1963b). i ha flinch Friugil/a coelebs (119 reports: 3A, 38B, 11BC, 50C, 17D: composite BC) ome moved south-west into Devon, and possibly across the Channel, but since as lany local influxes as local decreases were reported, with no geographical bias, seemed likely that most went only short distances. Some birds apparently ntered the country in January and February, and provided a possible explanation >r the abundance of the species in certain areas in March and April. There were irdly more ringing recoveries than normal. Losses in breeding numbers were probably small. Our data were interesting eccause they included 17 reports of increases. These were all south of Derbyshire, v xcept for one in Yorkshire and one in Tipperary. Brambling Fringi/la montifringilla (no breeding reports) hirty-one winter reports, 29 of which involved increases, often on a large scale, he species formed large flocks on kale and sewage-farm weeds. ellowhammer Fmberi^a citrinella (7 1 reports: iA, 19B, 5BC, 36C, 10D: composite C) o evidence of large-scale emigration or extermination, but big flocks formed in •me parts of the country and the species visited urban areas to an unusual extent, xme large movements occurred south down the east coast. Breeding numbers somewhat reduced over most of the country and possibly Lghtly worse in the West Midlands than elsewhere. eed Bunting Fmberi^a schoeniclus (5 1 reports: 3A, 17B, 5BC, 23C, 3D: composite BC) oved south and west in small numbers, and largely vacated northern Britain. 427 BRITISH BIRDS Concentrated around sewage farms and also visited gardens to an unusual extent. Breeding numbers clearly reduced over most of the country, but apparently un- affected in south-west and north England. Snow Bunting Plecirophenax nivalis (no breeding reports) Occurred in unusual numbers inland, possibly when the saltings froze, but still chiefly in the north and east and especially reported from Edinburgh, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Suffolk and Kent. House Sparrow Passer clomesticus (65 reports: iAB, 3B, 51C, 10D: composite C) Reports of increases outnumbered those of decreases. D. C. Seel, who was studying the sparrows nesting in nearly three-quarters of 271 nest-boxes distributed among three habitat types in the Oxford area (city centre, city suburbs and a village in mixed farmland) recorded no decline anywhere. Summers-Smith (1 963) commented that this species never seems to suffer from severe winter weather. Tree Sparrow Passer mon tanus (51 reports: 6A, iAB, 11B, 6BC, 21C, 6D: composite BC) Some moved south and east down the east coast. Unlike that of the House Sparrow, the population was clearly somewhat reduced after the winter. No regional variation could be found. (16) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Very many people have given us a great deal of help with the prepara- tion of this report and we are most grateful to them all. In particular, we wish to acknowledge the liberal assistance provided by the editors of British Birds at all stages, and especially that given by I. J. Ferguson- Lees and his secretary, Mrs. A. Ludvik. We are at the same time equally grateful to Robert Spencer for allowing frequent visits to the ringing office and for checking the recovery figures at the proof stage, to Robert Fludson and H. Mayer-Gross for help over ringing results and Nest Record Cards respectively, to Robert Gillmor for draw- ing a number of the figures, to Hugh Boyd for an exchange of infor- mation on waterfowl and waders, and to B. H. B. Dickinson for extensive and invaluable criticism of the drafts of this paper. We also wish to thank the British Trust for Ornithology for permission to quote results from its enquiries, Dr. E. Eastwood and his colleagues at Marconi for supplying us with data obtained from radar, Jeffery Boswall for giving us the scripts of two broadcasts, and R. S. R. Fitter, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Council for Nature for sending us on relevant correspondence. Many other people have spent a considerable amount of time collecting informa- tion for us, or have made valuable suggestions and comments, and the list below therefore means far more than a routine acknowledgement. The following observers and organisations kindly completed the questionnaire or sent us information and so made possible the main part of this report: G. D. Adams, A. F. Airey, H. G. Alexander, R. H. Allen, Dr. G. Allsop, R. Angles, R. Iff. Appleby, Rev. E. A. Armstrong, G. A. and M. A. Arnold, K. Atkin, H. E. Axel), J. Ballantyne, Banbury Ornithological Society, P. G. R. Barbicr, Bardscy 428 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF I 9 6 2 / 6 3 ird Observatory, Mrs. E. Barnes, J. A. G. Barnes, L. A. Batten, J. H. Bayley, Miss 1 . E. Bayliss, I. R. Beanies, B. D. Bell, G. B. G. Benson, Dr. G. Beven, W. E. Birch, 1 . D. Bisikcr, O. H. Black, A. Blackett, Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Bottomley, J. Bourne, > r. W. R. P. Bourne, L. Brackcnbury, D. J. Brown, V. F. Brown, A. Brownett, W. Brucker, W. F. A. Buck, W. M. Bunce, A. Burgess, P. S. Burns, Miss S. M. utlin, D. V. Butt, D. B. Cabot, W. A. Cadnian, Dr. Bruce Campbell, W. D. ampbell, Cape Clear Bird Observatory, P. Carah, P. J. Carlton, H. H. Carter, . S. Clapham, Claysmore Natural History Society, Clecthorpes Ringing Group, M. Clegg, J. Cluckic, D. L. Clugston, M. Coath, J. L. S. Cobb, E. Cohen, A. F. olenian, W. A. J. Conningham, G. Convngham-Greene, W. A. Cook, B. E. 1 ooper, Copeland Bird Observatory, R. T. Cottrill, L. A. Cowcill, Mrs. J. B. Cowdy, . N. L. Cowper, Stanley Cramp, D. R. Crofts, G. M. Crofts, Miss S. R. Crofts, Miss I . D. Crosby, R. M. Curber, C. G. D. Curtis, P. J. Dare, G. Davies, Peter Davis, G. Davis, A. W. Diamond, A. Dobbs, Miss G. M. Doran, A. A. Dunthorn, . M. S. Easy, T. W. Edwards, N. Elkins, R. J. Ellis, F. P. Errington, Dr. P. R. vans, Fair Isle Bird Observatory, F. Fincher, J. Fitzpatrick, J. E. Flynn, H. Ford, 1 rs. M. Fuller, D. PI. Gantzcll, G. B. Gooch, P. R. Goodfellow, K. R. Gould, C. ouldson, G. Gravcson, S. Greenwood, F. C. Gribblc, J. Griffiths, M. E. Griffiths, liajor E. Grove, G. H. Gush, L. 1. Hamilton, E. Hardy, B. H. Harley, Dr. M. P. arris, J. M. 1 Iarrop, A. J. Harthan, C. Hartley, Rev. P. H. T. Hartley, R. H. S. atton, B. Hawkes, B. L. Hercules, D. R. Hcwitson, Hilbrc Bird Observatory, P. A. iHll, Rev. C. Hilliard, N. L. Hodson, P. A. D. Hollom, F. J. Holroyde, E. G. Holt, Flope Jones, J. Hoy, Mrs. A. Hughes, Hull Scientific and Field Naturalists ocicty, K. G. and H. G. Hurrcll, D. B. lies, G. M. Ireson, R. Irving, W. S. Jacklin, . M. Jacob, G. R. Jacobs, H. T. James, A. R. Jenkins, E. D. H. Johnson, M. ones, L. Key, Bernard King, P. G. Kitchener, L. Llewellyn, M. and S. Lobb, : iss C. Longfield, Lt.-Col. W. Logan Home, A. Lowry, Lundy Bird Observatory, Macalpine-Ramage, A. Macdonald, D. Macdonald, P. McDougall, J. A. ccGeoch, P. Z. Mackenzie, Miss A. M. Mackintosh, S. G. Madge, J. D. Magee, . W. Mallatrat, C. G. Manning, C. F. V. Martin, R. May, H. Mayer-Gross, W. S. edlicott, O. J. Mernc, B. S. Milne, E. Milne-Rcdhcad, Dr. C. D. T. Minton, 1. ontagu, H. J. Moore, A. H. Morlcy, Col. H. Morrey Salmon, J. A. W. Moyes, . and J. R. Mullins, Dr. R. K. Murton, C. K. Mylne, C. A. Norris, J. Nuttall, . O’Connell, B. O’Regan, M. A. Ogilvie, B. S. Owen, H. W. Palin, Sir William ; .rker. Dr. J. D. Parrack, A. G. Parsons, B. S. Pashbv, G. Patrick, W. H. Payn, r. I. D. Pennie, M. Philips Price, N. K. Phillips, W. W. A. Phillips, E. G. Philp, P. Pickess, R. E. M. Pilcher, R. F. Porter, H. E. Pounds, Miss C. Pratt, G. A. 1 rman, Miss PI. M. Quick, Mrs. I. Rainier, W. T. C. Rankin, Dr. D. A. Ratcliffe, J. Redshaw, R. A. Richardson, D. Riley, J. Robbins, E. L. Roberts, R. W. 1 ibson, Lt.-Col. G. T. Russell, Rye Meads Ringing Group, P. W. Sandeman, F. Sanderson, Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory, D. R. Saunders, R. E. Scott, Scott, D. C. Seel, Selscy Bill Bird Observatory, P. Shooter, M. Shrubb, T. B. i Icocks, P. E. L. Simmons, C. Simms, Eric Simms, D. W. Simpson, A. J. Smith, W. J. Smith, J. Sorensen, K. G. Spencer, Spurn Bird Observatory, F. Stabler, M. Start, Ralph Stokoc, R. C. Stone, Dr. C. Suffern, Aliss A. Summcrsgill, Dr. D. Summcrs-Smith, C. M. Swaine, D. W. Swindells, J. H. Taverner, C. F. :bbutt, Miss D. F,. Theak, W. A. Timpcrlev, Tory Island Bird Observatory, D. Townsend, Trent Valley Bird Watchers, Mrs. G. W. Tucker, J. M. Twort, rs. P. V. Upton, J. D. R. Vernon, A. J. Vickery, Walbcrswick Bird Observatory, F. G. Walker, H. Walker, T. J. Wallace, Prof. E. H. Warmington, Miss F. alton, Mrs. L. M. Walton, E. W ard, R. B. Warren, D. Washington, A. B. Wassell, ■ :. A. B. Watson, A. D. Watson, G. L. Webber, L. G. Weller, J. R. Whitelegg, A. Wigzcl, R. D. Wilson and A. H. Wynnc-Joncs. The following editors of county reports kindly answered our request 429 BRITISH BIRDS for information (asterisks indicate reports likely to include a section on the effects of the winter): R. H. Baillie (Herefordshire*), Mrs. E. Barnes (Wiltshire), Rev. J. E. Beckerlegge (Cornwall*), L. E. Bouldin (East Lancashire), J. W. Brucker (Berkshire and Oxford- shire), W. F. A. Buck (Kent*), H. O. Bunce (Yorkshire*), E. Cohen (Hampshire*) W. M. Condry (Montgomeryshire), H. H. Davis (Gloucestershire*), A. Dobbs (Nottinghamshire*), G. M. S. Easy (Cambridgeshire*), J. C. Follett (Dorset*), P. R. Foulkes-Roberts (Isle of Man), J. Griffiths (Brecknock*), Eric Hardy (Mersey- side), E. R. Ingles (Leicestershire*), Bernard King (Bristol), J. Lord (Warwickshire), Miss E. M. Palmer (Somerset*), G. A. Pyman (Essex*), M. J. Seago (Norfolk), F. R. Smith (Devon*), K. G. Spencer (Lancashire), C. F. Tebbutt (Huntingdon- shire*), A. D. Townsend (Lincolnshire) and R. B. Warren (Essex). Finally, cyclostyled bulletins produced by the following societies have been consulted: Bedfordshire Natural History Society, Cambridge Bird Club, Derbyshire Ornitholo- gical Society, Kent Ornithological Society, Kent Naturalists’ Trust, Leicestershire and Rutland Ornithological Society, London Natural History Society (Ornithologi- cal Section), Herefordshire Ornithological Club, Oxford Ornithological Society, Shropshire Ornithological Society, Teesmouth Bird Club, Trent Valley Bird Watchers, Tyneside Bird Club and West Midland Bird Club. (17) SUMMARY This paper records the effects of the hard winter of 1962/63 on birds in Britain; it continues the tradition of the summaries published in British Birds after the winters of 1916/17, 1928/29, 1939/40 and 1946/47 (section 1). To obtain the necessary infor- mation, questionnaires were printed and distributed; data were also obtained from the Inland Observation Points, the Ringing Scheme, the Nest Record Cards, local and foreign reports, and radar film (section 2). The records of numbers of birds breeding in 1963 compared with those in 1962 were allocated into six categories, and then divided into two groups, depending on whether they were based on exact counts or estimates ; the distribution of categories in the two groups was found to be significantly different, but this was probably a result of the technique and does not imply that the observations were faulty (section 3)- The severest weather lasted in most parts of Britain from 23 rd December to early March (section 4). An account of hard- weather movements over Britain during the period is given: these were particularly noticeable between 23rd December and 13th January; a small number of field observations and some radar records show that movement continued throughout the winter and a return passage was observed from 28th February to 7th March (section 5). Records of unusual abundance or absence of birds provided valuable confirmation of passage and mortality (section 6). Observed mortality was heavy and widespread; the records of dead birds formed a pattern over the country so similar to the distribution of contributors to the enquiry that mortality could presumably have been noted wherever observers were present (section 7). The effects of man in providing food were considerable; this was eaten by many species not normally seen near habitation (section 8). Many birds were found to be in good health during the winter; ringers recorded exceptionally heavy individuals (section 9). The breeding strength of British birds in 1963 is compared with that in 1962: Kingfishers, Grey Wagtails, Goldcrests, Stonechats, Wrens, Barn Owls, Snipe, Long-tailed Tits and Green Woodpeckers, in that order, were apparently the most 430 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF 1962/63 leavily reduced, but a considerable number of other species had decreased to some . extent; almost all those species which in Britain are near the northern limit of their breeding ranges were substantially reduced (section 10). Data on breeding strength rom Nest Record Cards were examined and, for most species, confirm the findings 'rom the questionnaire (section 11). Published reports from other countries in f Europe show that many of the species affected abroad were the same as those which suffered in England (section 12). There was some hard weather in the preceding winter of 1961/62, but little rvidence that this had very serious effects on most species (section 13). The con- sequences of the hard winter of 1962/63 arc compared with those of four previous - lard winters in this century (section 14). Details of the effects in 1962/63 are given s systematically for 94 species, with information on movements and on changes in breeding strength in different parts of the country (section 15). (18) REFERENCES Anon (1963): ‘The cold weather of the winter 1962/63’. International Council for Bird Preservation, British Section, Ann. Rep. 196): 13-14. Anon (1964): ‘Rapports d’obscrvations ornithologiques’. Ailes et Nature, 4: 9-17. Armitage, J. S. (1964): ‘The effects on birds of the winter, 1962-63’. Naturalist , no. 889: 49-32. Armstrong, E. A. (1955): The Wren. London. Asn, J. S. (1964): ‘Observations in Hampshire and Dorset during the 1963 cold spell’. Brit. Birds , 57: 221-241. Aaillie, R. H. (1964): Herefordshire Ornithological Club, Ann. Rep., 1969: 98-100. Baldwin, S. P., and Kendeigh, S. C. (1938): ‘Variations in the weights of birds’. Auk, 55 : 416-467. Aarnes, R. G. et al. (1964): ‘Wiltshire Bird Notes for 1963’. Reprinted from Wiltshire Arch, and Nat. Hist. Mag. Aeer, LI. V., and Boyd, H. (1964): ‘Deaths of wild White-fronted Geese at Slim- bridge in January 1963’. Wildfowl Trust, ijth Ann. Rep.: 40-44. Aernis, F. (1964): In ‘The cold spell 1962/1963’. Internationa! Wildfowl Research Bureau, Newsletter ij: 3-1 1. Aeven, G. (1963): ‘Population changes in a Surrey oakwood during fifteen years’. Brit. Birds, 56: 307-322. Aooth, R. E. (1964): ‘The winter of 1962-63’. J. Roy. Hort. Soc., 89: 25-27. Aoyd, H. (1964): ‘Wildfowl and other water-birds found dead in England and Wales in January-March 1963’. Wildfowl Trust, ijth Ann. Rep.: 20-22. and Ogii.vie, M. (1964): ‘Losses of Mute Swans in England in the winter of 1962-63’. Wildfowl Trust, 1 jth Ann. Rep.: 37-40. Aurton, J. F., and Owen, D. F. (1957): ‘The census of heronries 1955-56. Bird Study, 4: 121-124. Aabot, D. B. (1964): ‘Third report from wader ringing on the Exe Estuary', East Devonshire’. Devon Birds, 17: 23-26. Ioulson, J. C. (1961) : ‘The post-fiedging mortality of the Blackbird in Great Btitain’. Bird Study, 8 : 89-97. Iramp, S. (1958): ‘The irruption of tits and other species in the London area, 1957-1958’. London Bird Report , 23: 62-69. Irisp, D. J. (1964): ‘The effects of the severe winter of 1962/63 on marine life in Britain’. J. Anim. Eco/., 33: 165-210. Irawshaw, K. R. (1963): ‘Brent Geese pulling weed from the undersides of ice- floes’. Brit. Birds, 56: 339-340. )avis, P. (1964): ‘Aspects of autumn migration at the bird observatories, 1963’. Bird Study, 11: 77-122. '.vans. P. R. (1963): ‘The status of certain birds in the south-western dales of the North York moors’. Naturalist, no. 887: 121-126. 43 1 BRITISH BIRDS Evans, P. R., Brennan, S. R., Henry, M., and Wright, C. J. (1964): ‘Bird popula- tions of the N. York moors after the hard winter of 1962/63’. Naturalist, no. 890: 93-98. Ferguson-Lees, I. J. (1963): ‘Recent reports’. Brit. Birds, 56: 119-120. Fisher, J., and Hinde, R. A. (1949): ‘The opening of milk bottles by birds’. Brit. Birds, 42: 347-357- Fitter, R. S. R. (1941): ‘Report on the effect of the severe winter of 1939-40 on bird-life in the area within 20 miles of London’. Brit. Birds, 35 : 33-36. Follett, J. C. et al. (1964): ‘Birds’ (in Dorset 1963). Reprinted from Proc. Dorset Nat. Hist, and Arch. Soc. Geroudet, P. (1956): ‘Les oiseaux et la vague de froid de fevrier 1956 en Suisse romande’. Nos Oiseaux, 23: 301-3 13. (1964): ‘L’hiver rigoureux de 1962-1963 en Suisse romande’. Nos Oiseaux, 27: 209-226. Griffiths, J. (1963): ‘The effect of the 1962-63 winter’. Breconshire Birds, no. 4: 40-41. (1964): ‘The effects of last winter on Breconshire birds’. Breconshire Birds, no. 5:58. Harris, M. P. (1962): ‘Weights from five hundred birds found dead on Skomer Island in January 1962’. Brit. Birds, 55: 97-103. Harrison, J., and Hudson, M. (1964): ‘Some effects of severe weather on wildfowl in Kent in 1962-63’. Wildfowl Trust, ijth Ann. Rep.: 26-32. Hope Jones, P. (1962): ‘Mortality and weights of Fieldfares in January 1962’. Brit. Birds, 55: 178-181. (1964): ‘Effects of the hard weather in January and February 1963, on the birds of the Newborough district of south-west Anglesey’. Cambrian Orn. Soc. Rep. for 196). Hulten, M. (1964): ‘Der Kaltewinter 1962/63 und sein Einfluss auf die Yogelwelt in Luxemburg’. Regains, 43: 387-389. Hunt, O. D. (1964): ‘Song Thrushes feeding on periwinkles’. Brit. Birds, 57: 25 3-254- Jakobs, B. (1964): ‘Ornithologische Beobachtungen im Kaltewinter 1962/63 aus Trier und Umgebung’. Regidus, 43: 383-386. Jansen, P. B. (1964): ‘Invloed van de strenge winter op de vogelstand bij Breda’. He l Vogeljaar, 11: 165-166. Jourdain, F. C. R., and Witherby, H. F. (1918): ‘The effect of the winter of 1916-17 on our resident birds’. Brit. Birds, 11: 266-271; 12: 26-35. Kear, J. (1962): ‘The history of potato-eating by wildfowl in Britain’. Wildfowl Trust, 14th Ann. Rep.: 54-65. Kent, A. K. (1964): ‘The breeding habitats of the Reed Bunting and Yellowhammer in Nottinghamshire’. Bird Study, 11: 1 23-1 27. Kettlewell, H. B. D. (1963): ‘Selective feeding of birds’. Bird Notes, 30: 2-M-274. Lamb, H. H. (1963): ‘The weather: past and future’. Meteorological Mag., 92: 269- 272. Leporati, L. (1963): In ‘The cold spell 1962/1963’. Internationa/ Wildfowl Research Bureau, Newsletter ij: 3-11. Lf.uzinger, H. (1963): ‘Das Auftretcn der Schwiine ( Cygnus ), Feldganse (A riser), und Meerganse (Bran/a) in dcr Schweiz und dem Bodenseegebiet im Winter 1962/63’. Orn. Beob., 60: 223-236. Lloyd-Evans, L., and Nau, B. S. (1964): ‘A ringing study of Greenfinch weights’. R ye Meads Ringing Group, 3rd Ann. Rep. Lucas, A. (1963): ‘Les consequences du froid sur la faune dans le Massif armoricain’. Penn ar Bed, 4: 1-22. 432 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF 1962/63 Iacmillan, A. T. (1963): ‘Current notes: effects of the severe weather’. Scot. Birds, 2: 369-373 and 429-432. Iayer-Gross, H. (1963): ‘The Nest Record Scheme, 1962’. Bird Study, 10: 234- 237- Iiddleton, A. D. (1964) : ‘National Game Census’. Game Research Assoc., )rd Ann. Rep.: 48-57. Iii.ne, B. S. (1963): ‘Bird life in the cold weather’. Report of St. Agnes Bird Obser- vatory for 1961-1962: 30-31. - Jisbet, 1. C. T., and Swift, J. J. (1963): In ‘The cold spell 1962/1963’. International Wildfowl Research Bureau. Newsletter 1 j: 3-1 1. hi lips Price, M. (1961): ‘Warbler fluctuations in oak woodland in the Severn Valley’. Brit. Birds, 54: 100-106. ' iechocki, R. (1957): ‘Obcr Vogelverluste im Winter 1956’. Der Fa/ke, 4: 5-10 and 33-40. — (1964): ‘Ubcr die Vogelverluste im strcngen Winter 1962/63 und ihrc Auswirkungen auf den Brutbestand 1963’. DerFalke, 11: 10-15 and 50-58. li.oux, F., and Spitz, F. (1963): ‘Les stationncmcnts d’anatides cn France pendant la vague du froid dc 1962/63’. Oiseaux de France, 38: 1-20. 1 uttledge, R. F. (1964): Irish Bird Report for 196): 3-4. 1 eel, D. C. (1961): ‘Seasonal fluctuations in numbers of Blackbirds and House Sparrows on a Middlesex farm 1954-57’. London Bird Rep. for 19 49: 60-70. harrock, J. T. R. (1964): ‘Grey Wagtail passage in Britain in 1956-60’. Brit. Birds, 57: 10-24. mith, A. J. (1964): ‘Notes on the effect of the 1962/63 severe winter on the birds of Herefordshire and Radnorshire’. Herefordshire Orn. Club, Ann. Rep. 196): 98-100. mith, F. R. 11964): Devon Bird-Watching and Preservation Soc., 96th Rep. pencer, R. (1963): ‘Report on bird-ringing for 1962’. Brit. Birds, 56: 477-524. pencer, K. G. (1964): ‘Lancashire Bird Report, 1963’. Lancs, and Cheshire Fauna Committee, 94th Rep. tf.vens, C. J. (1964): ‘Song Thrushes feeding on periwinkles’. Brit. Birds, 57: 254. ummers-Smith, J. D. (1963): The House Sparrow. London. 'ebbutt, C. F. (1964): Huntingdonshire Fauna and Flora Society, 16/h Ann. Rep. 196 y. 14-16. icEHURST, N. F., and Witherby, H. F. (1940): ‘Report on the effect of the severe winter of 1939-40 on bird-life in the British Isles’. Brit. Birds, 34: 118-132 and 142_I55- 'icehurst, N. F., and Hartley, P. H. T. (1948): ‘Report on the effect of the severe winter of 1946-47 on bird-life’. Brit. Birds, 41: 322-334. 'ubbs, C. R. (1963) : ‘The significance of the New Forest to the status of the Dartford Warbler in England’. Brit. Birds, 56: 41-48. UNNEIX, G. A. (1964): ‘The winter of 1962-63 and its effect upon British coastal waters’. Marine Observer, 34: 21-32. pton, R. (1962): Great Spotted Woodpecker Inquiry 1949/60. Chelmsford. ' oois, K. H. (i960): Atlas of European Birds. London. Uii.i.iAMSON, k. (1963a): ‘Aspects of autumn movements at the bird observatories 1962’. Bird Migration, 2: 224-251. (1963b): ‘The summer and autumn Crossbill irruptions of 1962’. Bird Migration, 2: 252-260 and 329-340. K itherby, H. F., and Jocrdain, F. C. R. (1929): ‘Report on the effect of severe weather in 1929 on bird-life’. Brit. Birds, 23: 154-158. 435 BRITISH BIRDS Appendix i. Scientific names of species mentioned in the text and not included in the systematic list (section 15) Black-throated Diver Gavia arctica Great Northern Diver Gavia immer Red-throated Diver Gavia slellata Red-necked Grebe Podiceps griseigena Slavonian Grebe Podiceps auritus Black-necked Grebe Podiceps nigricollis Great Shearwater Procellaria gravis Fulmar Fulmarus glacialis Gannet Sttla bassana Cormorant Pbalacrocorax carbo Shag Pbalacrocorax aristote/is Gadwall Anas s/repera Pintail Anas acuta Shoveler Spatula clypeata Scaup Aythya rnarila Velvet Scoter Melanitta fusca Common Scoter Melanitta nigra Eider Soma/eria mollissima Red-breasted Merganser Mergtts serra/or Grey Lag Goose Anser anser Bean Goose Anser fabalis Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus Black Grouse Lyrurus tetrix Red-legged Partridge Alec/oris rufa Corncrake Crex crex Grey Plover Charadrius squatarola Turnstone Arcnaria interpres Jack Snipe Lymnocryptes minimus Black-tailed Godwit Limosa limosa Bar-tailed Godwit Limosa lapponica Green Sandpiper Tringa ochropus Greenshank Tringa nebular ia Knot Calidris canutus Purple Sandpiper Calidris maritima Sanderling Croce/hia alba Great Skua Catbaracta skua Great Black-backed Gull Larus marinus Lesser Black-backed Gull Larus fuscus Herring Gull Larus argentatus Common Gull Larus canus Glaucous Gull Larus hyperboreus Kittiwake Rissa tridactyla Rock Dove Columba livia Collared Dove Streptopelia decaocto Grey-headed Woodpecker Picas canus Woodlark Lullula arborea Dipper Cinclus cinclus Blackcap Sylvia atricapilla Rock Pipit Anthus spinoletta Siskin Carduelis spinus Twite Carduelis fiavirostris Corn Bunting Emberiqa calandra Cirl Bunting Emberha cirlus Notes Feeding methods of Long-tailed Skuas. — R. J. Sandison’s note on a Long-tailed Skua Stercorarius longicaudus surface-skimming like a Black Tern Cblidonias niger (Brit. Birds, 57: 250) prompts me to record that in August 1962 1 several times watched these attractive birds feeding in this way in the Varanger Fjiord, north Norway. For example, mv note-book states that on 4th August, in the company of A. Archer, K. Baldridge and P. H. G. Wolstenholme, I watched a partv of 15 adults in Vadso harbour ‘feeding rather like marsh terns over the water’, hawking to and fro on a regular ‘beat’, frequently swooping to the surface to snatch some floating particle or momentarilv alighting with wings and long tail-streamers held aloft. This behaviour was observed on several days for prolonged periods and I certainly gained the impression that it was a regular feeding method. It is also interesting to note that the Long-tailed Skuas at Vadso regularly accepted scraps of fish offal thrown to them from the quay- side, swimming about in the harbour to pick up any floating tit-bits 434 NOTES nd even ‘up-ending’ in the manner of surface-feeding ducks to retrieve ay that sank below the surface; I was able to film this behaviour at ose range. They were never seen to molest any of the numerous ■urns and gulls sharing the same feeding-area. D. G. Bell reat Spotted Woodpecker obtaining marble galls. — A recent .aper by D. Blume (1964, Vogel-Kosmos, x: 87-91) has described the lethods used by Great Spotted Woodpeckers Dendrocopos major to rccure pine cones. These are pulled from the branches on which they r e growing and carried to holes in tree-trunks or rock-clefts where icey can be wedged for seed extraction. If a cone cannot be pulled : om a branch, the bird hacks at the base to remove it. If the cone is tached by a very short stem, it may hack at the stem where it joins ,e branch. On 18th February 1949, on Tooting Common, London, I saw a reat Spotted Woodpecker dealing with marble galls on oak trees in 1 is way. The galls were about an inch in diameter and on short twTigs iae to four inches long. The bird would seize a gall and tug at it. If ccame away, it would carry it to another tree-trunk where there was a esft which it used for wedging and opening. If the gall did not come 1 /ay when pulled, the bird would hack at the base of the twig where it ined the branch ; when the twig weakened it would seize it and fly 1 f to the wedging hole, carrying the gall by the twig. It was observed deal with eight galls in this fashion in fifteen minutes. 'While this behaviour was obviously related to that used by Great ' 'Otted Woodpeckers feeding on pine cones, it had the interesting ssult that the bird, unable to obtain a source of food directly, did so by ctusing its attention on a point up to several inches away. Opened 11s with attached twigs two to three inches long were picked up der the tree. C. J. O. Harrison Dtes on the food of the Black-bellied Dipper. — A Black-bellied pper Cinclus c. cinclus was present on the River Rib near Bengeo, zrtfordsbire, from early December 1962 until at least 5th January S3, during which period it was trapped and ringed. On 5th xuary 1963, when the whole area was snow-covered, I noticed that it r riodically brought up small pellets. Because of the snow, a number these were visible on a shingle islet in the river and were duly I lected. They were more or less cylindrical in shape, rather soft, m a quarter to a half of an inch in length, and varied from dark nvn to light ginger in colour when fresh. ' T P. Castell, of the British Museum (Natural History), kindly anged the analvsis of some of the pellets. They consisted mainly abdoniinal segments of a freshwater shrimp, possibly Kirulogam- rus sp. (Crustacea); some remains of a polydesmid millipede (Diplo- 435 BRITISH BIRDS poda); a fragment of an insect, possibly a cricket or grasshopper (Orthoptera) ; and an indeterminate fragment of a seed. So far as I have been able to ascertain, neither Diplopoda nor Orthoptera have previously been recorded in the food of any race of the Dipper. Bryan L. Sage Blackbird eating own eggs. — A pair of Blackbirds Turdus merula nesting on a ledge in my garage at Dursley, Gloucestershire, success- fully reared a brood of four by 21st April 1964. Three days later the female started sitting again on the same nest and by the 28th had completed a second clutch of four eggs. On 12th May there were onlv three eggs and these had still not hatched by the 17th, though the hen was sitting continuously. On the 18th she was seen to fly in, stand on the edge of the nest and peck repeatedly into it. Her beak could be heard striking against an egg or eggs and each time she raised her head she swallowed; once a string of albumen was seen to be hanging from her mandibles. She eventually lifted an egg shell in her beak and flew off with it. A moment later she returned and again pecked into the nest once or twice, but then settled on it. She con- tinued to sit spasmodically that day, but on the 19th appeared to have deserted the remaining two eggs. The nest was not examined again until the 25 th, when it was found to contain one egg only. This female Blackbird thus certainly ate one of her eggs and possibly two more (the ledge is at a height of seven feet behind a door and so fairly secure from any other possible egg-predators). The only reference I can find to comparable behaviour in this species is an observation by Ian Woodward of a female Blackbird eating a Black- bird’s egg on the ground (Brit. Birds, 55: 591). T. P. Walsh Letters New names for auks Sirs, — In his latest revival of the desultory correspondence on ver- nacular names (Brit. Birds, 54: 255-256; 56: 383-384; 57: 36-37; and 57:134), R. W. Storer goes beyond previous proposals that we should add qualifying adjectives to any names which may be ambiguous by suggesting that we change entirely to ‘Murre’ and ‘Tystie’ for our two distantly related guillemots. At this point it may be instructive to refer to Professor Alfred Newton’s Dictionary of Birds (1893-96): ‘Guillemot (French, Guillemot): the name accepted by nearly all modem authors for a seabird, the Colymbus troile of Linnaeus, and the Uriel, or better, Alca troile of later writers, which nowadays it seldom, if ever, seems to bear among those who, from their vocation, are most conversant with it, though according to Willughby and Ray his translator, it was in their time so called “by those of Northumberland and Durham”. Around the coasts of Britain it is variously known as the Frowl, Kiddaw or Skiddaw, Lagy (cf Icelandic 436 LETTERS Langvia), Lary, Marrock, Murre, Scout (cf Coot and Scoter), Scuttock, Strany, Tinker or Tinkershire, and Willock (some of these names are the common property of this species and the Razor-bill) . . i ewton then went on to give Doveky, Greenland Dove and Tystv as cal names for the Black Guillemot and, in a footnote, commented on vie French associations of Guillemot: ‘The word, however, seems cognate or derived from the Welsh and Manx Guillem, or Gwilym as Pennant spells it. The association may have no real meaning, but one cannot help comparing the resemblance between the French (.Guillemot . . . and Guillaume with that between the English Willock, another name for the same species, and William.’ In his Provincial Names and Folklore of British Birds (1885) C. Swainson noted an even wider variety of local names, also starting with the I nervation that Guillemot is derived from the French Guillemot (in i cardy Guillaume), from which derive the names Guillem in Wales, Filly or Willock in Norfolk, and Willock in Shetland, with local •ternatives applied to this and sometimes also allied species including oratten, Elignv, Auet, Auk, Scout, Skuttock or Skiddaw, Kiddaw, I aggie, Tarrock, Lungie, Muireun, Murre or Murse, Marrot, Ticker- lire, Lany or Lamy, Sea Flen and Strany. For the Black Guillemot he ive Greenland Dove, Sea or Greenland Turtle, Sea Pigeon or Dovie, 1 iving Pigeon, Rock Dove, Doveky, Puffixet, Parrot, Scraber, Tystie id Spotted Guillemot. For the Little Auk both he and Newton noted Rotchie, Rotch, Rotche and Ratch, but neither mentioned ovekie, now the normal name in America. Thus ‘Guillemot’ mav or mav not be a word taken by early British • -nithologists from the French in preference to native alternatives, seems at least equally possible that it is not purely French in origin, it is one form of the name originally applied to the larger auks in the aelic languages in Britain and north France, and as such has at least as -stinguished a history in this region as ‘Tystie’ in Scandinavia and :otland to the north. ‘Murre’ also appears to be an old-established ' ritish name, but it seems to have had a much more limited distribution Devon, Cornwall and Cork, and it does not appear in other languages, other things being equal it hardly seems a preferable alternative to Guillemot’. However, other things are not equal. Although our leading orni- ologists must have once made a deliberate choice in favour of ‘Guille- ot’ because it was used widely in at least two major European nguages, there may be a case for reversing this decision as Dr. Storer ggests, if only because there are now some 200 million people who e ‘Murre’ for our Common Guillemot in North America as opposed only half that number who prefer ‘Guillemot’ in Europe, and ‘Murre’ 437 BRITISH BIRDS is also an English name in any case. On the other hand, it is also arguable that there may be more people closely familiar with Guillemots over here, and that we have a larger literature referring to them. In such circumstances, where the universal adoption of an alternative is likely to cause inconvenience to many people, it seems unreasonable to reach a conclusion before the public at large has had time to show a preference. Surely, therefore, the best procedure is to start by circulating the idea that there are variations in usage, and alternative names avail- able, before any arbitrary decisions are taken. Meanwhile, as with the petrels which I discussed in a previous letter (Brit. Birds, 54: 405-408), it may be wisest to follow as closely as possible the only international standard for seabird nomenclature yet available, the second edition of W. B. Alexander’s Birds of the Ocean (1955), where, as it happens, both names are given, ‘Murre’ first. There seems to be no similar precedent for the general application of ‘Tystie’ to the pigeon guillemots of the genus Cepphus , and one would have thought that this decision in particular was likely to cause at least as much disturbance in North America as the adoption of ‘Murre’ would in Europe. For one thing, it appears that until quite recently this name had just as limited a distribution as ‘Murre’ in the British Isles and it comes equally low in old lists of alternatives. It seems un- realistic to expect the present generation of ornithologists to start using it immediately in a wider context, and it would have to be introduced gradually here (the authors of popular textbooks could play an important part in educating a future generation in the discriminating use of this and similar rational alternative names if they were to explain the reasons for adopting them). One of the first consequences of the introduction of ‘Tystie’ for Cepphus would be a need for further rearrangements of vernacular nomenclature, since it would then become necessary to distinguish our Black Guillemot or Tystie from other members of the genus. Some of your correspondents do not appear to appreciate the point that at one stage it was considered that the original owner of a name held a prescriptive right to it, and other species were subsequently named in relation to the original one. When this led to confusion where the name was applied unmodified to similar species elsewhere, or used collectively, the next stage was to apply the adjective ‘Common’ to it, not in the sense that it was abundant, but that it was the ordinary owner of the name. While ‘Common’ does not always seem a helpful way of describing birds which may be local and far from common where they do occur, and while it might be better to try to use some clear descrip- tive word instead, the adjective traditionally used to describe our Tystie, ‘Black’, does not seem very helpful either. Since the other pigeon guillemots are equally black in summer, and all of them become largely white in winter, should we continue to call our bird the ‘Black 8 NEWS AND COMMENT ystie' now it is no longer necessary to distinguish it from the white- feasted Common Guillemot, or perhaps the ‘Common Tystie’ to parate it from other equally black tysties instead ? W. R. P. Bourne Requests for information itus of Bewick’s Swans in Great Britain and Ireland. — M. A. Ogilvie is dying the distribution and status of Bewick’s Swans Cygjius columbianus barickii i Great Britain and Ireland and would be glad to receive all reports of flocks or li.ie individuals in the coming winter (1964/65). Details required in each case lude the number of birds, the date and locality and, if possible, a brief description the site (e.g. flood-water, reservoir, lake); counts of the proportions of immatures uld also be very welcome. Records of migrants should include their direction, time of day and an indication of the weather conditions. To ensure as full a v/erage as possible, we hope that everyone will send their observations at the time MM. A. Ogilvie, The Wildfowl Trust, Slimbridge, Gloucestershire. SMr. Ogilvie will also be investigating any changes which may have occurred since . I. C. T. Nisbet’s survey in 1954/55 and 1955/56 ( Brit . Birds, 52: 395-416) and he h uld therefore be equally grateful for any unpublished records from the inter- ring period (i.e. those which have not appeared in the Irish Bird Report , Scottish ids or county reports). lour-marked Ringed Plovers from Sweden. — About a hundred Ringed Plovers 1 xradrius biaticula were colour-marked in the province of Halland, south Sweden, 1 964 and it is intended to continue this work in future summers. Adults are rg given three plastic rings (as well as a metal ring of the Riksmuseum, Stock- m) and the young birds one. A female Ringed Plover nesting in Halland in .4 had previously been ringed in Northumberland in the winter of 1961/62 and tthcre is a likelihood that more of these Swedish birds may occur in the British :ss. Anybody who sees one is asked to note whether the rings are on the left, t it or both legs and the positions of the different colours (green, black, blue, red, te) and to send these details, together with the date and locality7 (and, if possible, number of other Ringed Plovers in the flock), to Goran Roos, Lj ungbergsgatan Halmstad, Sweden. News and comment Edited by Raymond Cordero ticide residues in Osprey’s egg. — The Osprey egg which failed to hatch in the md nest in Scotland this year (see ‘News and comment’, August 1964) was found ontain four parts per million of DDE and less than 0.05 p.p.m. of dieldrin and T. It is possible that these small quantities had no direct effect on the egg, but Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is worried that the female Osprey might ■ elf be so contaminated as to affect her nesting behaviour. An Osprey pellet id underneath one of the feeding trees contained fragments of Osprey egg shell, jesting that the female had eaten at least one of her own eggs. This discovery7 11s the egg-breaking behaviour of Peregrines and Golden Eagles which have ived sub-lethal doses of poison. 439 BRITISH BIRDS Bernard Tucker Medallist. — The Bernard Tucker Medal for 1964, presented at the British Trust for Ornithology’s annual meeting on 14th October, has been awarded to Dr. D. A. Ratcliffe of the Nature Conservancy for his outstanding work both in the field and in organising the Peregrine Enquiry in 1962 and 1963. Birds and foot-and-mouth, and Red Grouse and predators. — Scientific orni- thology often comes in for criticism from bird-watchers, occasionally justifiably, yet the scientific approach is essential if the ignorance of the layman is to be effectively dispelled and avian scapegoats for various puzzling phenomena exonerated. In this connection, two recent examples of the results of scientific work, both readably presented, merit the widest attention. One is R. K. Murton’s paper entitled ‘Do birds transmit foot and mouth disease?’ in the July 1964 issue of The Ibis. In this he concludes that ‘it is a rare event for birds to become successful vectors of foot and mouth disease and that the bird transmission theory does not explain the bulk of the “obscure” outbreaks in the English coastal counties.’ The second is the tenth progress report of the Nature Conservancy Unit of Grouse and Moorland Ecology. This shows that prolonged declines in Red Grouse numbers in Scotland are very probably due to deficiencies in moor management or to changes resulting from burning. Fire is the traditional way to maintain young and nutritious heather for Red Grouse and sheep, but carefully controlled burning on a ten-to-twelve-year rotation is necessary to minimise bad effects on soil and vegetation and to ensure a high feeding value of the heather. For the particular needs of Red Grouse, in fact, many small fires are better than a few large ones. On the con- troversial subject of predation, the report reaffirms an aspect brought out at the Caen Conference on Birds of Prey and Owls (see ‘News and comment’, June 1964). While predators may kill a great many individuals of a species, it does not necessarily follow that they are diminishing the numbers of this prey; instead, they are often removing a surplus which is doomed to die anyway. When there is no surplus and the predator finds it harder to kill, it will turn to other prey, often in other habitats. Summing up, the report says: ‘Predation may sometimes be important; burning is always important. If ever there is a choice between spending time killing predators or burning small fires, there should be no doubt. Burning small fires leads to good grouse numbers.’ Honour for Dr. David A. Bannerman. — At the Glasgow University Commemora- tion Day ceremony in June Dr. David A. Bannerman was accorded an honorary Doctorate of Laws, a well-deserved tribute to one of Britain’s most knowledgeable and widely travelled ornithologists and the author of the twelve monumental volumes on The Birds of the British Isles (1953-63). Civic Trust proposals for Lea Valley. — The Civic Trust has published a scheme tor 6,000 acres of uncommitted land in the Lea Valley from Ware to Poplar, an area of considerable ornithological interest which it is proposed should be considered as a whole and turned into a Regional Park with facilities ranging from a ‘fun palace’ and water skiing to angling and bird-watching. According to the proposals, the Copper Mills reservoirs would become a bird sanctuary, but the other large Walthamstow reservoirs would be opened up to limited public access. Scwardstone gravel-pits would become ‘another Kew Gardens or Wislcy’ and Rammey Marsh a motor sports centre; Fishers Green gravel-pits would form an area ‘as beautiful as Rich- mond Park’, while Nazeing Marsh and Nazcing Meads would contain a goli course, playing fields, a sailing lake and parkland. Access to Rye Meads Sewage Purifica- tion Works would remain limited to those working at the bird-ringing station, but a small gravel-pit to the north, at present of importance as a feeding area for migrants, 440 RECENT REPORTS ould be used for dinghy sailing, while the water meadows, now thought to be the lly permanently wet water meadows in the valley south of Ware, would be used playing fields. Gravel-pits between Great Amwell and Ware would be flooded .d developed into ‘quiet lakes’ with wooded surroundings, for bird-watching, hing and walking. A preliminary assessment by the Council for Nature puts a brave face on it and eggests that naturalists would stand to gain as well as lose if the plan were im- emented, adding that it might be preferable to the probable alternative of gradual :velopment. Nevertheless, one gets the impression that the losses would out- i eigh the gains and the inevitable increase in disturbance would surely be a serious oblem. Should the scheme go through, on the other hand, there would be scope r studying population and status changes: certainly the avifauna would be dif- rent, as the area would ultimately be much more thickly wooded than at present, must be added in conclusion, however, that the Civic Trust report has no statutory ; lidity and that its implementation would devolve on a future Regional Park •mmittee and the 29 local authorities involved. threat to Nottinghamshire gravel-pits. — The Central Electricity Generating i >ard, which is to build a power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, is now seeking planning irnsent to deposit pulverised ash from it in Attenborough gravel-pits. The Not- lghamshirc Trust for Nature Conservation has protested that Attenborough is an tea of scientific, educational and amenity interest. There are 500 acres of open iter set with small islands and surrounded by marsh and scrubland; breeding birds cclude Common Terns, Little Ringed Plovers and Reed Warblers. .iT.O.’s Director of Research. — Dr. D. W. Snow became Director of Research of tc British Trust for Ornithology on 1st September. Dr. Snow, a former member the staff' of the Edward Grey Institute at Oxford and well known for his mono- aph on A Study of Blackbirds (1958), has recently been engaged in UNESCO- > onsored work in the Galapagos Islands. ulpiece. — ‘In yesterday’s article on the “Glorious Twelfth” ’ wrote the Financial mes recently, ‘it was stated that British Aluminium owned 105,000 acres of grouse oor in Scotland. The company has asked us to point out that the land is used as a rtchment area for the nearby smelters; any grouse are there purely by accident.’ Recent reports By I. J. Ferguson-Lees (These are largely unchecked reports, not authenticated records) . lis summary is mainly concerned with the rarer species in August and the first ree weeks of September, but also includes a few July reports received too late for 1 2 August issue {Bril. Birds, 57: 337-340). THE GENERAL PICTURE t impared with the same period in 1963 (56: 386-391), this first half of the autumn gration period was somewhat uneventful. A major factor was presumably the nerally fine weather which must have provided ideal conditions for straightfor- : ird migration, there being few early mornings with mist or drizzle to force down ■ >ht migrants and few periods of strong winds to blow vagrants off course. Diur- 1 1 passage of passerines and sea-birds was generally ‘fair’ to ‘normal’, but otherwise c 2 only feature at all similar to the previous year’s pattern was the considerable 441 BRITISH BIRDS numbers of northern waders. Even so, Wood Sandpipers Tringa glareola and Green Sandpipers T. ocbropus were much scarcer than in 1963 and Spotted Red- shanks T. erythropus more numerous. Concentrations of up to 50 and 70 Spotted Redshanks were recorded at Barksore (Kent) and Minsmere (Suffolk) respectively, while several inland counties such as Leicester and Nottingham had parties of around a dozen. There was also an influx of Little Stints Calidris minuta and Curlew Sandpipers C. testacea in mid-September. The very end of August and the beginning of September, particularly the 2nd, 3rd and 4th when there was some early morning mist, did produce a fall of warblers and other night migrants on the east coast and in the Irish Sea area, but for most species the numbers were nothing like those of the previous year (56: 389-390). In particular. Redstarts Phoenicurus pboenicurus , Garden Warblers Sylvia borin , Whin- chats Saxicola rubetra and Wheatears Oenantbe oenantbe were nearly everywhere much less numerous than is normal in this type of movement. However, Sedge Warblers Acrocepbalus scboenobaenus increased spectacularly in the west and south (for example, in Lancashire and Co. Cork), as did Willow Warblers Pbylloscopus trochilus and Whitethroats Sylvia communis in some places, while Pied Flycatchers Sluscicapa bypoleuca were widely commented on all down the east coast (for instance, the peak at Spurn, Yorkshire, was 70 on the 2nd) and even in such inland areas as London and as far west as Lancashire. There were also more Wrynecks Jynx torquilla than might have been expected (one to four in many coastal counties from Shetland down to Dorset and in the Isles of Scilly and Co. Cork). AMERICAN VAGRANTS Rarer waders were few in number and included only a handful of Americans. The total of Pectoral Sandpipers Calidris melanotos was seven in Co. Kerry, Flintshire, Cheshire, Somerset, Cornwall, Dorset and Kent, mostly in late July and the first half of August. The Long-billed Dowitcher Limnodromus scolopaceus at Shotton Pools (Flintshire) (57: 340), which we now learn was first seen on 21st June, was still present on at least 25th August, but this hardly ranks as an autumn migrant. Another dowitcher, species uncertain, was seen in flight over the Gower Peninsula (Glamorgan) on 27th August, but in the circumstances perhaps cannot be considered as more than a ‘probable’. Otherwise, the only American waders reported up to 2 1 st September were two Buff-breasted Sandpipers Tryngites subruficollis following a plough near Grantham (Lincolnshire) on 7th and 8th September (it should be remembered that this is a grassland species which winters in the South American pampas), another on St. Mary’s (Isles of Scilly) on 18th September and a Wilson’s Phalarope Phalaropus tricolor on Holy Island (Northumberland) from 1 2th to about 1 8th September. On the other hand, two American passerines were recorded: these were a male Indigo Bunting Passerina cyanea on Fair Isle (Shetland) from 3rd to 7th August and a Yellow Warbler Dendroica petechia which appeared on Bardsey Island (Caernarvon- shire) on 29th August and died the next day. Neither of these species has as yet an accepted place on the British and Irish list, although several previous Indigo Buntings have been regarded as escapes and there is an old record of a Yellow Warbler in Co. Durham in 1904. OTHER RARER WADERS Reverting to the subject of waders, perhaps the most unexpected occurrence was that of a Black-winged Pratincole Glareola nordmanni at Chew Valley reservoir (Somerset) for several days from about 5th September onwards. Excluding the seven among the Hastings Rarities, there are only half a dozen previous British and Irish records of this species which is sometimes regarded as a race or just a colour phase of G. pratincola. Another eastern rarity was a Marsh Sandpiper Tringa stagnatilis at Blakcney (Norfolk) on 19th September. A scattering of Red- 442 RECENT REPORTS eked Phalaropes Pha/aropus lobatus included single ones in Cornwall, Kent, ffolk, Norfolk, Cumberland and Inverness between nth August and 19th . ptember. Among other less common waders were Kentish Plovers Charadrius xandrinus in Kent, Norfolk and Hertfordshire between 19th July and 16th August i half a dozen or more Temminck’s Stints Calidris temminckii in Co. Kerry, ; .eshire, Somerset, Kent, Suffolk and the Norfolk/Lincoln border between 4th igust and 13th September (four of them between 13th and 16th August). This lows a total of eight Temminck’s Stints in spring (57: 339) and is rather more . in in other recent years. SHEARWATERS, SKUAS, GULLS AND TERNS : ) spectacular movement of Cory’s Shearwaters Procellaria diomedea was noted at 1 pe Clear (Co. Cork) (cf. 56: 189-190 and 57: 200-202), though two were identified i :re on 31st August, but Sooty Shearwaters P. grisea were recorded up the .glish Channel as far as Selsey Bill (Sussex). An albatross Diomedea sp. was t ntihed between Penzance and Marazion (Cornwall) on 23 rd August. \ heavy skua passage included Long-tailed Skuas Stercorarius longicaudus at ) wpen (Co. Durham) and Spurn (Yorkshire) on 7th August and 2nd September, as ; 11 as quite a number of Pomarine Skuas S. pomarmus at various places on the cast di south-east coasts between Northumberland and Sussex and at two localities in 1 . Cork. The only Sabine’s Gull Xema sabini reported was one off the Isles of lly on 1 8th August, but several Mediterranean Gulls Larus melanocephalus i;urred in Sussex, Kent and Suffolk and two as far north as Teesmouth (Co. larham) where one has frequently been seen in the past (54: 186-187 and 55 : 574). dttle Gulls L. minutus continued to spread and increased spectacularly in some areas, ere were ‘exceptionally good numbers’ in the localities in Fife and Kinross where zens and sometimes even hundreds are regularly recorded (e.g. 56: 388); while at mrworth Burn reservoir (Co. Durham), where small concentrations have built up h autumn since 1961, the unprecedented total of at least 200 arrived on 24th potember. Up to six Little Gulls at a time were recorded further down the east HSt at Spurn and the species was ‘in good supply’ in Lancashire; ones and twos -re seen in most other east and south coast counties round to Dorset and also l iar west as Glamorgan and as far inland as Middlesex (up to four) and Derbyshire. The passage of Black Terns Chlidonias niger was very small compared with 1963 1 some other recent autumns, consisting mainly of twos and threes with occasional 1 iks of twenty and thirty. This was perhaps not surprising in view of the weather, - : it made the unexpected total of twelve or thirteen White-winged Black Terns leucopterus all the more remarkable (one to five is the normal autumn quota, to i. ge from the previous six years). The first were an adult in Ireland, in Donegal ’ /, on 15 th July and another at Spurn on the 24th (57 1340), after which single ones re identified at Huttoft (Lincolnshire) on 1st and 5 th August and at Tetney ncolnshire) on the 7th; in mid- August there was something of an influx and no - ; than six were recorded between the 1 2th and 1 8th at Langney Point (Sussex) adult and a juvenile), Cley (Norfolk), Staines reservoir (Middlesex), Abberton ervoir (Essex) and near Margam (Glamorgan); finally, a month later there was >ther (possibly two) at Staines. A Whiskered Tern C. hybrida was identified at itham Sands (Yorkshire) on 30th August. There were also Gull-billed Terns ochelidon nilotica at Hauxley (Northumberland) on 15 th and 26th July and two at ngencss (Kent) on 22nd August, and a Caspian Tern Hvdroprogne caspia at igney Point (Sussex) on 13th September. MISCELLANEA long other non-passerine species we might perhaps mention Spoonbills Platalea orodia in various places from Norfolk to Cornwall (and two at Leighton Moss, icashire, in the second half of June); a Red Kite Alilvus milvus at Frodsham eshire) on 7th August; a Goshawk Accipi/er gen/ilis at Spurn on 3rd September; 443 BRITISH BIRDS Spotted Crakes P organa por^ana in Suffolk, Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Lanca- shire; and an Alpine Swift Apus melba over Church Bay (Anglesey) on 2nd August. Hoopoes Upupa epops were generally much scarcer than in the spring (cj. 57: 338), but single ones were reported as far north as Edinburgh on 22nd August and the Black Isle (Ross and Cromarty) from late August to 5 th September. There were also two Ruddy Shelducks Casarca ferruginea , a female and an im- mature, on the Ribble estuary (Lancashire) from about 22nd August to 3rd Septem- ber, after which one remained to the 9th, but this species is not uncommonly kept in captivity and has decreased to such an extent as a breeding bird in Europe and North Africa that occurrences in the British Isles nowadays are more likely to involve escapes. The same applies even more strongly to a White Pelican Pe/ecamu onocrotalus seen in Norfolk during the period and to the three or four Flamingoes Pboenicopterus ruber at various places on the east and south coasts in recent weeks (several of which were, in any case, identified as the South American P. r. cbilensis). RARER WARBLERS AND OTHER PASSERINES Several rarer passerines occurred with the fall of night migrants in early September, but many fewer than are usually associated with such a movement and hardly more than in the rest of the period. For example, though eight Barred Warblers Sylvia nisoria were noted during ist-7th September on Unst (Shetland), Fair Isle, Spurn, Gibraltar Point (Lincolnshire), Sandwich Bay (Kent) and the Calf of Man, there were nearly as many between 10th and 29th August at Fair Isle, Gibraltar Point and Sandwich Bay. Similarly, eight Icterine Warblers Hippolais icierina were seen during ist-5th September at St. Agnes (Isles of Scilly), Cape Clear, Dungeness, Sandwich Bay and Spurn, but there were others in mid-August at Blyth (Northumberland) and Sandwich Bay and in mid-September at Dungeness and Cape Clear. A Scarlet Grosbeak Carpodacus erylhrinus on Fair Isle on 1st September was matched by another on the 18th and at least three on the 19th; likewise, a Richard’s Pipit Ant bus novaeseetandiae at Cley on the 5 th was outdone by a series of observations of single birds on Fair Isle from the 10th onwards. Nevertheless, early September did produce quite a number of Ortolans Emberi^a bortulana at Fair Isle, Spurn, Dungeness, Portland (Dorset), St. Agnes and Skok- holm (Pembrokeshire); about four Tawny Pipits A. campestris at three places in Sussex during the 2nd-7th; an early Red-breasted Flycatcher Muscicapa parra at Spurn on the 2nd; and one or two early Redwings Turdus iliacus and Fieldfares T. pilaris on the cast coast, as well as two Redwings as far inland as Bedford on the 3rd. Melodious Warblers H. polyglotta followed the normal pattern in the Irish Sea area and along the south coast as far as Sussex, and the total between 10th August and 20th September was at least twelve — four or more on St. Agnes, three on Bardsey, two on Skokholm and one each at the Calf of Man, Slapton Ley (Devon) and Selsey Bill. Nine Bluethroats Cyanosylvia svecica between 23rd August and 15th September included four at Slapton, two at Portland and one each at Radi- pole Lake (Dorset), Sandwich Bay and Skokholm. The now annual autumn influx of Aquatic Warblers Acrocephalus paludicola produced a total of eight — four at Slapton, two at Sandwich Bay and one each at Sevenoaks (Kent) and Paghani (Sussex) between 12th August and 23rd September (all but two during i9th-23i'd August). Four Arctic Warblers Pbylloscopus borealis on Fair Isle between 14th August and 12th September and one at Spurn on 5 th September were more than is normal; a Greenish Warbler P. irochiloides was also identified at the Naze (Essex) on 9th-ioth September and a Bonelli’s Warbler P. boncl/i in Epping Forest (Essex) on the 1 ith. The only Woodchat Shrikes Lanins senator (cf. 57: 338) were on St. Agnes on 27th August and at Portland on 5th-6th September. Finally, Fair Isle had its sixth Citrine (Yellow-headed) Wagtail Motacil/a citreo/a in eleven years on 19th September. 444 Ilew KOSS BINOCULARS X40 Ross Solaross. This is probably the >*st buy in the Ross Solaross range and we osuld be inclined to think that it repre- nts the best value obtainable today in a rritish glass of good quality. It is beauti- Uly balanced and streamlined, weighs only oz. and is fairly compact with a height 6£ in. We are supplying with this bino- . lar a first quality English-made hide case, cclusive cost £19 19s. Od. Where high «wer is required, we would suggest the ojss 16x60 at £32 8s. 8d. with hide case The pick of the world’s great instruments on 14 days’ free trial SEND FOR NEW ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE IHARLES FRANK LTD. ’-75 Saltmarket Glasgow C .1. Phone. BELL 2106/7 Est. 1907 tain’s greatest stocks of New, Used and Ex-Govt oculars. Telescopes and Navigational Equipment ccredited agents for ROSS, BARR & STROUD, j /RAY and ZEISS (both East and West Zones) | A new type of Zeiss binocular. The 8x30B DIALYT is revolutionary in design and performance, weather proof and suitable for spectacle wearers £49 15s. Od. JAPANESE BINOCULARS If they are good, they can be very, very good and we have selected certain models which we can recom- mend with the utmost confidence and which we market under our own name: 8 x 30 centre focus and coated £12 I Os. Od. 10 x 50 centre focus and coated £15 I Os. Od. 6x30 ARMY BINOCULARS An excellent general-purpose binocu- lar of good performance, which will stand up to a great deal of rough usage (cost approximately £20) Supplied with waterproof web case at £7 15s. Od. and £9 15s. Od. according to condition. For wildfowling or when extremely high light transmission is required, we would suggest the Canadian Naval 7x50 binocular at £24 or the new Russian 7x50 at £16 16s. Od. Both glasses are exceptionally good and it would be difficult to decide which is the better buy. The West Zone Zeiss 10x50 is possibly the ‘ideal’ wildfowling glass and is available at £109 Is. Od. TELESCOPES We have a host of models from which to choose and can recommend the following: Ex-Admiralty 16x40 single-draw, micrometer focusing £5 18s. 6d. Pocket 3-draw telescope, magnifica- tion 25 x : an excellent auxiliary to your binoculars: with care £2 4s. 6d. Nickel Supra 15 to 60 x : a tremen- dous advance in portab'e te'escope design £36 12s. Od. Three-draw ex-Army telescope 22 x 50 mm. £8 15s. Od. The Charles Frank 22 X OG 50 mm. PRISMATIC with tripod £22 10s Od. From Russia, we have a MAKSUTOV triple turret telescope of fantastic power and performance. Wt. 32 lb., price £250, details on request Recent publications available from WITHERBY’S BOOKSHOP Kiki the Mousebird by Lyn and Hubert Gutteridge. Illus- trated with 14 plates. 128 pages. 21s. The World of Birds by James Fisher and Roger Tory Peterson. A magnificent illustrated book on birds of the world. 668 species in colour, 200 detailed maps. 5 gns. The Wild Life of India by E. P. Gee. Illustrated with 76 plates, 12 in colour. 192 pages. 30s. Bent’s Life Histories of North American Wood Warblers, Parts 1 and 2. Paperback edition, illustrated, unabridged. 20s. each. Bent’s North American Flycatchers, Larks, Swallows and their Allies. Paperback edition, illustrated, unabridged. 22s. Varda — the Flight of a Falcon by Robert Murphy. Illustrated by Keith Shackleton. 21s. A Tapestry of British Bird Song recorded by V. C. Lewis. A 12-inch L.P. record with explanatory notes. 32s. Bird Life in the Royal Parks 1961-62. Report by the Committee on Bird Sanctuaries in the Royal Parks of Eng- land and Wales. Illustrated. H.M.S.O. 3s. 6d. The British Amphibians and Reptiles by Malcolm Smith. Third edition. 18 colour photographs, 33 black and white photographs. ‘New Naturalist’ series. 35s. The Life of Birds by Joel Carl Welty. 84s. The Waterfowl of the World, Vol. IV, by Jean Delacour. Illustrated by Peter Scott. 6 gns. Birds of the London Area by the London Natural History Society. A revised edition with a new set of excellent illus- trations. 42s. The Handbook of British Mammals edited by H. N. Southern. The first complete handbook of British mammals to be pub- lished in this country. Written by members of the Mammal Society of the British Isles, edited by H. N. Southern and illustrated mainly by Robert Gillmor. 512 pages, 55 text figures, 60 photographs. 37s. 6d. Please address all enquiries to The Manager, Witherby’s Bookshop 61/62 Watling Street, London, F..C.4 or telephone City 5405 ALL BOOKS SENT POST FREE The West Wales Naturalists' Trust Ltd (formerly the West Wales Field Society) Membership of the Trust is open to all who are interested in the study and conservation of wild life in Wales. The annual subscription of £1 Is. Od. (£1 by Bankers’ Order) entitles members to: (a) free issues of Nature in Wales, which appears half-yearly; (b) field excursions, lectures and meetings; (c) visits, without landing fees, to the island sanctuaries and nature reserves of Skomer, St. Margaret’s, Skokholm, Cardigan Island and Grassholm (owned by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and wardened by the Trust). The activities of the Trust include the co-operative study of animals, birds and t seals and the recording of their distribution and habits. (PUBLICATIONS (post free): The Birds of Carmarthenshire by G. C. S. I Ingram and H. Morrey Salmon, 5s.; A List of Pembrokeshire Plants by F L. Rees, 3s.; Skokholm Bird Observatory Reports for each year to 1963, 3s. each; Skomer Island, 3s. ; Nature in Wales, back numbers, 3s. up to vol. 6, no. 4, and 10s. 6d. thereafter. THE WEST WALES NATURALISTS’ TRUST LTD 4 Victoria Place, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire SMALL ADVERTISEMENTS ror 3 lines (minimum); 4/- for each extra or part thereof, tor the use of a Box rber there is an extra charge of lj-. den and Assistant Warden for Calf of Bird Observatory. — Applications are ed for these seasonal posts for the >d March to October 1965. The den should be a Class ‘A’ ringer qualified mist-netter; remuneration )s. Od. per week, plus quarters. For the stant Warden a ringing permit and t : experience of mist-netting are able; remuneration £4 Os. Od. per > ., plus quarters. Particulars from the x Museum & National Trust, Douglas, }f Man. ipshire Bird Report 1963. 6s. 6d. post from J. H. Taverner, 13 Stockers tue, Winchester. African bird-watching safari. Three weeks in Kenya, Uganda and Cameroon, experi- enced guides, 31st Jan. 1965. Approx. £250 from Copenhagen. Details from Dr. R. J. Raines, 7 Caulfield Drive, Greasby, Cheshire. For sale. Ross Stepsun binocular 12 X50, perfect condition, £30. Box OR2I9. Essex Bird Report 1963. 5s. 6d., including postage from J. Weston, 63 Woodberry Way, Walton-on-Naze, Essex. For sale. British Birds, bound and parts from vols. 1 to 48, some runs. State wants to 84 Old Farleigh Road, Selsdon, Surrey. British Birds AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY JOURNAL Editors Stanley Cramp, I. J. Ferguson-Lees, P. A. D. Hollom, E. M. Nicholson Photographic Editor Eric Hosking Editorial Address 30 St. Leonard’s Avenue, Bedford 'News and Comment’ Rarities Committee Raymond Cordero D. D. Harber Rohan Lodge, Wadhurst Park 59 Eridge Road Wadhurst, Sussex Eastbourne, Sussex Contents of Volume 57, Number 11, November 1964 Page The influence of radio waves upon birds. By Dr. E. Eastwood and G. C. Rider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445 Studies of less familiar birds: 130 — White-tailed Eagle. By George Waterston. Photos by Svante Lundgren, Christer Wastesson, Dr. J. F. Willgohs, Bjorn Bjornsson, Jomas Sigurdsson, Eric Hosking and Lea MacNally (plates 62-68) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 458 Notes : — Manx Shearwater as prey of Peregrine in central Scotland (A. J. Gaston) 466 Rotating of resting Curlew (M. J. Hudson) . . . . . . . . . . 467 Woodpigeon trapped by slice of bread (John Gooders) . . . . . . 467 Short-eared Owl breeding in Wiltshire (G. L. Webber) . . . . . . 468 Sand Martins roosting in nest holes in September (C. F. Tebbutt) . . 468 Pairing of Robins from same brood (Edwin Cohen) . . . . . . 469 Pairing of Red-backed Shrikes from same brood (L. J. Raynsford) . . 469 Starling imitating Willow Warbler (A. S. Cheke) . . . . . . . . 4^9 Dunnock nesting in unlined depression on ground (G. S. Elliott) . . 47° Grey Wagtail breeding in Dipper’s nest (John Anderson) . . . . 471 Male Chaffinch attacking the body of another (M. A. Wilkins) . . . . 47 1 Reviews : — The World of Birds, by James Fisher and Roger Tory Peterson. Reviewed by E. M. Nicholson . . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 471 The Oxford Book of Birds, by Bruce Campbell; illustrated by Donald Wat- son. Reviewed by R. K. Cornwallis . . . . . . . . . . 474 News and comment. Edited by Raymond Cordero . . . . . . . . 475 — Annual subscription £2 6s. (including postage and despatch) payable to H. F. & G. Witherbv Ltd., 61/62 Wading Street, London, E.C.4 THE WATERFOWL OF THE WORLD BY JEAN DELACOUR Illustrated with paintings by PETER SCOTT A summary of world-wide scientific study Volume 1 Volume III 10" x 7\". 300 pp. 16 colour 10" x 7\". 264 pp. 22 colour plates. £6 6s. plates. 46 maps. £6 6s. Volume II Volume IV 10" x 7\" . 236 pp. 24 colour 9f" x 7\". 388 pp. 6 full plates. £6 6s. colour plates and over 40 maps, diagrams and drawings. £6 6s. The set of 4 volumes supplied in an attractive box THE PHEASANTS OF THE WORLD Jean Delacour. I U" x 9". 272 pp. 32 plates in colour and monochrome. 21 maps and drawings. £7 7s. This volume has a two-fold purpose: to offer a summary of modern knowledge of the systematics, life-habits and geographical distribution of these magni- ficent birds, and to supply the ever-growing numbers of pheasant-lovers with the necessary data concerning the management of birds in confinement. DON'T FORGET— WATERFOWL IN COLOUR CALENDAR 1965 A selection of waterfowl, all photographed by Philippa Scott at the Wildfowl Trust, Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, and provided with captions by Peter Scott. Some of the birds shown are natives of the British Isles; others are rare species from abroad. 10" X 9". 9s 6d. Published by COUNTRY LIFE LTD., 2-10 TAVISTOCK ST., LONDON, W.C.2 BRITISH BIRDS Special Supplement A discography of Palearctic bird sound recordings By JEFFERY BOSWALL 0 Covers all known recordings of European and Asiatic bird voices • Reviews separately every published disc or set of discs 0 Gives a cross-index of species show ing what recordings of each are available 0 Details unpublished recordings of birds not on commercial discs 0 Lists the European species whose voices have still to be recorded 64 pages 4 plates 6s. (plus 6d. postage) from H. F. & G. W1THERBY LTD 61/62 Watling Street, London, E.C.4 READ THE UNPUBLISHED DIARIES OF PETER SCOTT ONLY IN ANIMALS MAGAZINE Send today for FREE specimen copy to: Animals, 37 Hertford Street London W. I (Telephone GRO 7386) Novel but Useful BUILDER'S YARD Christmas Gifts for BIRD LOVERS Send 6d. for illustrated ‘BIRD SANCTUARY’ Catalogue of Bird Furniture, Peanuts, Mealworms, etc. Best Toilet Soap with bird pictures which do NOT wash off — box 3 tablets 5 /6. Notepaper with corner sketches by Roland Green 8/1 1; also Postcards in packets 3/6. B.T.O.-type Ncstboxes from 13/6. Window-bar Nut Feeder 13/9. Peanut Feeder as shown below 14/9, larger size 19/9. Bird ‘Builder’s Yard’ 18/6. Snack Bar Feeder 8/9 Dept. 11 Greenrigg Works Woodford Green Essex Assistant to Education Officer required by The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Duties include assisting the Educa- tion Officer in the Society’s educational activities, including the running of courses, the organisation of a national club for young people, the editing of the club’s magazine, and also handling the Society’s library of books and photographs. Qualifications required are a sound ornithological knowledge, a good command of the English language, and typing ability. Some previous experience of editing or library work would be an advantage; age 18-25; salary £450-650 according to age and experience. Application forms from The Director, R.S.P.B., The Lodge Sandy. Bedfordshire. Ilavornen (1963). This booklet by Dr. J. F- Willgohs on the White-tailed Eagle (48pp. in Nor- wegian, maps, photos), referred to in George Waterston's article in this issue, is obtainable for 7s. 6d. post free (cash with order) from the S.OX- Bird Bookshop, 21 Regent Terrace, Edinburgh7 Ask for autumn list. British Birds Vol. 57 No. 1 1 November 1964 The influence of radio waves upon birds By E. Eastwood and G. C. Rider INTRODUCTION rfhe seasonal migration of birds of many species is an established fact, out the means whereby they are able to navigate over the vast distances nvolved remains a largely unsolved problem which has been reviewed n detail by Matthews (1955) and Dorst (1962). In particular, the possibility that the earth’s magnetic field might provide one fixing o-ordinate by some interaction with a magnetically sensitive element v/ithin the bird has been considered, but the difficulties confronting uch a theory have been shown to be formidable. The horizontal and vertical components of the earth’s magnetic field are typically 0.18 nd 0.3 oersteds respectively; these field strengths are small as magnetic elds go, but it is pertinent to point out that a modern land-mine etector is capable of detecting a field gradient of only io~5 oersteds per i x>t, so perhaps the lack of a magnetic detector of the required sensiti- Lty in the bird must not be inferred too readily. This caution is ecessary when we remember that it has been shown that a magnetic eld can influence the form of growth of the roots of certain plants and, 'hat is more relevant, that the influence of the earth’s field upon the lovements of certain species of snails and flagellates is also well stablished (Brown 1963, Palmer 1963). Not the least serious of le objections to the theory that the earth’s magnetic field might pro- file one co-ordinate in the navigation process practised by birds is the cperimental fact that many homing flights have now been achieved y pigeons Columba sp. to whose wings have been attached small ermanent magnets; thus their homing performance does not appear ) have been affected bv an additional magnetic field which greatly tceeds the magnitude of the earth’s field itself (Matthews 1955). Closely related to this question of the sensitivity of a bird to the 445 BRITISH BIRDS earth’s magnetic field is the possible ability of its sensory mechanisms to detect and react to the presence of the electromagnetic field pro- duced by a radio transmitter. Dorst (1962) has briefly reviewed the rather sketchy evidence in connection with this subject and some of the reported observations will be examined critically later in this paper. There can be no dissent, however, from his conclusion that the possibility of such a radiation interaction is worthy of more detailed experimental study since the existence of perceptions of this type by birds could be significant to an appreciation of their sensory apparatus. It is important, therefore, that the effect should be established or refuted by carefully controlled observations. It is the purpose of this paper to provide a brief account of a series of observations which have been made with the aid of a group of radar equipments of much higher power than any that have been used hitherto. Detailed examination of photographed recordings taken from the radar display of the tracks of flying birds have failed to dis- close any effects due to the passage of the birds through these powerful radio beams. These experiments are examined critically and com- pared with other observations which have appeared in the literature. THE NATURE OF RADIO FIELDS In these days of radio broadcasting and television it is well known that if a high frequency alternating current is fed into a vertical wire or aerial then a succession of radio waves are produced which spread outwards like the ripples on a pond. Such an electrical disturbance is called an ‘electromagnetic wave’ and consists of travelling electric and magnetic fields which oscillate with the same frequency as the current in the aerial emitting the radiation. Ordinary light waves are them- selves electromagnetic waves of just this same type but possess a frequency of 5 x io14 cycles per second (red light), compared with the 9.1 xio5 cycles per second which is the frequency of the London Home Service Broadcasting Station or the 4.5 x io7 cycles per second (45 megacycles per second) which corresponds to the London Channel 1 Television Station at Crystal Palace. It was shown bv Clerk Maxwell that all electromagnetic waves travel with the velocity of light, i.e. 186,000 miles per second or 3 x 108 metres per second. Such waves are characterised individually by a frequency of *f’ (measured in cycles, kilocycles or megacycles per second) and a wavelength of ‘A’ (measured in centimetres or metres). These quantities are connected by the simple relation: c=fA, i.e. 3 x io8 (metres/second) - - f (cycles/second) x A (metres). Radio waves vary greatly in wavelength according to the opera- tional purpose which they serve; some examples are gathered together in table 1. 446 INFLUENCE OF RADIO WAVES UPON BIRDS Table i. Comparative frequencies, wavelengths and purposes of some radio stations in England 'Station Frequency Wavelength Purpose Rugby 16 kc/s. 18,700 m. Round-the-w'orld communica- tions London Region Air Traffic 908 kc/s. 330 m. Sound broadcasting Control (Birdlip) L Irystal Palace 4.5 mc/s. 67 m. Communications to aircraft over North Atlantic (BBC) Channel i Zroydon (ITA) 45 mc/s. 6.7 m. Television Channel 9 195 mc/s. 1.5 m. Television vir Traffic Control 150 mc/s. 2 m. Short range, very high frequency communications to aircraft -ondon Airport 600 mc/s. 50 cm. Air traffic control Aushy Hill 1,305 mc/s. 23 cm. Experimental radar for air traffic control and defence fire Control 10,000 mc/s. 3 cm. Anti-aircraft defence Fig. i shows that at a point remote from the transmitter there exists > in oscillating electric field with a magnetic field at right angles to it oscillating in sympathy. It is these fields which interact with the receiver aerial to produce a small alternating electric current which :an subsequently be amplified so as to yield the sound or vision signal required to operate the loud-speaker or television display tube res- 'oectively. It will be clear that, in order to operate the receiving equip- ment, energy must be collected by the aerial; this energy must have ic waxing and waning of electric and magnetic held vectors cither at different distances at an instant of time or at successive instants at one point 447 BRITISH BIRDS flowed from the transmitter, becoming weaker in intensity as the distance from the transmitter is increased since the same quantity of energy is then spread over greater and greater areas. We measure the strength of the received signal either by the electric field which produces it (E volts per metre) or in terms of the energy flow (J watts per square metre). Typical values of radiation flux and field strength may be given for certain well-known stations ; for example, at a distance of 20 miles from the Crystal Palace Television Transmitter the field strength available to operate a domestic television set is io-2 volts per metre, i.e. 0.265 x 10-6 watts per square metre more or less according to the location. Since all electromagnetic radiation ultimately degrades into heat energy we may simply regard this figure as defining the quantity of heat energy passing through 1 square metre at a distance 20 miles from the transmitter. It will probably help to fix orders of magnitude if we remember that the quantity of heat energy from an ordinary 100-watt electric light bulb passing through 1 square metre placed at a distance of 100 metres is 8 x ioo-4 watts per square metre, while the sun itself produces a radiation flux or energy flow at the earth’s surface of 1.7 kilowatts per square metre. In radio broadcasting the energy is generally radiated in all directions equally, but for many purposes it is desirable to concentrate all the energy into a narrow beam and so produce a greater intensity in one direction. This same principle of beaming is used in the optical lens system of a lighthouse or in the reflector of an automobile headlamp in order that the light shall be able to penetrate to greater distances. Thus at a distance of 100 metres from a 10-watt car headlamp the radiation flux at a point on the axis of the beam is in the order of 0.3 watts per square metre compared with 8 x io-5 watts per square metre in the unfocused case. An identical arrangement is used in radar where a reflector reminiscent of an electric fire but having an aperture many feet wide is used to concentrate the energy into a very narrow beam in order that aircraft at much greater ranges can be detected. RADAR BEAM CHARACTERISTICS The radars used in the present series of experiments employ this prin- ciple of beaming and, since the radio wavelengths involved are either 10 centimetres (3,000 megacycles per second) or 23 centimetres (1,305 megacycles per second), the large reflectors concerned produce very narrow beams with a corresponding concentration of the radio energy. The radar shown on the left of fig. 2 is a steerable tracker of 30 feet diameter. This aerial produces a powerful beam of radiation along the optic axis precisely as does the headlamp of a car. The wavelength of the radiation employed is 23 centimetres so that the angular width 448 INFLUENCE OF RADIO WAVES UPON BIRDS >f the beam is i.8°. Fig. 3a indicates the form of the beam and the ipproximate area of illumination at various ranges from the radar. At he ten-mile point the radiation intensity on the axis is 7.6 x io-3 watts oer square metre corresponding to a peak electric field strength of 48 ■volts per metre and a peak magnetic field of 1.3 x io-4 oersteds. The adiation is vertically polarised, i.e. the electric field in the beam is ■vertical and the magnetic field is horizontal. The electric fire type of reflector used in the surveillance radar on he right of fig. 2 produces a vertical fan beam, as shown in fig. 3b, vith a horizontal width of o.8° and a vertical beamwidth of 20°. The radiation intensity at a distance of 10 miles on the axis is 14 x io-3 vatts per square metre corresponding to a peak electric field of strength >5 volts per metre (or 1.7 x io-4 oersteds). Other radars operating on wavelengths of 3, 10, 25 and 50 centi- netres have been employed, but the aerials have conformed to the wo general forms described above. Field strengths will be indicated > chere appropriate. TRACK RECORDING AND DISPLAY The Marconi experimental radar station on Bushv Hill, Essex, is quipped with a number of plan position indicators (or p.p.i.’s). ! 7 1 G . 2. The radar aerials at Bushy Hill, Essex. On the left is a steerable tracker of 30 feet diameter and on the right a surveillance radar with an ‘electric fire’ type of effector; the forms of their respective beams and their approximate areas of illumination at various ranges are shown in fig. 3 449 BRITISH BIRDS Fig. 3 . The form of the aerial beams. Aerial (a), shown on the left in fig. 2, has illumination areas of 9,800, 39,000 and 156,000 square metres at two, four and eight miles, intercepted by the half-power contours of the beam. The corresponding figures for aerial (b), on the right in fig. 2, are 4,700, 19,000 and 75,000 square metres These ate cathode ray tubes which are rather similar to a television display tube but which permit the position of aircraft to be shown upon a plan of the area in correct relation to such physical features as hills or coastline. It is upon the surface of this tube that the movements of aircraft, clouds or birds can be observed. Some of the p.p.i.’s are also fitted with cine-cameras which permit a full 360° scan of the radar aerial to be recorded upon one frame of the film. The shutter and transport mechanism of the camera are linked with the radar aerial so that on completion of one scan of the aerial the shutter is closed for fifty milliseconds during which time the film is advanced by one frame. Since a rotation of the aerial is performed in 1 5 seconds then subsequent projection of this film at 24 frames per second means that a time com- pression ratio of 360 has been achieved. Thus it is possible to trace the tracks of groups of birds and to note any changes in direction that might occur. More careful scrutiny of the bird tracks within a limited area, such as the movements of Starlings Sturnus vulgaris within the vicinity of a roost, is rendered possible by the use of the ‘radar microscope’ device. This is a subsidiary display upon which can be shown a limited region selected from the area of the p.p.i. and presented greatly magnified for film recording. The time compression method of viewing the film of 450 Fig. 4. The radar microscope. A region 20 miles by 20° on the plan position indicator is displayed with rectangular co-ordinates in the two outside photographs which arc separated by nine minutes; the intervening positions of the ringed echo arc extracted in the middle to show the splitting of the bird dock BRITISH BIRDS such a limited area allows individual bird movements to be tracked in great detail and any changes in the direction of flight immediately to he observed (see fig. 4). OBSERVATIONS ON SPRING MIGRANTS The general principle governing the observations of radiation effects which have been made at Bushy Hill during the spring migration has been to employ the large surveillance radar for recording the tracks of the moving birds, while other radar beams have been maintained in fixed positions so as to irradiate portions of space through which the birds were moving. The ‘perturbing’ radar could be switched on and off and so provide control periods during which the paths of the birds in the absence of radiation could be established. Recording was maintained for a period of half an hour during each radiation period; this corresponds to a film running time of 5 seconds during subsequent projection and is sufficient to reveal the general direction of the flow of birds from the coasts of Essex and Suffolk on selected favourable weather days during the spring migration. The method of observation finally adopted was to locate the per- turbing radar well outside the permanent echo region of the Bushy Hill Station so that the bird tracks could be clearly seen. The perturb- ing beam was then pointed north and south during successive half hour intervals, in this way two areas of bird flow could be simultane- ously observed and any path deflection effects would have been immediately apparent. No such effects were observed; both day and night recordings of the spring emigration were made. Distance of irradiated areas from perturbing radar = 3 miles Wavelength of perturbing radar =23 centimetres Mean flux from perturbing radar= 8 x icr2 watts per square metre OBSERVATIONS ON STARLING ROOSTS Radar studies of the movements of Starlings in the vicinity of their roosts have been in progress at the Bushy Hill Station for some years, so that the technique of observation is well established (Eastwood, Isted and Rider 1962). It so happened in 1962 that a large roost existed in the proximity of Rivenhall Airfield, where the Marconi organisation maintains a second radar test site on which a number of high power radars were undergoing tests. These radars operated at wavelengths of 10 and 50 centimetres and were located so that their radiations could be beamed upon the Rivenhall roost. It was hoped that any effect of the combined radiations upon the Starlings might show itself as anomalous behaviour in the manner of assembly to, or dispersal from, the roosts as recorded at the Bushy Hill Station. No 452 INFLUENCE OF RADIO WAVES UPON BIRDS .uch effects were observed. The perturbing field strengths are given oelow: io-ccntimctre radar A . . . . . . . . 0.41 watts per square metre 10-centimetre radar B 0.65 watts per square metre 50-centimetre radar . . . . . . . . 0.0 1 watts per square metre It will be seen that the mean total flux in the vicinity of the roost k vas in the order of 1 watt per square metre. TRACKER OBSERVATIONS ON APPROACHING BIRD FLOCKS t will be appreciated that a radar used for recording the movements of oircls is itself irradiating the birds just as did the perturbing radars -:sed in the above observations. The recording radar, however, is canning continuously and so the birds are only momentarily in its >eam; the mean radiation energy is therefore small and anv perturbing fleet upon the birds would be likely to be very slight. It was for this ig. 5. The plan position indicator. An area with a radius of 40 nautical miles is isplayed, the coastline of Kent and Essex being electronically delineated. The bearing of the stationary aerial (namely, 85°) is shown on the label 453 BRITISH BIRDS reason that the surveillance radar was used for recording onlv. It was considered to be of interest, however, to use the tracker radar shown on the left in fig. 2 to watch for any perturbations in the paths of flocks of birds approaching the radar radially. With its high scanning rate of 20 cycles per minute over a limited scanning angle of io°, this radar could effectively act as both perturber and recorder. This observation is of interest since the reports of irradiation effects upon birds that have appeared in the literature all refer to the dispersive effect of a radio beam when directed at an approaching flock of birds, the deflection of the birds being observed visually. Fig. 5 shows an example of the p.p.i. record which was secured during these observa- tions. The film records did not reveal anv perturbing effect upon the flight of the birds. It is of interest to report here some observations made in 1963 by John Stewart of the Ferranti Electronic Svstems Division. He has been concerned with the testing of 3 centimetre (i.e. 10,000 megacycle) radars used for the purpose of missile control. During the tests of these equipments it has been noted that the birds have repeatedly flown into the beams of the radar well within the Rayleigh range where the power flux was in the order of 1 kilowatt per square metre. He has noted no dispersal of the flocks of birds nor anv perturbing action upon their flight. It would appear, therefore, that even in this case of a 3 centimetre radar which produces extremely sharp beams of very high intensity, no untoward effects upon the birds have been observed. DISCUSSION The observations described above show that no perturbing effects upon the flights of birds were observed for radio flux levels in the range from 0.1 to 1,000 watts per square metre. The appearance and position of the radar echoes, as well as the measured altitudes and speeds, suggested that passerines and waders were mainly involved, but some sea birds must also have been included because of the location of the station ten miles inland from the mouth of the River Crouch. The radio wavelengths were in the band of 3 to 50 centimetres, i.e., frequencies of 10,000 to 600 megacycles per second. These results do not, of course, prove that positive interaction could not have occurred at higher field strengths or at other radio frequencies. It should be noted, however, that the radio flux falling upon the birds in these tests is clearly sufficient to give radar echoes; therefore, the electromagnetic field is undoubtedly interacting with the birds’ bodies to give surface or volume scattering of the radio energy in amounts sufficient to be easily detected by the radar receiver. We can at least conclude that electromagnetic fluxes of intensity less than 454 INFLUENCE OF RADIO WAVES UPON BIRDS ,000 watts per square metre show no interaction with that portion of >irds’ sensory equipment concerned with orientation. During the past ten years the increase in power of radar stations and ropospheric scatter communication stations has prompted careful nvestigation of the effects of radio frequency beams upon both humans nd animals. It is true that such experiments have been directed to the i tudy of possible tissue damage produced by intense beams of radiation : ather than seeking to detect subtle interactions with the sensory : quipment of the animal. Thermal damage has been readily observed nd in the case of humans a statutory ‘safe’ level of radiation flux has \>een arbitrarily fixed so as not to exceed 10 milliwatts per square entimetre, i.e. 100 watts per square metre. This figure arises, how- ver, from the simple consideration that it is the level of heat loss per quare centimetre from the skin of a healthy human being. This flux ,evel does not apply to the eye, the cornea of which is rather imper- fectly cooled, and one case occurred in the Marconi laboratories of temporary conjunctivitis induced by looking down a waveguide arrying 10 watts of radiation of wavelength 8 millimetres, i.e. about x io4 watts per square metre. Extreme tissue damage was also eported by the same laboratories in the case of a Blackbird Turdus temla killed by radiation of about the same density carried by a wave- guide which the bird had inadvertently penetrated in the hopes of making a nest. This occurred in 1950 and was an early example of nicrowave cooking! No case has yet been recorded of other than thermal effects being produced in human cells by radio frequency radiation. At the Marconi laboratories, where radiation effects have been investigated or many years, there was one case of an engineer who claimed he ould detect the instant when a scanning radar beam passed over him lecause he experienced a sensation in the roots of the hairs at the back >f his head. It is possible also for acoustic effects to be produced, ttributable to the fact that radar transmissions are pulsed at audio requencies, i.e. in the range of 50 to 1,000 cycles per second. Knorr (1954) reported visible panic reactions of certain birds to a >eam of 10 centimetre radiation, but the powers he employed were nuch less than those used in the work of this paper, in fact only of he order of one fiftieth. Since his observations of effects were made 'isually, the range was presumably about 1 mile and the evolutions of lis birds in the beam suggest that the beamwidth was comparatively vide, which means that the flux at the birds was small. In visual •bservations of this type it is difficult to be sure that the rotating tructure of a large radar is not itself a perturbing influence. If the lirds are near enough to be observed, then they are fully aware of the nass of rotating metal looming in front of them. Such observations 455 BRITISH BIRDS should be conducted on a statistical basis, with and without radiation, if they are to be convincing. It was for this reason that we preferred to make night observations with photographic recordings of the tracks so that the birds would be substantially oblivious of the proximity of the rotating aerial. One report from the U.S.A. speaks of some troops operating a metric radar and ‘playing the game’ of pointing the beam at approaching bird flocks so causing them to split up. We have operated radars at a wavelength of i \ metres with very large apertures, so that with 500 kilowatts of pulse power the mean flux level at a range of 1 mile is 4X io-3 watts per square metre, but no dispersal effects on bird flocks have been observed. Proceeding to still lower frequencies, i.e. in the 4.5 megacycles per second communication band of table 1, effects on birds have been repeatedly looked for but with no positive results. One of the most detailed reports came from A. E. J. Symonds (/« Hit., 1962) who was formerly an engineer at Criggion Post Office Communication Station in Shropshire. Mr. Symonds, an experienced bird-watcher, made systematic observations upon the behaviour of Starlings for a number of years in the vicinity of the transmitter aerial farm in regions where the field strength was of the order of 2 watts per square metre. He reported no untoward behaviour of the birds at any time. It should also be borne in mind that there have been observations extending over a number of years upon the behaviour of birds in the proximity of broadcast aerials carrying powers of hundreds of kilowatts. Similarly, sea-birds perching upon the aerials of ships are a common sight, even when the radios are transmitting, but there have been no reports of their behaving in any peculiar way. It is also relevant to point out that many species of birds make a habit of perching on power 1 and telegraphic lines: the assemblies of Swallows Hirundo rustica and other hirundines at migration time are too familiar to require comment. Yet these power cables are carrying heavy currents and may be sub- jecting the birds to magnetic fields of the order of 0.1 to 40 oersteds and alternating at 50 cycles per second. The magnetic field in the case of telegraph wires may be of the order of io-7 oersteds and oscil- late at frequencies in the region of 4,000 cycles per second (up to 20 kilocycles for carrier lines). No ill effects appear to be experienced by the birds which frequent these convenient perches and they are manifestlv oblivious of the oscillating magnetic fields enveloping them. In like manner, House Sparrows Passer domesticus and other birds perch with impunity upon the radars shown in fig. 2, even when these are rotating and radiating full power. There is little doubt that our photographic technique of recording and viewing the flight paths of birds would have been sufficiently delicate to detect any radar beam effects upon the birds if such effects 456 INFLUENCE OF RADIO WAVES UPON BIRDS iad been present. The splitting of echoes corresponding to the livision of flocks is not an uncommon sight upon our film records of fight migration and such a case is shown in fig. 4. It would be expec- - ed that the number of such splittings would be greatly multiplied luring the passage of birds through a radar beam if an interaction with heir sensory apparatus were taking place, but this has not been the :ase. Although a number of reports have been made of the perturbing I fleet of radar beams upon the flights of birds, there has hitherto been 5 10 record of a carefully controlled series of observations. Similarly, a tatistical approach in such occurrences as have been reported has \>een conspicuously lacking, so it is difficult to assess the probability f a radio explanation of these effects. An outstanding case was published in one of the national daily newspapers in May 1963; the eport stated that six racing pigeons had been released in the vicinity ■f the missile warning radar station on Fylingdales Moor, Yorkshire, nd that they had been so affected by the beams of this station ihat their return heme had been greatly delayed. Investigation of this incident through official channels revealed that no semblance of a test ad been arranged; it was not even certain that the radar station had n een operational at the time of the release of the birds. An approach y the editor of the newspaper concerned disclosed only that their orrespondent’s contact with the source of his information had been >st. The matter was therefore discussed with S. W. E. Bishop, ditor of Pigeon Racing, in the hope that one of his readers might have sported this very interesting and important incident. No such report ad been made, but Mr. Bishop’s comments on this occurrence as an Xpert in pigeon racing were very pertinent. He stressed that it is common occurrence for such losses of birds to occur when releases re made in an unknown area; unless the birds are carefully trained by raduallv extending the range of their flights then it is useless to retend that they will be able to home from an unfamiliar location, idio beams or no radio beams. CONCLUSIONS I I careful search has been made for possible interaction between a radio earn and birds in flight as evidenced by their flight behaviour, dthough some of the most powerful radar equipment ever built has een used in these observations and sensitive photographic recording evices have been employed to observe the tracks of the birds, no erturbing effects of the beams upon the birds have been observed. When these experiments are considered in association with other bservations such as the behaviour of birds in the proximity of power tbles, telegraph wires, broadcast aerials, communication aerials, radar 457 BRITISH BIRDS aerials, ships’ aerials and so on, it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that any interaction between alternating electro-magnetic fields and the sensory equipment of birds can be of secondary importance only, if it exists at all. Such radiations appear to produce thermal effects only, the same in birds as in other creatures. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We should like to thank the operating staff at the Marconi establish- ments at Bushy Hill and Rivenhall for their kind co-operation in this series of observations. In particular, we are indebted to J. D. Bell, engineer in charge of the Bushy Hill Station, for his interest and assistance at all times; and to N. R. Phelp, head of the Photographic Section of the Marconi Research Laboratory, for supplying the photo- graphic service which made the film recordings possible. We also wish to acknowledge much helpful discussion with Dr. David Lack who has shown great interest in the progress of these observations. REFERENCES Brown, F. A., Jr. (1963): ‘How animals respond to magnetism’. Discovery, 24 :i8-22. Drost, J. (1962): The Migrations of Birds. London. Eastwood, E., Isted, G. A., and Rider, G. C. (1962): ‘Radar ring angels and the roosting behaviour of Starlings’. Proc. Roy. Soc. (B), 156: 242-267. Knorr, O. A. (1954): ‘The effect of radar on birds’. Wilson Bull., 66: 264. Matthews, G. V. T. (1955): Bird Navigation. London. Palmer, J. D. (1963): ‘Organismic spatial orientation in very weak magnetic fields’. Nature, 198: 1061-1062. Studies of less familar birds 130. White-tailed Eagle By George W at erst on Photographs by Svante Lundgren, Christer Wastesson,J. F. Willgohs, Bjorn Bjorns son, Jo/nas Sigurdsson, Eric Hosking and Lea MacNally (Plates 62-68) INTRODUCTION Following the successful re-establishment of the Osprey Pandion haliaetiis as a breeding species in Scotland, there has been a certain amount of speculation on the possibilities of the return of the White-tailed Eagle Haliaetus ctlhicilla to one of its ancestral haunts. 458 WHITE-TAILED EAGLE STUDIES From being at one time commoner than the Golden Eagle it became . oxtinct as a breeding species in Scotland in 1916. Up to the middle of ast century it held on in fair numbers in the west highlands and northern isles. The Isle of Skye appears to have been the main breeding stronghold with, according to Gray (1871), eyries on nearly c ;very bold headland. Among sheep-farmers there has always been a leep-rooted antipathy to eagles; and in Sutherland, following the 1 -Iighland Clearances and the development of intensive sheep-breeding, 1 ruthless war on the White-tailed Eagle ended in its complete exter- nination in that county at the turn of the century. Although there ■was an unsuccessful attempt at an artificial reintroduction of a couple >f young birds from Norway in 1959, and unsubstantiated rumours of >thers nesting, the species today is but a rare vagrant in the British -.sles. The White-tailed Eagle ranges over a vast area of the north Pale- trctic region. It breeds in west Greenland, Iceland, and from Scan- dinavia eastwards right across Russia to Mongolia and Kamchatka. To the south, it is to be found in East Germany and Poland, and in countries bordering the east coast of the Adriatic eastwards into Asia Minor. It formerly nested in the Faeroes where it is now only a i/agrant. In 1954, a pair bred in Denmark after an interval of forty- wo years. Voous (i960) deduced from its present irregular distribu- ion that it probably inhabited the whole of Europe at one time. Unlike the Osprey, which re-established itself in Scotland as a result of migration between Scandinavia and Africa, the White-tailed I vagle is mainly a sedentary species. In Norway and Iceland, our learest breeding areas, adults remain in their nesting localities through- >ut the vear, although the young may wander further afield. Even ■ o, out of the 3 1 young White-tailed Eagles ringed in Norway up to i -960, the longest distance travelled by any of the seven recovered was only a hundred kilometres. In Iceland, on the other hand, the im- natures seem to disperse over most of the country. In recent vears, important surveys carried out in Norway and Iceland lave added considerably to our knowledge. Between 1956 and i960 Willgohs (1961) organised an elaborate nation-wide enquiry into the listribution, population, ecology and breeding biology of the White- ailed Eagle in Norway. His paper is now unfortunately out of print, out a shortened version in Norwegian, published in 1963 in a more )Opular style and illustrated with distribution maps and photographs, s still available. In 1959 and i960 Ingolfsson (in press) carried out imilar studies in Iceland; he has kindly sent me a summary of his mpublished paper. I am greatly indebted both to him and to Dr. vVillgohs for permission to quote freely from their papers and from rorrespondence. In June 1962, assisted by a grant from the Royal 459 BRITISH BIRDS Society for the Protection of Birds, my wife and I visited four eyries of the White-tailed Eagle in the county of Sogn og Fjordane in Norway with Dr. Willgohs. IDENTIFICATION At moderate range in the field there is little difficulty in distinguishing an adult White-tailed Eagle from an adult Golden Eagle Aquila chrjsaetos. The former’s head and neck are much paler, and the shorter white wedge-shaped tail is a distinctive feature. At rest, it stands more ‘hunched-up’; and if close enough one can detect the yellow iris (as opposed to the hazel iris of the Golden) and the great yellow bill with its deeper culmen. The yellow unfeathered tarsi and big feet are conspicuous. Adults become increasingly hoary with age and plate 63a (inset) shows how pale these older birds can become. In flight the White-tailed is more vulturine in appearance: the head is longer and the tail shorter in comparison with the Golden; in normal Bight the wings are slightly angled, but in soaring thev are held per- fectly straight and give the bird a very rectangular appearance (plate 67c). Immature plumages are more confusing, particularly as it is the young Golden Eagle which has white on the tail (though this should not present any problems as it has a broad, dark band at the end). However, the young White-tailed has a uniform brown tail, lacking the dark bands of the adult Golden, and the same differences in shape and flight still apply (note the ‘hunched-up’ immature in plate 64b). At the age of eight to nine weeks the young White-tailed is dark brown all over (plate 64a), wffiereas the young Golden, apart from having white in the wings and tail, has begun to develop the ‘golden’ feathers on the crown and neck. The differences in the sizes and shapes of the bills of the two young eagles is well shown by a comparison of plates 66a and 66b; it should be added that for the first few years the young White- tailed has a horn-coloured bill. The White-tailed Eagle’s behaviour at an eyrie with young is very different. It is much more demonstrative when disturbed, and the pair will fly around overhead uttering their harsh cries. After a time, they may alight near-by to keep watch on an intruder — unlike adult Golden Eagles which usually disappear into the distance. In fact, they give the appearance of being much tougher and more aggressive. POPULATION The survey by Willgohs in Norway showed that the White-tailed Eagle still breeds regularly in all the coastal counties northwards from Sogn og Fjordane to Finnmark. Of the 414 breeding territories known to have been occupied since 1850, 221 were certainly occupied in 460 5 late 62. Female White-tailed Eagle Haliaetus albici/la and two well 1 oung in a tree nest, Sweden; note the massive beak, projecting head, 1 wings and short, wedge-shaped, white tail (pages 458-466) (photo: Svante fcC 1*64 PURCHASED - / / _ Plate 63. Above, adult White-tailed Eagle Haliaetus albicilla feeding large nestling, Sweden {photo: Christer Wastesson) and, inset, adult at rock nest with small chick, Norway {photo: J. F. Willgohs)', both show the contrastingly pale head and bill. Below, well-grown youngster exercising, Sweden {photo: Svante Lundgren ) PPlate 64. Above, immature perched on rock, Iceland; in its early years this sspccics is dark brown all over and its bill is horn instead of yellow (page 460) [ photo: Bjorn Bjornsson). Below, another in similar plumage standing at the edge oof the water with characteristic hunched shape, Sweden ( photo : Christer Wastesson ) Plate 6 5 . Female White-tailed Eagle Haliaetus albkilla in heraldic pose at her tree eyrie with two young, Sweden {photo: Svante Lmdgren) Plate 66. Above, comparison of bills of young Golden Eagle Aquila cbrysaetos (left) and young White-tailed Eagle Ha/iaetns albicilla ( photos : Lea MacNally and J. F. Willgohs). Below, adult White-tailed Eagle with dead Eider, Sweden; Eiders arc regular prey in Norway and Iceland (pages 462-464) {photo: Cbrister Wastesson) Plate 67. Above, two young in a nest on a low-lying islet, Iceland; compare with rock and tree sites below and on plate 68 {photo: Bjorn Bjornsson). Below, a very different nest on hillside rocks, Iceland {photo: Jamas Sigurdsson); and flying adult showing heavy head, broad wings and white tail, Norway {photo: Uric Hashing) Pi. at is 68. Tree nest of White-tailed Eagle Haliaetus albicilla high in a pine, Sweden {photo: Christer W a stetson). Inset, a bulky cliff eyrie in Norway showing the lining and the normal clutch of two white eggs (page 465 ) {photo: J. F. H illgobs ) m WHITE-TAILED EAGLE STUDIES the period 1956-1960, and 123 probably occupied; the remaining 70 were untenanted. In Norway the population density is highest in the coastal districts of Nord-Trondelag and Nordland, and on some outer islands from Troms to West Finnmark. Of the 344 pairs which probably breed annually, well over one-third are in Nordland. Will- gohs illustrated his papers with maps showing the past and present distribution of breeding pairs, and from these one can see the contrac- tion in breeding range and decline in numbers, particularly up to the 1930’s. Eagles in Iceland have been legally protected since 1913, but are still occasionally destroyed by farmers. Poisoned baits laid out for Foxes Vulpes vulpes and Mink Mustela sp. have resulted in mortality among eagles; but Ingolfsson (in lit/.) tells me that the use of such baits was forbidden in the breeding range of the eagle in 1958 and that in the spring of 1964 an amendment was passed to the Act whereby all poisoning of Foxes and Mink was prohibited in the whole of Iceland for a trial period of five years. In 1890 there were probably around 150 pairs of White-tailed Eagles breeding in Iceland, but the present population is estimated at only about 20 pairs; they formerly bred in all districts and are now confined to the north-west. The decline in Norway is linked more directly with human persecu- tion. Although government bounties for the destruction of eagles were withdrawn in 1932, certain district councils and game organisa- tions still operate their own reward schemes. In the official figures giving the numbers destroyed annually, Golden and White-tailed Eagles are lumped together. In 1963 no less than 168 ‘eagles’ were destroyed in Norway and a sum of £460 was paid out in bounties, equivalent to almost £ 2 15s. per bird. Further, between 1953 and 1963 the average number destroyed each year was 198. This heavy annual toll is a severe drain on the population. Willgohs considers that the White-tailed Eagle may soon be exterminated in the counties of Sogn og Fjordane and More og Romsdal unless protection is forth- coming. BREEDING HABITAT The White-tailed Eagle’s broad tolerance of habitat requirements partly accounts for its wide distribution throughout countries of quite different terrain. The habitat must, however, provide nesting and roosting sites, and perches at moderate altitudes within a convenient distance of the sea or a large area of water. In Norway, the breeding habitat is varied. On low ofl-shore skerries, the nests may be quite accessible; most, however, are on rocky, mountainous and sparsely wooded islands, usually, as on the 461 BRITISH BIRDS mainland, on inaccessible precipitous cliffs. There are only a few present-day records of inland breeding sites. Food availability is a vital requirement. As the White-tailed Eagle is not a specialised feeder, it can turn from one source of supply to another. It feeds mainly on sea-birds and fish, as well as on carrion in many forms. In Norway the great sea-bird cliffs probably influence its breeding distribution and density. Nest sites in both Norway and Iceland are varied. They are usually dry and well sheltered, often in corners or beneath overhangs. In high mountains, the lower cliffs or wooded slopes are chosen in preference to the upper levels, perhaps, Willgohs suggests, because of the climate at the beginning of the nesting season and because of their distance from the sea. In Norway nests above 300 metres are unusual. Of 98 sites examined by Willgohs, 84 were on ledges of cliffs, crags or slopes, eight were in trees and the remaining six on more or less level ground. In Iceland Ingolfsson has found nests in a great variety of places — on ledges or caverns in cliffs, and on rock columns to a height of as much as 75 metres. They may be on terraces on mountain slopes, on elevations in lava fields, or on small inshore islands (plate 67a), the smallest of which was only ten metres long, five metres broad and three metres high. Nest sites in Iceland are generally accessible; and at present all are found on the coast, usually within a kilometre of the shore. Formerly, there were breeding sites up to 90 kilometres from the coast, but these were always close to a river or lake. As in Nor- way, nesting sites are highly traditional, though the same pair fre- quently uses two or more within a territory. The oldest-known nesting site in Iceland has been in use for at least 150 years. FOOD Bannerman (1956) complained that disappointingly little was known of the food taken by White-tailed Eagles in Norway, but this gap has now been well filled by the detailed studies carried out by Willgohs. In fact, his work on the food is probably the most important single con- tribution to our general knowledge of the species. In his 1961 paper Willgohs listed all the food items he had analysed, and then in his 1963 paper he brought the details up to date and summarised the whole in a ‘prey-spectrum’, an English version of which is reproduced here as fig. 1. This shows that, in an analysis of 1,044 food items, birds comprised 57.4%, fish 31.4% and mammals 11.2% of the total. It will be seen, too, that the Eider Somateria mollissima emerges as the most frequent prey species (see also plate 66b). In fact, birds figure largely in the food throughout the White-tailed Eagle’s range in Norway, and in many districts they probably make up 462 . WHITE-TAILED EAGLE STUDIES Fig. i . ‘Prey-spectrum’ of White-tailed Eagles Haliaetus albicilla in Norway, based on 1,044 prey items (after Willgohs 1963). In the mammal section ‘Rumin- ants’ include Roe Deer Capreolus capreolus. Red Deer Cervus elapbus. Reindeer Rangifer tarandus. Sheep Ovis and Goats Capra, mainly young in carrion form, while the figure for ‘Carnivores’ is made up of Foxes Vulpes vulpes. Dogs Canis jamiliaris and Cats Felis catus Birds (599 of 39 species) (a) Shag Pbalacrocorax aristo/elis 62 fish (328 of 24 species) (k) Cod, Haddock, etc., Gadus spp. 90 (b) Eider Somateria mollissima 175 (1) Catfish Anarhichas lupus 72 (c) Gulls Lar/dae 78 (m) Sea Perch Sebas/es marinus 23 (d) Auks Alcidac 170 (n) Lumpsucker Cycloplerus lumpus 77 (e) Other species 84 (0) Other species 49 (f) Unidentified 3° (p) Unidentified 17 mammals (117 of 16 species) (g) Ruminants 58 (h) Carnivores 22 (i) Blue Hare Repus timidus IO (j) Other species 27 the greater part of its prev throughout the year. Sea-birds are taken mainly in outer coastal waters, both afloat and ashore, commonly among the skerries and in the breeding season frequently near the cuff's which hold the big colonies. The commonest mode of hunting seems to be to catch diving sea-birds and ducks on the surface as they emerge to breathe. Young Kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla and other gulls are taken before they are fledged and adults may also be caught on their nests. 463 BRITISH BIRDS Fish are secured in various ways. Live fish may be caught as they swim in shallow water or near the surface. However, dead fish and fish offal are more commonly taken, these being the refuse from man’s fishing activities or the remains left by gulls or Otters Futra lutra. That the White-tailed Eagle is to a certain extent commensal with Otters was first remarked upon by Collett (1921), and Willgohs had this confirmed by several of his correspondents in both Trondelag and further north in Norway. Lambs Ovis and young Goats Capra have been found in prey remains, but it can seldom be stated categorically that such food has been obtained by kills of healthy individuals, and a number of cases have obviously involved ones already dead. It is significant that during his intensive field work Willgohs has never seen a White-tailed Eagle kill or even attempt to attack domestic animals; nor have these shown any fear of the eagles, though Sheep (and in several cases small lambs) have often been seen feeding in the immediate vicinity of eyries or favourite perches. Willgohs stated, in conclusion, that the bulk of the information received from districts in Norway where the species was comparatively common clearly suggested that, in general, the White-tailed Eagle should be considered harmless to man’s interests or at most a fairly unimportant predator of domestic animals. In Iceland the present eagle population appears to feed mainly on Eiders, Lumpsuckers Cyclopterus lum pus , Fulmars Fulniarus glacialis. Puffins Fratercula arctica , Char Salvelinus alpinus and Trout Salmo trutta in that order. However, other food is readily taken if available; eagles are scavengers there to a considerable extent and are often seen feeding on dead Sheep and other dead animals. BREEDING BIOLOGY In Norway nest-building has been recorded outside the breeding season and some nests may be partly built in the preceding year. The materials are usually collected by both sexes from loose matter near at hand, but sometimes they pull up rooted plants, in part with the aid of their wings. In one case, the two birds were seen constructing the nest in turn. Additional materials may be carried in at any time during the breeding period. Ingolfsson remarked that, contrary to those in other countries, the nests of White-tailed Eagles in Iceland are very insignificant structures. They are often no more than a depression in the ground, lined with grass or moss; sometimes there are a few branches of birch Betu/a around the cup. Yet birch is abundant in the breeding range of the eagles in Iceland, so that there is plenty of potential nesting material around. 464 WHITE-TAILED EAGLE STUDIES The bulk of the nests in Norway are built mainly from dry sticks of birch, heather Calhtna or juniper Juniper us ^ and the linings are of grasses, moss or line heather. On remote islands off the coast, stalks of sea- weed and bits of driftwood are also used. The size and yearly increase of the nests vary considerably; the biggest structures, up to ten feet in depth, were ones partly supported by small trees on slopes. Mutual display flight, mainly following a definite pattern, is often seen in Norway early in the season. Violent stooping in flight was rarely observed by Willgohs. Coition may take place on the nest or at some distance away, and Willgohs has watched and described several cases. In Norway egg-laying takes place from the beginning of March to the middle of May. It usually begins in March in the west and in parts of the north, but may be about a month later in east Finnmark. The White-tailed Eagle is one of the first birds to start laying in Iceland, the chief period being the latter half of April and the beginning of May. In Iceland, the average number of eggs in 14 clutches was 2.1 (range one to three). In Norway, in a total of 57 clutches, 5 had one egg, 40 had two and 12 had three, an average of 2.12 eggs per clutch; one pair in Solund had three eggs in each year from 1957 to i960 and there was a clutch of four in Vega in 1957. Willgohs supplied a lot of data on egg measurements in his papers. Of particular interest is the evidence produced by Willgohs con- cerning the greater role played by the male in incubation and care of the young than has previously been asserted. Incubation begins when the first egg is laid. Extensive observations at one nest in 1957, 1958 and 1959 showed that both sexes shared incubation in the early as well as the later stages. Nest-reliefs did not follow any very regular pat- tern. As with most other species of birds of prey, the female incuba- ted throughout the night; the male then usually took over in the early morning, and in most cases had some further spells on the nest later in the day. Reliefs usually took place on the nest and averaged 5.8 per day. During the whole incubation period the male sat for 26.75 °0 of the time. Willgohs estimated the incubation period in one case at 38 days (from laving of first egg to hatching of first egg). The interval between the hatching of the two eggs was about three days. Ingolfsson found that in 47 nests in Iceland where the young were well advanced (mostlv well-feathered) the average number of eaglets per nest was 1.38, varving between one and three. Infertility of one of the eggs seems to occur fairly frequently; and, even if two or more young hatch, one of them often dies in the nest. Intermittent breeding is suspected, as the number of eaglets reared per pair per year in 37 cases was found to average only 0.65. 465 BRITISH BIRDS By comparison, Willgohs found that in 93 eyries in Norway, the number of young hatched averaged 1.6. There have been several cases of infertility of one egg, but natural mortality among the young seems to be low there and if it does occur is often caused by human interference at the eyrie. Most observers in the past have stated that during the fledging period the female takes over most of the domestic duties, the male rarely staying longer at the nest than necessary to deliver the prey. Willgohs spent long periods observing from hides and found that on occasion the male would not only feed the chicks but also brood them. At one eyrie, on a day when the young were three weeks old, food was brought to the nest three times in the early morning and once in the evening, on three occasions by the male and once by the female; feeding took place 1 1 times, at all times of the day between 04.46 and 20.45 hours, and each feed lasted from 2 to 22 minutes; of the total of 1 1 3 minutes of feeding, the male fed the chicks for 46 minutes. In Norway there is occasional hostility between White-tailed Eagles and Golden Eagles, with competition for nest-sites and food. Where they meet, the Golden appears to be dominant; but whether the dis- tribution of the White-tailed Eagle is influenced by this remains uncertain. Juvenile or immature White-tailed Eagles generally seem to be tolerated by adults in the breeding territories, sometimes quite near occupied nests. REFERENCES Bannerman, D. A. (1956): The Birds of the British Isles. — Edinburgh and London, vol. 5. Collett, R. (1921): Norges Fugle (ved Orjan Olsen). Kristiania (Oslo), vol. 2. Gray, R. (1871): The Birds of the West of Scotland. Glasgow. Ingolfsson, A. (in press): ‘The status, food and breeding biology of the White- tailed Eagle Haliaetus albicilla (L.) in Iceland.’ Voous, K. H. (i960): Atlas of European Birds. — Edinburgh. Willgohs, J. F. (1961): ‘The White-tailed Eagle Haliaetus a. albicilla (L.) in Norway’. Arbok for Universitetet i Bergen, Nat.-Naturv. Serie No. 12. Bergen. (1963): Havornen. Bergen. Notes Manx Shearwater as prey of Peregrine in central Scotland. — On 1 2th June 1964, near Cairngorm, Inverness-shire, I discovered the remains of an adult Manx Shearwater Procellaria puffinus in the evrie of a pair of Peregrines Falco peregrinus. The body had been plucked, but the wings, legs, bill, head and neck were intact and left no doubt about the identification. The kill was certainly less than ten davs old. 466 NOTES Apart from the fact that the Manx Shearwater does not appear previously to have been recorded as prey of the Peregrine in Britain, this eyrie is about 40 miles from the nearest point on the east coast of Scotland and over 70 from the west. It seems unlikely, therefore, that the bird could have been caught at sea and, as there had been no high winds in the period, the record tends to support the suggestion that west coast Manx Shearwaters mav sometimes travel overland to J feed in the North Sea. A. J. Gaston Rotating of resting Curlew. — At about 9 a.m. on 6th February 1964, near Rochester, Kent, I watched two Curlew Numenius arquata resting on a marsh some 50 yards away. Each was standing on one leg, one with its head hunched on its shoulders and the other with its bill tucked into its scapulars. The former was continually moving its head from side to side through an angle of 30-40°, but the latter was rotating its whole body through 45-50° about the axis of the leg on which it was standing — each rotation, one way or the other, being accomplished by two or three slightly jerky movements. I was unable to see the left side of this bird’s head, but it certainlv had its right eye open. Resting waders are always on the look-out for potential danger and constant movements of the head are necessary to increase the range of vision. However, when one has its bill buried in its scapulars, head movements are impossible and it seemed to me that this particular Curlew was solving the problem by rotating its whole body. In spite of the obvious survival value of such behaviour, I have not previously observed anything of the kind or been able to find a published reference to it. M. J. Hudson [It is not unusual for dozing waders, gulls and ducks to turn or ‘sway’ Irom side to side and we believe that Mr. Hudson’s interpretation is probably correct, though we have not seen it suggested before. — Eds.] Woodpigeon trapped by slice of bread.— On 25 th May 1964, on Wandsworth Common, London, I saw a W’oodpigeon Columba palumbus standing motionless on the ground with a slice of white bread completely encircling its neck. The bread was not in the least old or dirty and the W'oodpigeon had presumably put its head through it while, as is customary with birds, eating the centre first. When I approached to within 20 yards it flew away low and settled again motionless about 150 yards away, the bread still firmly in place. John Gooders [Derek Goodwin comments that this may be an unusual plight for W oodpigeons, but it is a fairly common one for Feral Pigeons C. liria 467 BRITISH BIRDS in London. It is normally only temporary, but often they wear such collars for at least several hours. They get caught in this way because in feeding from large lumps of bread they use the innate movements adapted for obtaining seeds from plant heads. When a pigeon pulls at a seed the plant comes too, whereupon the bird gives a violent jerk or shake of its head while still gripping the seed with its bill. This is effective in detaching a seed, but less so in breaking bread from the centre of a slice: not infrequently the jerk flings the holed slice over the pigeon’s head and, if it is not dislodged by immediate struggles, it may get under the feathers and stay there for some time. — Eds.] Short-eared Owl breeding in Wiltshire. — As the Short-eared Owl Asio ftammens has seldom been recorded breeding in the south of England, it seems worth noting that on 18th June 1964 Mr. and Mrs. J. Squires took Rev. Id. R. Williamson and myself to an area of rough downland near Tidworth, Wiltshire, on the eastern edge of Salisbury- Plain, where thev had located a pair of these birds four days earlier. One of the owls circled round uttering a harsh hissing note and occasionally swooped low, and we eventually flushed two young, one of which still had down adhering to its head, back and wings. This appears to be the first breeding record of the Short-eared Owl in Wiltshire, but it is possible that it may be the beginning of a southward extension of range in Britain now that many downland areas are covered with rank grass and other herbage as a result of the almost complete disappearance of the Rabbit Orjctolagus cunt cuius. G. L. Webber Sand Martins roosting in nest holes in September. — At about 6.50 p.m. BST on 18th September 1962, at Sandy, Bedfordshire, I visited a sand pit which is the site of a large colony of Sand Martins Riparia riparia, though in view of the date I expected this to be long since un- occupied. I was surprised, therefore, to see about 20 Sand Martins circling in front of the nest holes. Now and then one would hover near the cliff face and then enter a hole. Some would come out at once, but others stayed in and so the circling flock got steadily smaller. I went away for about 1 5 minutes and then found that only three were left. Before I finally departed, two of these had entered holes without reappearing. From the lateness of the date, I could only assume that this was a migrant flock using the nest holes for roosting. C. F. Tebbutt |\\ e showed this note to R. A. O. Hickling who has made a special study of Sand Martins for a number of years, and to C. J. Mead who 468 NOTES has done much ringing both at colonies and reed-bed roosts. The remarks which follow are based on their combined comments which show that there is nothing unusual in the above account, but they agree that the record should be published because there is so little in the literature on the end-of-season behaviour of this species. In the first place, it is quite normal for Sand Martins, on both spring and autumn passage, to visit colonies and to roost in holes not defended by nesting pairs. Dispersing juveniles also visit other colonies and roost in them, sometimes in company with the local broods of juveniles. There are, in fact, many records of Sand Martins being ringed as juveniles in northern England and retrapped the same year in colonies over 50 miles further south. Even more surprising are recoveries of juveniles ringed in reed-bed roosts and retrapped later in colonies: one such individual had travelled 120 miles north. The behaviour des- cribed in Mr. Tebbutt’s note is typical of the co-ordinated pre-roosting flights of both adults and juveniles at all stages of the breeding cycle. — Eds.] Pairing of Robins from same brood. — W ith reference to G. L. Webber’s observation on brother and sister Reed W arblers Acrocephalus scirpaceus pairing up as adults in the wild (Brit. Birds, 57: 253), I should like to record a similar case involving Robins Erifhacus ruhecula in my garden at Sway, Hampshire (a brief reference to this has previously been published in Bird Notes, 30: 1 1 9, but without any details). The birds concerned were colour-ringed in i960 as young of the same brood. They paired and produced young in 1962 after the male had lost his previous mate who, incidentally, was his mother (she had been colour-ringed as a juvenile in 1956 and had subsequently become hand- tame). The male reared young again in 1964, but with yet another mate as his sister has not been seen since August 1963. Edwin Cohen Pairing of Red-backed Shrikes from same brood. — G. L. W ebber's report reminds me of a parallel with Red-backed Shrikes Ennius collurio. A pair of these birds which I mist-netted on W'itley Common, Surrey, in 1958 proved already to be carrying rings which showed them to be nest-mates from a brood of five reared on the same common the previous year. L. J. Raynsford Starling imitating Willow W'arbler.- — On 7th April 1964, near I.eeds, Yorkshire, I heard what I took to be a W illow W arbler Phj/los- copus trocbilus singing. The song was repeated and I located the tree from which it came, but I could find only a Starling Sturnns nt/garis 469 BRITISH BIRDS in it. The song was repeated twice more and, as I still could not see a Willow Warbler, it occurred to me that the Starling might be respon- sible. I therefore watched it intently and found that this was, in fact, the case. It sang with its bill closed, but I could clearly see its throat moving in time with the song. The first eight notes of each phrase were a perfect imitation of a Willow Warbler, but the last part usually dissolved into a series of trills and grunts typical of a Starling. Even so most of it was so perfect that it took six or seven repetitions to convince me that there was not a Willow Warbler as well. Any doubt was finally dispelled, however, when both Starling and song moved simultaneously to another tree. A. S. Cheke Dunnock nesting in unlined depression on ground. — On 21st May j 1964 I was informed that a Dunnock 'Prunella modularis was sitting on a clutch of four eggs on bare ground beneath a poultry house at Milford, Surrey. The following day I visited the site and found that the eggs were in a very shallow depression beneath the wooden floor of the poultry house, which was raised on bricks six inches above the ground. I could find no nesting material whatever although there were a few scattered wood shavings round about. A poultry attendant told me that he frequently passed within inches of the sitting bird and that it then usually left the nest. Later I heard that after several days of incubation the eggs disappeared, presumably taken by rats or mice. * G. S. Elliott • [Though Dunnocks have seldom been recorded nesting on the flat ground, the most interesting part of this observation is the total lack of lining material. Unfortunately we do not know the precise measure- 1; ments of the depression the eggs were in and so it is impossible to judge how it compared in size with the finished cup of a normal r Dunnock’s nest. In this connection, however, Derek Goodwin has I offered two interesting comments. Firstly, he draws a possible I parallel to the cases of such hole-nesting species as the Jackdaw Corvus f monedula and Great Tit Parns major which sometimes content themselves / with no more than an odd twig or two and a thin lining if they are : building in a site which is rather small and so presumably ‘feels firm 11 al1 round’ when the bird is sitting in it. Alternatively, he suggests that the material may have been taken by mice for their own nest the night before the female Dunnock had to lay her first egg. Some l» passerines, such as Jays Garrulus glandarius, will not add any material after an egg is in the nest, even if the structure is incomplete and unsafe, although pigeons (Columbiformes) and certain other groups do so often or even habitually. — Eds.] 470 REVIEWS Grey Wagtail breeding in Dipper’s nest. — On 12th June 1964 W. Wilcox and 1 revisited the nest of a pair of Dippers Citiclus cinclus in the wall of a weir on the River Ain at Alnwick, Northumberland, where Edward Robson and I had ringed five young on 17th May. To my surprise, the nest now contained four eggs of a Grey Wagtail j\ [ot acill a rimer e a . John Anderson Male Chaffinch attacking the body of another. — I was interested to read the note by D. Joslin (Brit. Birds, 57: 329-330) on a male Pied Wagtail Motarilla alba killing another and persistently attacking the corpse. Early on the evening of 5 th May 1964, at a range of about six feet from a ground-floor window of my home near Oxford, I watched a male Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs viciously attacking the corpse of another male which was lying in a flower border. He would fly at the body and peck at and around its head, pulling out feathers as he did so, then retire to a distance of about a foot before repeating the attack. Only for brief periods did he break off to fly into an apple tree about fifteen feet away, where he sometimes sang a few phrases. After about an hour of this I covered the dead bird with a shovel. The other returned immediately and, in a few moments, found the corpse and continued the attacks, first under the shovel and then in the open when he had dragged the body clear. Some minutes later I removed the corpse altogether. The aggressor came back to the spot straight away, searched around the border and then flew into the apple tree. Soon afterwards he returned and his searches continued (inter- rupted by visits to the apple tree or feeding on a crust of bread) with decreasing intensity for a further hour, by which time dusk was falling. M. A. Wilkins Reviews The World of Birds. By James Fisher and Roger Tory Peterson. 288 pages, including 90 with colour lithograph plates of nearly 700 species, more than 200 maps and many half-tone illustrations. Macdonald, London, 1964. 5 gns. Contrary to some expectations, every increase in ornithological knowledge seems to multiply the numbers of amateur as well as professional ornithologists eager to learn more, and each new specialist offshoot quicklv contributes towards ever wider and more ambitious eftorts of summation and presentation in a new perspective. No 47i BRITISH BIRDS sooner have we become accustomed to field-guides to bird identifica- tion on a more or less continental scale than we are faced with almost annual offerings of truly global range and of impressive competence and clarity. While each of these can and should be critically reviewed, this generation of ornithologists would be ungrateful indeed not to acknowledge their good fortune and indebtedness for a series of works which in comprehensiveness, up-to-dateness, accuracy and attractive- ness of presentation have probably yet to be matched in any other branch of world-wide learning. Mr. Fisher and Dr. Peterson, combining the fruits of nearly a century of field work between them, have attempted no less a task than to review the natural history of an estimated total of 8,580 living species of birds against the background of their evolution within 200 families, and of the many-sided studies and contacts to which they have been subjected by man. Inevitably the result is often sketchy, and some- I times superficial, but it is tremendously exciting, suggestive and informative, and can hardly fail to broaden the horizon and improve the grasp of anyone who reads it, however much or little they may know already of the data which it so skilfully marshals and presents. In the first chapter the authors grade the world into zones according to the poorness or richness of their bird life, ranging from the 16 nesting species of Antarctica and the 54 native land species of Fiji to the 256 of New Zealand, 554 of Borneo, 871 of Sudan, 1,440 of Brazil and over 1,700 of Columbia, which has the world’s richest 1 avifauna (but it should be noted that R. Meyer de Schauensee in his scholarly and up-to-date Birds of Columbia admits only 1,556 species, j and no authority for the authors’ higher claim is given). However, j unless something much more effective is done quickly about conserva- tion in Columbia, the statement that ‘It is the heartland of ornithologi- cal variety on our planet’ will soon have to be changed into the past i tense. Sections follow on wings and flight, anatomy, adaptation, and j colours and adornments, inevitably at a somewhat elementary level. ! The second chapter gives an interesting breakdown and summary j) analysis of flightless birds (46 living and 16 recently extinct), birds of freshwater (over 600 belonging to 27 families), sea-birds (about 260), i birds of prey (about 280), and birds of different food habits. The I third chapter deals with fossil records, and the fourth with evolution i and speciation (illustrated by an ambitious double-page ‘familv tree’ I) which makes ingenious use of colour) with interesting sections on relationship and species formation. The fifth chapter on distribution starts with a fine plate of extinct and very rare birds and proceeds to | illustrate major bird faunas, distributional factors, migrations (which I' are stated to involve nearly 4,000 species), navigation and population. Phe sixth chapter is concerned with social behaviour and reproduction. 472 REVIEWS The seventh and ninth chapters give useful although not particularly original reviews of bird-watching (including bird protection) and of relations between birds and man. The longest and most important and original part of the book is the eighth chapter, extending for nearly a hundred pages and containing some 200 admirably prepared maps, on a well-chosen range of projec- tions, of the world distribution of all living and extinct families of birds (in the cases of the Furnariidae, Muscicapidae and Emberizidae these are further broken down to subfamilies). This section clearly distinguishes the great worldwide families such as the falcons, plovers and swallows from the purely South and Central American, African, Australasian or Holarctic ones. Introductions are shown and speci- fied, and there are suggestions, sometimes speculative, on the places of origin of all the families. Incidentally, the maps of the wattled crows (Callaeidae) and magpie larks (Grallinidae) are apparently transposed. Finally, a ‘Black List’ cites 85 species as having become extinct since 1600, and a ‘Red List’ includes a further 143 species believed to be still liying but with a world population of less than 2,000 individuals. There is a useful although inevitably very incomplete Bibliography and a carefully compiled Index. No less remarkable than the text are Dr. Peterson’s illustrations. These, as we have come to expect, are an impressive blend of deep scholarly study and high artistic skill, but seen as a whole they must rank among the most comprehensively planned and versatilely executed suites of visual presentation in any ornithological work. The more conventional plates marshal together highly original selections of significant groupings from among the world’s avifauna, while the less conventional ones flow out into evolutionary trees in colour-coded designs, or march round or through the spacious text, or assume partly diagrammatic and partly pictorial form, and are interspersed with historical vignettes, book-plates and many excellent half-tones. All of these combine to raise the question of how many books can, by comparison with this, truly be said to be ‘illustrated’. Although its dimensions approach the size now customarily associa- ted with coffee tables, the book is not unwieldy and credit is due to Purnell & Sons Ltd. for the high standard of the production, in particular of the colour plates which come reasonably near to the fidelity which discriminating ornithologists look for but do not always find. The World of Birds may confidently be expected to stimulate many of its readers into spending more money and more time than they can afford in pursuing more and more birds farther and farther afield. E. M. Nicholson 473 BRITISH BIRDS The Oxford Book of Birds. By Bruce Campbell. Illustrated by Donald Watson. Oxford University Press, London, 1964. 207 pages; 96 colour plates. 35s. This is a companion volume to The Oxford Book of Wild Flowers and j The Oxford Book of Garden Flowers. The main part consists of 96 coloured plates each illustrating three or four species of British birds 1 in their natural settings and showing flight patterns and sex, age and 1 seasonal differences where appropriate. On the page opposite each 1 plate are succinct descriptions of the birds illustrated, giving the 1 diagnostic marks for identification, followed by summaries of status, f distribution, habitat, general behaviour, food, voice, and nest and eggs. A one-line ‘calendar’ uses typography ingeniously to show | when each bird is likely to occur in Britain, when it breeds, and when it sings. Additional black-and-white plates show eight American passerines that have been recorded in Britain and Ireland, and the flight patterns of ducks and some waders. All species which occur with any regularity are portrayed in colour and every bird on the British and Irish list is noted in the text. Races are, very sensibly, not mentioned unless distinguishable in the field. Preceding the main part is a resume of the orders and families of British birds ; and following it are two-page essays on ‘Anatomy’, ‘Flight’, ‘Behaviour and breeding’ and ‘Migration, numbers and age’, together with suggestions for further reading and a list of the principal ornithological societies. Bruce Campbell’s text is masterly in compressing the maximum . information into a few readable sentences. Just occasionally, how- i ever, the limitations imposed by the excellent idea of having the text 1 facing the illustrations seem to have led to over-condensation. For instance, somebody finding a Mistle Thrush’s nest with eggs of a buff ground-colour (by far the commonest type in my experience) might be led astray by the statement that ‘the female incubates three to five pale blue eggs spotted with brown’. Similarly, the distinctions between certain of the more difficult species, such as Little and Tem- minck’s Stints, lack some details. The essays at the end are clear, up- to-date and well-balanced introductions to the wide subjects thev cover. Donald Watson’s pictures are delightful and have the great merit of so obviously being painted by an artist who knows his birds in the field — and who knows and can paint that field also. The colour reproduction is excellent with only a very few exceptions : an over-red Chaffinch and the colouring of the flava wagtails are examples in the review copy. Everybody will have his own favourites, but for myself I would choose the Little Owl where the artist has exactly caught this bird’s frown of suspicious disapproval. I have only one criticism of any importance and that concerns the keys to the plates. In several plates there are birds flying about in the 474 NEWS AND COMMENT background (and delightful little vignettes many of them are), but sometimes these are included in the key and sometimes not. This is confusing. There are also some annoying mistakes. The female Gadwall is designated as male. The Common Scoters are described as ‘m and f’ when in fact the female is on the left of the male. More seriously, because more help is needed in identification in this case, the numbers indicating the Green and Wood Sandpipers in flight are transposed. The book is aimed at those who have progressed beyond the begin- ners’ guides which deal (however well) with only a selection of species, but who do not yet feel ready for more expensive and comprehensive publications. At the price I do not know of another work that gives such an authoritative, full and all-round account of the lives of so many birds. R. K. Cornwallis News and comment Edited by Raymond Cordero Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve. — The ancient name Lindisfarne has been officially revived by the Nature Conservancy in its declaration of the first part of a new reserve on the Northumberland coast. This includes the sand-dunes on Holy Island, together with the sand and mud-flats lying between the high and low tide marks north of a line from Longbridge End on the mainland to Snook Point; a separate area in Budlc Bay, north of Bamburgh, covers Chesterhill Slakes and Budle Point. The land has been leased partly from Cheswick Estates and partly from the Crown Estate Commissioners. The owners of the whole intervening coastline and of a further coastal strip near Cheswick Black Rocks have agreed in principle to include these areas in the reserve, but for technical reasons they cannot be declared for some time. The Holy Island area is well known for its many species of wildfowl and waders. Wigeon predominate (up to 10,000 have been estimated in some winters) and Mallard arc also numerous. Herds of Mute and Whooper Swans are recorded regularly and Bewick’s Swans occasionally. Small flocks of Grey Lag, Pink-footed and Brent Geese also occur, the last-named being mainly of the light-bellied or Atlantic race. The interesting plants in the area are mainly those on which the wildfowl feed: eel-grass Zostera spp. forms an important component and although it is decreasing in other places, it is still plentiful on the reserve. The reserve will provide the main national refuge for migrating and wintering ducks, geese and waders in north-east England; it will also help to meet the needs of ornithological research. H. Dollman has taken up the duties of warden and a panel of local wildfowlcrs and naturalists has been set up under the chairmanship of Frank Stabler, a leading wildfowler, to advise the Nature Conservancy on the management and conservation of the wildfowl. A local committee under the chairmanship of Professor J. H. Burnett will advise on other management aspects. When the Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve is complete, it will include a large area where shooting will be permitted on an orderly basis similar to the very success- ful pattern which the Conservancy has established at Cacrlaverock National Nature Reserve in the Solway. The reserve will then exceed 6,000 acres, of which about 1,665 acres are covered by the present declaration. Access is unrestricted. 475 BRITISH BIRDS Enlargement of a Breckland reserve.— The Nature Conservancy also announces that, following negotiations with the Air Ministry which covered an exchange of . land and a further purchase, the Thetford National Nature Reserve has been en- larged to 243 acres. Access to this Breckland reserve owned by the Norfolk < Naturalists’ Trust, with whom the Conservancy concluded an agreement in 1958, is < by permit only. Dungeness Bird Observatory, 1952-62. — Its relative nearness to London and areas of dense population in Kent and Sussex, together with its intrinsic fascination ' as a place, has brought many hundreds of bird-watchers to Dungeness since the observatory first began work there in August 1952. From that date until the end of 1962 over 65,500 birds were ringed and many ringers owe their skill to the training they received under the wardens, originally H. E. Axell and later R. E. , Scott. Unfortunately, Dungeness has been caught squarely in the path of progress in recent years. Changes in the lighthouse illumination have reduced the falls of migrants and the nuclear power station has spoiled the wonderful effect of wide open space, but this great shingle area is still ornithologically outstanding. Rarities in 1963, for instance, included Purple Fleron, Osprey, Red-footed Falcon, Crane, < Spotted Crake, Gull-billed Tern, Bluethroat, a good selection of warblers, and Red-breasted Flycatcher. It is with the period up to 1962, however, that the observatory’s latest publication deals. Nearly two-thirds of its 91 pages are devoted to a systematic list of the birds of Romney Marsh and their migrations; the authors of this, G. J. Harris and R. E. Scott, although excluding all the relevant Hastings Rarities, feel that the editors of British Birds ‘have perhaps been too drastic, particularly in respect of records east of the Midrips’. There are also various short articles highlighting some of the most spectacular falls of birds and certain historical aspects of the area, as well as migration tables and a ringing table. The last lists 155 species (and one 1 subspecies) which were ringed at the observatory during 1952-62, and for each of : these gives the total numbers trapped, retrapped and recovered up to December 1 1962 together with, where applicable, the greatest distance travelled over ten miles II and the extreme case of longevity over twelve months. The longest-lived bird ringed at Dungeness during this time was an adult Blackbird which was killed nearly ; 8 A years later in Norway. The species with the most ringed was the Whitethroat (8,565), followed by the Starling (7,278), Willow Warbler (6,225) and House Sparrow (5 >43 7)- The whole publication documents a most remarkable achievement of post- war British ornithology and is splendid value for five shillings. A new filmstrip. — Under the somewhat quaint title ‘Birds of Woodland and Coppice’, a new 35-frame colour filmstrip with 30 species of British birds has been issued by Educational Publications Ltd., East Ardsley, Wakefield, Yorkshire, at a price of 30 shillings. Both the filmstrip and the accompanying notes are by Morley Hedley, F.R.P.S., several of whose photographs have been published in this journal in recent years, and should be of value to teachers. Tailpiece. — The Daily Telegraph recently reported that the American Army’s latest secret weapon was trained birds, but that the scheme was so secret that the species involved had not been revealed. However, it was admitted that a £62,000 contract had been placed for a research programme of training birds for field surveillance. An army spokesman said that a first study ‘indicated positively that a bird can be 1 taught and that a bird will perform a characteristic response indicating the presence of a person. I he project seems to us a rather expensive way of confirming what the Romans learnt from cackling geese 1,500 years ago. 476 WITH | or without I SPECTACLES ■ The latest Zeiss 8x50B binoculars are unique. With a simple adjustment to the eyepiece they give maximum field of view to the spectacle wearer or the naked eye alike. This feature is found only in binoculars made by the CARL ZEISS Foundation of Western Germany ^EISS 8x50B For full details please write to the sole U.K. importers: 28.15 &CO. LTD., CARL ZEISS HOUSE, 20 22 Mortimer Street, London, W.l. LANgham 6097 (9 lines) The pick of the world's great instruments on 14 days' free trial f. \ r/o' \ AT ^ / SEND FOR NEW ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE CHARLES FRANK LTD. 67-75 Saltmarket Glasgow Cl Phone. BELL 2100\l Est. 1907 Britain’s greatest stocks of New, Used and Ex-Govt. Binoculars, Telescopes and Navigational Equipment. A new type of Zeiss binocular. The 8x30B DIALYT is revolutionary in design and performance, weather proof and suitable for spectacle wearers £49 15s. Od. JAPANESE BINOCULARS If they are good, they can be very, very good and we have selected certain models which we can recom- mend with the utmost confidence . and which we market under our own name: 8 x 30 centre focus and coated £12 I Os. Od. 10 x 50 centre focus and coated £15 I Os. Od. 6x 30 ARMY BINOCULARS An excellent general-purpose binocu- lar of good performance, which will stand up to a great deal of rough usage (cost approximately £20) Supplied with waterproof web case at £7 15s. Od. and £9 15s. Od. according! to condition. For wildfowling or when extremely high light transmission is required, we would suggest the Canadian Naval f 7x50 binocular at £24 or the new Russian 7x50 at £16 16s. Od. Both! glasses are exceptionally good and it I would be difficult to decide which is tj the better buy. The West Zone i Zeiss 10x50 is possibly the ideal ii wildfowling glass and is available at £109 Is. Od. TELESCOPES We have a host of models from which to choose and can recommend the following: Ex-Admiralty 16x40 single-draw, micrometer focusing £5 18s. 6d. Pocket 3-draw telescope, magnifica- tion 25 X : an excellent auxiliary to your binoculars: with case £2 4». 6d. Nickel Supra IS to 60 x : a tremen- dous advance in portable telescope design £36 12s. Od. Three-draw ex-Army telescope 22 x 50 mm. £8 15s. Od. The Charles Frank 22 X OG 50 mm. PRISMATIC with tripod £22 10s Od. From Russia, we have a MAKSUTOV triple turret telescope of fantastic | power and performance. Wt. 32 lb., price £250, details on request New ROSS BINOCULARS Accredited agents for ROSS, BARR & STROUD, WRAY and ZEISS (both East and West Zones) 10 X 40 Ross Solaross. This is probably the best buy in the Ross Solaross range and we would be inclined to think that it repre- sents the best value obtainable today in a British glass of good quality. It is beauti- fully balanced and streamlined, weighs only 26 oz. and is fairly compact with a height of 6i in. We are supplying with this bino- cular a first quality English-made hide case. Inclusive cost £19 19s. Od. Where high power is required, we would suggest the Ross 16x 60 at £32 8s. 8d. with hide case Natural History Books available from WITHERBY’S BOOKSHOP A New Dictionary of Birds edited by Sir Landsborough Thomson. The centenary publication of the B.O.U. Comprehensive and authoritative. 900 pages; 48 pages of illustrations, 16 in colour. 5 gns. The World of Birds by James Fisher and Roger Tory Peter- son. A work of scholarship, magnificently illustrated. 5 gns. The Oxford Book of Birds by Bruce Campbell, illustrated by Donald Watson. A companion volume to The Oxford Book of Wild Flowers (35s.) and Garden Flowers (35s.). 96 four- colour plates; 240 pages. 35s. Menagerie Manor by Gerald Durrell. The story of the author’s zoo in Jersey. Illustrated by Ralph Thompson. 21s. The Birds of Natal and Zululand by P. A. Clancey. 20 colour, 10 half-tone, 40 line illustrations and coloured map. 84s. African Wildlife by F. A. Roedelberger. 250 photographs, 24 in colour. 45s. The Private Life of the Rabbit by Ronald Lockley. Coloured frontispiece and half-tones. 25s. Birds of Prey by Philip Brown. British species; coloured frontispiece and half-tones. 25s. The Mammals of Arabia by David Harrison. Volume 1. Contains a general introduction and sections on insectivores, bats and primates. 7 gns. The Story of My Pelican by Albert Schweitzer. 35 illustra- tions. 10s. 6d. Brocky by Sylvia Shepherd. An astonishing story of a badger cub and its successful hand-rearing. 16 half-tones. 15s. The Highlands and Islands by F. Fraser Darling and J. Morton Boyd. A completely revised edition, with new illustrations, of Dr. Darling’s famous ‘New Naturalist’ volume. Illustrated. 30s. The Wild Life of India by E. P. Gee. Illustrated with 76 plates, 12 in colour; 192 pages. 30s. Please address all enquiries to The Manager, Witherby’s Bookshop 61/62 Watling Street, London, E.C.4 or telephone City 5405 ALL BOOKS SENT POST FREE Published by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds on 7th December BIRDS AND GREEN PLACES A selection from the works of W. H. Hudson In choosing examples for this volume, P. E. Brown and P. H. T. Hartley have confined themselves to the descriptive writings of the English scene and its birds and beasts, insects and flowers. These selections include the cream of Hudson’s writings. In addition, the spirit of the author’s prose has been beautifully captured in 17 delightful drawings by Robert Gillmor. A companion volume to the Bird Notes Bedside Book An ideal present for Christmas Price 11s post free Order now from: R.S.P.B., The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire Printed in England by Diemer & Reynolds Ltd., Eastcotts Road, Bedford Published by H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Watling Sticet, E.C.4 British Birds Principal Contents Crossbills in Britain and Ireland in 1963 Peter Davis British bird-photographers : 3 — J. B. and S. Bottomley (with eight plates) The influx of Cranes in October 1963 D. D. Harber Pallas’s Warblers in Britain in 1963 R. E. Scott Notes Reviews News and comment Recent reports Vol. 57 No. 12 December 1964 * THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE British Birds AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY JOURNAL Editors Stanley Cramp, I. J. Ferguson-Lees, P. A. D. Hollom, E. M. Nicholson Photographic Editor Eric Hosking Editorial Address 30 St. Leonard’s Avenue, Bedford ' News and Comment’ Rarities Committee Raymond Cordero D. D. Harber Rohan Lodge, Wadhurst Park 59 Eridge Road Wadhurst, Sussex Eastbourne, Sussex i Contents of Volume 57, Number 12, December 1964 Crossbills in Britain and Ireland in 1963. By Peter Davis British bird-photographers: 3 — J. B. and S. Bottomley (plates 69-76) The influx of Cranes in October 1963. By D. D. Harber .. Pallas’s Warblers in Britain in 1963. By R. E. Scott Page 477 501 | 502 | 508 Notes: — Apparent anting by Kestrel (Victor F. Brown) Spur-winged Plovers wetting their feathers before incubating (Roy Crossley) Lesser Black-backed Gulls breeding in Nottinghamshire (A. Dobbs) Feral Pigeons nesting in tree (Miss Phyllis Barclay-Smith) Cetti’s Warblers in Jersey (J. H. Richards and R. Long) . . Parrot Crossbills wintering in Lincolnshire (K. Atkin) 5i4 5U 516 517 517 518 Reviews : — The Black-tailed Godmt, by F. Haverschmidt. Reviewed by Miss Terry Gompertz .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ,, .. 519 Pesticides and the Eiving Eandscape, by Robert L. Rudd. Reviewed by Stanley Cramp .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 320 News and comment. Edited by Raymond Cordero .. .. .. .. 522 Recent reports. By I. J. Fcrguson-Lces 323 Annual subscription £2 6s. (including postage and despatch) payable to H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Wading Street, London, E.C.4 British Birds Vol. 57 No. 12 December 1964 Crossbills in Britain and Ireland in 1963 By Peter Davis British Trust for Ornithology The irruptions of Crossbills Loxia spp. into Britain in the summer and autumn of 1962 were described by Williamson (1963a), the account being supplemented by a list of records up to the end of the year (Williamson 1963b). The midsummer arrivals, mainly in late June and July, took place at the same time of year as all previous recorded large- scale incursions into this country, and the birds involved were Common Crossbills L. c. currirostra. The situation in late September and October, when there was renewed movement on a considerable scale, was apparently without precedent in Britain; not only because of the lateness of the arrivals, but also because many of the birds (at any rate in the northern half of the country) were Parrot Crossbills L. pytjopsit- tacus. At Fair Isle the great majority were of the large-billed species (Davis 1963); specimens were also taken at two places in Shetland, in Lewis (Outer Hebrides) and at Spurn (Yorkshire) and Tetney (Lincolnshire), and there were many sight-records of suspected Parrot Crossbills else- where. Crossbills certainly increased in southern England at the same period, but it is not known if Parrot Crossbills reached the south in October. The only evidence that they penetrated south of Lincoln came from the discovery of at least one and probably four at Wisley (Surrey) between 23rd April and 15th May 1963, one female being trapped. A party at Brandon (Suffolk) on 2nd December 1962 was believed to be of this species. Even further north, the Parrot Cross- bills were identified on few occasions after the October influx. How- ever, some weak individuals are said to have been caged on Foula in autumn and to have stayed on the island for some time after their release in spring; up to nine were found in January 1963 near Lincoln where two were found dead and two more staved as late as 25 th Mav 477 BRITISH BIRDS (see pages 518-519); and two appeared on Fair Isle on 20th March. About 20 Crossbills at Cushendall (Co. Antrim) on nth April were thought to be Parrot Crossbills. Apart from these records, there is a complete lack of definite information on the status of the Parrot Crossbill in the winter and spring of 1963; but it will be appreciated that the specific identity of many of the wintering birds referred to in tills paper remains in doubt. The purpose of the present paper is to record the developments in die early part of 1963, and to describe a further large invasion of Common Crossbills from Europe during the summer of that year. The records used have resulted from a wide response to appeals for information in this journal and elsewhere, and from a search of local bulletins and reports. The co-operation of both private individuals and local or county recorders, too numerous to mention by name, is much appreciated. Unfortunately some recorders were unable to provide data in advance of publication of their reports, so that the fist of records will not be quite complete. It was considered undesirable, however, that the appearance of this summary should be delayed until all reports could be consulted (possibly a matter of two or three years in some cases !). The first part of the paper deals with the distribution of Crossbills in Britain during the year, while the second discusses the possible origins of the 1963 invasion and various other problems. CROSSBILL DISTRIBUTION IN I 9 6 3 Winter records Crossbills have been known to breed occasionally in all winter months, but the only evidence of winter breeding in 1962-63, even of the most circumstantial kind, comes from one locality in Norfolk; and in view of the severity of the weather in January and February, it is perhaps unlikely that many attempts were made. Records up to early March are assumed to have referred to wintering birds not engaged in breed- ing. Williamson (1963b) listed thirty-four localities where Crossbills were seen in December 1962, and it is now known that some were present in at least fifteen other places up to the end of the year. Several of these localities are within ten miles of each other, and it is probable that some interchange occurred. If these are grouped into ‘areas’, then Crossbills were reported from 43 areas up to the end of 1962 and birds continued to be seen in 3 3 of them during the early weeks of s 1963. Some of the others were not searched, because of the deep j) snow that covered much of the country from late December to late [I February. In January and February Crossbills were located in 31 further areas (many not visited earlier in the winter), making 62 in all. These were distributed as follows: Bedfordshire, Berkshire (four), 478 CROSSBILLS IN I 9 6 3 Buckinghamshire (two), Derbyshire, Devon, Dorset, Essex (two), Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Herefordshire (three), Huntingdonshire, Kent (two), Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire (two), Northum- berland (three), Nottinghamshire (two), Oxfordshire, Rutland, Shropshire (two), Somerset, Staffordshire, Suffolk (two), Surrey, Sussex (three), Warwickshire (three), Westmorland, Wiltshire (two) and Yorkshire (four); Anglesey (two), Breconshire, Denbigh, and Glamorgan; Angus, East Lothian, Fife, Midlothian, and Ross (Black Isle); and Cos. Wexford and Wicklow. This list excludes areas within the normal range of the Scottish Crossbill L. c. scotica. Birds were found in ten other areas in the first half of March: Cheshire, Gloucestershire (two), Kent, Norfolk, Nottinghamshire, Surrey and Yorkshire; and Berwickshire and Dumfries. Some at least of these may have been present earlier. The records evidently reflect the distribution of bird-watchers rather than of Crossbills, and there must have been many other winter sites in these and other counties. In particular, the extensive conifer plantations of the north and west are very poorly represented. The only record of really large numbers came from one such area, Dymock Forest in north-west Gloucestershire, where up to 500 Crossbills were present from December to March. From other areas there is no record of more than 70 and the average number seen in each locality in January-February was under ten. The counts in many areas were intermittent or casual, so that it is not possible to know when the Crossbills arrived or departed. There were, however, 27 areas where frequent observations are known to have been made from January onwards, at least until April, and where Crossbills were present in January and February. Three of these produced no birds after February, and five none after March, while two others (with no suspicion of breeding) lost their birds in early April. Many others produced fewer birds in March than earlier, the most spectacular decrease being at Dymock Forest, where none was seen in April. Some of this apparent decrease may have been merely the result of flocks breaking up into pairs, and perhaps behaving more secretively, but the reports suggest that some moved out of the winter areas with the approach of spring, and it may be that some returned to Europe. The only concrete evidence of emigration is, however, the record of two Parrot Crossbills (one trapped) at Fair Isle on 20th March — the only Crossbills ever recorded there between November and May. Reports of single birds at Reay (Caithness) on 17th March, and at Aberlady Bay (East Lothian) on 23 rd, may also refer to emigrants, and five moving east at Horndean Holt near Portsmouth (Hampshire) on 1 st April could have been on passage ; but there are no other rele- vant observations from the east or south coasts. There is, on the other hand, little to indicate that the ‘vanishing’ 479 BRITISH BIRDS birds moved into other parts of Britain. Excluding the four records mentioned in the previous paragraph, only three localities (in south- east Surrey and Yorkshire) well away from known winter sites had their first 1963 records in the second half of March, and only seven in the first half of April, although this is a period when bird-watchers are paying increasing attention to woodland habitats. Several of t these ‘new’ sites had not been visited earlier. Spring records Crossbills were observed on at least one occasion between 1st March and 31st May in 87 areas: Bedfordshire (two), Berkshire (four, one including parts of Surrey), Cheshire (two), Derbyshire, Devon (two), Dorset, Essex, Gloucestershire (five), Hampshire (three), Hereford- shire (two), Huntingdonshire, Kent (two), Lincolnshire, Norfolk (four), Northamptonshire (two), Northumberland (two), Nottingham- shire (three), Oxfordshire (two), Rutland, Shropshire (two), Somerset, Staffordshire (two), Suffolk (two), Surrey (five, one including parts of Hampshire and Sussex), Sussex (two), Warwickshire (two), Westmor- land, Wiltshire, Worcestershire and Yorkshire (seven); Anglesey, Breconshire and Denbigh; Angus, Berwickshire, Caithness, Dumfries, East Lothian (three), Fife, Kirkcudbright, Peebles, Ross and Shetland; and Cos. Antrim, Wexford and Wicklow. Twenty-nine of these areas produced only a single observation, but some were apparently seldom visited, and only in rare cases (such as the Caithness and Fair Isle records already mentioned) can the possi- bility of breeding somewhere in the vicinity be entirely excluded. However, it is certain that many of the birds present in spring did not breed. Several observers mentioned an excess of males in their areas, and Crossbills were seen in small flocks throughout the late winter and spring; a few of these flocks were reported to be composed entirely of ‘adult’ birds (i.e., no streaked juveniles of the year), but most could not be closely or completely examined. The average number of birds in all parties counted was over six (the likely maximum for family- groups) at all times. Breeding was established, or strongly suspected, in 21 areas involv- ing 17 counties. This is a disappointingly low number, when com- pared with the results from some other invasions in this century, but probably less skill and enthusiasm is now devoted to nest-finding than was formerly the case, and egg-collectors now work in secrecy and cannot publish their results. There is, however, some evidence that food (mainly the seeds of conifers) was not particularly abundant in 1963, and this may have resulted in only a small part of the Crossbill population attempting to breed (see appendix B). The records available suggest that few eggs were laid in March, most in April, and some in May, and that the latest broods were fledged 480 CROSSBILLS IN I 9 6 3 before the end of June; but they are too few to permit any satisfactory conclusions. Full details of each breeding-record are given in appen- dix A. From late April or early May to late June, the number of areas from which Crossbills were reported progressively decreased. They were seen in 42 areas in early April, 34 in late April, 33 in early May, 24 in late May, 20 in early June and only twelve in late June. The figures exclude four areas where birds are stated to have been present ‘all year’, without detailed information. Probably much of this apparent de- crease was due to increasing neglect of woodland areas by bird- watchers. There is, on the other hand, some evidence of dispersal during the period of apparent decrease, though none of emigration. Only a dozen localities which had birds in April are known to have been searched regularly later, but two of these lost their birds after late April, two in mid-May and one in early June. In the first week of June a party appeared at Andreas (Isle of Man); others at Havering- atte-Bower (Essex) on the 4th and 9th; at Boar’s Hill (near Oxford) on the 4th, 6th and 7th; all of these being first records for the year, and the last two localities frequently examined earlier. A bird reached Fair Isle on 23 rd June, perhaps the forerunner of the new invasion, though it might equally well have moved north from Britain. It is interesting to note that the period of apparent decrease or dis- persal coincided with a change in recorded food-preferences, with larch replacing pine as the preferred habitat (see appendix B). This change-over may have been partly responsible for the ‘disappearance’ of Crossbills from some areas, particularly as many of these were in the parts of south-east England where pine predominates. The 1963 invasion: July The number of areas reporting Crossbills rose in early July to about 24. The majority were areas where Crossbills had been present in spring, but had not been recorded in June or, in a few cases, in May or June; most of these records presumably described re-discoveries rather than new arrivals. Most of the remainder, concerning about seven ‘new’ localities in England, probably referred to ‘resident’ birds also, but 24 Crossbills moving west at West Runton on the North Norfolk coast on the 10th could have been fresh immigrants and there were certainly arrivals in Shetland from nth. At Fair Isle three were seen on the nth, a party of 34 passed south on the 13th, and two were present to the 17th; at Foula up to three were present from the 13th; and in Unst one on the 14th and two on the 16th. On the Shetland Main- land, two were seen in Lerwick on the 16th, 25 next day and three on the 20th; several at Kergord on the 19th; and about ten at Levenwick in the same period. In Orkney, there were records in various parts of Mainland in late July, including five in Kirkwall on the 20th; also in 481 BRITISH BIRDS Hoy; and one came aboard a vessel off Sanday on the 27th. Mean- while Fair Isle had had odd birds on the 22nd-23rd and eight on the 27th; one or two remained there to the end of the month. Elsewhere in Scotland, one came aboard M. V. St. Clair off Buchan on the evening of the 29th and three were present at the Isle of May when the obser- vatory reopened on the 3 1 st. Apart from these Scottish records, there were reports from about 2 5 areas in England and Wales in the second half of July. Several of these suggested movement, though it was usually uncertain if this involved ‘British’ birds or recent arrivals from the Continent. In eastern England, an isolated family party near Newark (Nottingham- shire) was joined by eight other birds on the 1 8th ; on the 20th eight appeared at Havering-atte-Bower (Essex) and one passed west at Clev (Norfolk); forty were discovered in Busby Woods (north-east York- shire) on the 28th. In Berkshire and Oxford small numbers appeared in three localities where none had been seen since early spring, between 24th and 29th July. Three were noted in a ‘new’ locality in east Surrey and one at Selsey Bill (Sussex) on the 21st; twelve at Maiden Bradley (Wiltshire) on the 27th; and five passed west at Havant, near Portsmouth, on the 29th. There was good evidence of movement in the south-west in the reported arrival of four on the 25 th at Lundy (Devon), where seven were seen on the 27th and fewer to the 29th. Fifteen were found by the River Erme in south Devon (well away from the only known summering-area in the county) on the 28th. Three appeared at Newborough Warren (Anglesey) on the same day, the first since February. Whatever the origin of these birds, it is most un- likely that there were any large arrivals from Europe before the end of July. August The main immigration began in early August and by mid-month there had been records in about 67 areas, or more than twice the number where birds were seen in late July. Records from the east coast migration-stations begin with twelve at Minsmere (Suffolk) on the 1st, and next day there were occurrences at Holme (two) and Wells (13) in Norfolk, Spurn (17), Fair Isle (nine) and Unst (six). On the 3rd more appeared at Spurn (35), and three at the Isle of May, one on the Inner Fame (Northumberland) and one at Cley; while on the 4th the scores increased at Foula (16), Fair Isle (15), Isle of May (84), Spurn (41) and Cley (twelve), with other records from :> Flamborough Head (Yorkshire) and inland localities in south-east Yorkshire. Thus immigration occurred along the greater part of the ' North Sea coast in the first days of August and records from various localities in south-east England suggested that there were simultaneous arrivals at least as far west as Sussex. These included observations at CROSSBILLS IN I 9 6 3 Margaretting (Essex) from the 2nd (32 on the 3rd), at Cranbrook and Pett’s Wood (Kent) and at Marley Common (Surrey) on the 4th, and reports of 1 5 moving north-west at Havering (Essex), others in Epping Forest and Berechurch in the same county, and eleven passing north at Lullington Heath (Sussex) on the 5th. Various reports from areas further west suggested that new birds had arrived there before the end of the first week of August: 40 at Maiden Bradley (Wiltshire) on the 3rd; 36 at Plym Forest (South Devon), parties totalling 74 in various parts of the New Forest (Hampshire) and 40 near Ambleside (Lancashire) on the 4th; and a big increase to 60-100 at the Myarth (Breconshire) on the 5 th; all these have no parallel in the reports from July or earlier. It should be remembered, however, that 3rd-5th August was Bank Holiday week-end, with more opportunity for amateur observers to make their contribution. From 5 th- 10th August the east-coast stations from the Isle of May southwards produced little evidence of Crossbill passage, but move- ment evidently continued in the north. D. G. Bell made the crossing from Newcastle to Oslo on the 7th-8th, and saw four flying west on the evening of the 7th and 41 next morning. The Fair Isle totals increased slowly until about 40 were present on the 10th and there were arrivals in Orkney, including four birds at Rendall on the 7th and three at Pentland Skerries on the 8th. There was some indication that the westward spread in southern England also continued during these days : reported movements were of ten to the west at Havant on the 6th, twelve to the west at Silwood Park (Berkshire) on the 8th, one or two to the north-west at Havering on the 9th and 10th, and seven to the north-west in the New Forest on the 9th, while three appeared in Regent’s Park (London) on the 10th. There were also records in several ‘new’ areas, including Crediton (north-east Devon), during the same few days. Five occurred on St. Kilda from 5th to 7th August. There were few reports on Saturday the 10th but many on Sunday the nth. Presumably most of these represented the aggregations of the previous five or six days, now discovered for the first time, but this was not the whole story, for some increases were at stations where a daily watch is kept, and some birds elsewhere were on the move. On this day there were probably a few new birds at the Isle of May and certainly more at Spurn (21); also one at Walberswick and eight moving north-west at Havering. Thirty passed north at Beachy Head. Reports of unusual numbers, or appearances in new localities, came from west Yorkshire, south-west Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire (100 at Bagley Wood), Surrey, Hereford- shire and Co. Wicklow. The last, and a record of two at Lough Deg (Co. Londonderry) on the 12th, were the only Irish records in August. In the far north, there was some sign of an increase at Foula (22) and 483 BRITISH BIRDS I was told of ‘hundreds’ gathered at Sumburgh Head, the southern- most point of Shetland, on the nth. Probably some of these had crossed to Fair Isle by the 12th, when there were about 150 on the island; at least as many remained next day. From i2th-i4th August there were no reports of arrivals on the east coast, and few of movement inland. At Silwood Park (Berkshire) parties moved south-east or west on the 12th and 15 th, and at Marley Common (Surrey) the regular counts showed a maximum of 5 2 on the 14th. Three new areas in Dorset and south Devon were added on the 1 2th or 13th, and parties occurred at Sedbergh (north-west Yorkshire) on the 1 2th and at Colonsay (Argyll) from the 15 th. The last of the early August birds at the Isle of May and Spurn were seen on the 14th, but next day there were signs of fresh arrivals ; at other east-coast localities: two at Bempton (Yorkshire) and five at Minsmere. On the 1 6th six moved east at Cley, and on the 1 7th there were seven at Hartlepool (Co. Durham) and three near-by at Tees- mouth. The autumn maximum at Foula was 40 on the 16th, but this ! may not have represented a new arrival; the Fair Isle population was static at around 100 from the 14th to 18th, and from the 18th to 22nd the numbers on both islands steadily decreased. Meanwhile, there had been a considerable fall at Spurn on the 18th (40), when five appeared at Gibraltar Point (Lincolnshire), three were seen near Cley, and one moved south at Havering. This was followed by a passage of twelve at Flamborough on the 19th, when nine moved south at Morston, near Cley. A few passed west at Cley on the 21st, and nine to the south-east at Havering on the 22nd; all these records suggesting a fairly continuous trickle of new arrivals in the week from the 16th. Records from inland and south coast sites carried the same implication; birds were seen in ‘new’ areas in Derbyshire on the 1 7th, south Dorset, Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, and Monmouth on the 18th (Sunday), Oxfordshire on the 19th and Buckinghamshire (over 100 at Black Park) on the 20th, and by the 23rd in Gloucestershire and at two localities in south-east Devon, including 100 at Clifford Bridge. In the same period there were recorded movements of small parties to the west or north-west in the New Forest on the 17th, at Beachy Head (Sussex) on the 19th and 21st, and 24 passed SSW over Bretton Park (west Yorkshire) on the 22nd. D. G. Bell recorded 45 Crossbills moving west in mid-crossing from c Oslo to Newcastle on the 22nd, and on the 23rd there were new 1 arrivals at hair Isle (70, compared with 20 on the 22nd) and Foula, 1 where seven flew in from the east. Saturdav the 24th produced small 1 numbers at Flamborough, at three places on the Humber shore between Spurn and Hull (Yorkshire), and on the 25th there were odd birds at West Runton (Norfolk) and Minsmere, six at Havering, ten at Beachy Head, as well as 1 5 at Mull (Argyll), and seven passed north- 484 CROSSBILLS IN 1963 west at Weston Turville (Buckinghamshire). On the 27th movements were noted at Gibraltar Point (eight to the south-west) and in the Isle of Man, where 21 passed north at the Calf and three came off the sea at Laxey Bay. On the 28th six moved north-west at Havering, three west at Aldwick Bay (west Sussex) and 1 5 west near Havant. There was evidently a sizeable arrival in north Norfolk on 29th August, with 40 at West Runton, 30 near Cley and 16 seen approaching from the north at Holme, and some were still present at all three localities on the 30th, also three at Minsmere. A few appeared at Eilean an Roin Mor (Sutherland) at this period. There was probably some immigration at Fair Isle about the same time: only 15 were found on the 27th-28th, but at least 30 by the 30th. On the 31st there were records of small parties in Unst (the ffrst for two weeks), at Rattray Head (Aberdeenshire), Seaton Sluice (Nothumberland), Flamborough and probably odd new birds at Spurn, while five came off' the sea at Minsmere. Other new records in the last days of August came from Grizedale (Lancashire) and Bramfield Forest (Hertfordshire) on the 29th, and Burton (Cheshire) on the 31st. Numbers in the New Forest were reported to be ‘falling off’ at this time, and I am informed that there were several records of westerly movement in east Dorset from the 30th into early September. Altogether, there were records from 62 areas in the second half of August, and from about 96 during the whole month. September and later Very small arrivals continued on the east coast in early September, but there was nothing comparable with the August figures. At Fair Isle there was probably some increase between 31st August (27) and 2nd September (40) ; and two were seen at Tingwall in Shetland on the 1st. Five arrived at the Isle of Mav on the 2nd, and there were twelve there on the 3rd, while up to three were recorded at each of four places on the Northumberland coast between the 1st and 3rd. There were no obvious arrivals at Flamborough or Spurn at this time — a few were present until the 4th or 5 th — but singles occurred at Holme on the 2nd and Gibraltar Point on the 5 th, and eight at Minsmere on the 4th. At Havering two passed north-east on the 1st. There was a note of two at Finstown (Orkney) on the 6th, at a time when the Fair Isle population was steady at 35 birds. Elsewhere in Britain, the westerly penetration appears to have continued on a reduced scale. Three at Cape Clear (Co. Cork) on the 1 st were the first records for the island, and indeed the only September report from Ireland which had received considerable numbers of Crossbills in 1962 but apparently saw little of the 1963 invasion. In the Yswvth valley (Cardiganshire), where observations had been in progress since 10th August, the first Crossbills recorded were on the 485 BRITISH BIRDS 3rd; up to 32 were then seen daily for the following week. Two passed over Newborough (Anglesey) on the 5 th. Light passage con- tinued on the south coast of England, with up to three at Selsey Bill on the 2nd, 7th and 15 th, one or two (moving west) at Beachy Head on the 7th, 10th, 1 2th, and 14th, and eleven passing west at Havant (Hampshire) on the 4th. The only inland movements reported con- cerned a single bird at Havering on the 8th and twelve at Virginia Water (Surrey) on the 9th, all going north-west; but considerable numbers had appeared in Hertfordshire and Wiltshire by the 5th-7th, and other sizeable parties were found as far west as Somerset about this time. A good many of the 48 areas which yielded reports in early September were, however, localities where birds had already been noted in August. A last run of records at Spurn began on nth September, and up to four were present on most days until the 30th, with eight on the 22nd; up to eight occurred at Seaton Sluice, on the Northumberland coast, from the 12th; and there were singles at Sandwich Bay on the 20th and 22nd. Apart from these, there is no further evidence of immigra- tion on the east coast. The Fair Isle numbers dwindled slowly until daily occurrences ceased on 13th October; and no other observatory reported Crossbills in October. A straggler appeared at Fair Isle on 24th October and another on 2nd November, and there was also one at Spurn on 10th November while two were seen in Lerwick (Shetland) on 1st November. Eight passed west at Gilkicker Point (Hampshire) on 1 8th October, but this was the only report of movement in any south coast locality after mid-September. The resident population in autumn Substantial numbers of Crossbills remained in Britain after the main immigrations had ended in mid-September. The records for the rest of the year indicated some wandering within the country, mainly towards the west, but there were no reports of emigration. In the absence of regular counts from most localities, it is not possible to make direct comparisons with 1962, but my impression is that con- siderably larger numbers were resident than was the case a year > earlier, particularly in the west of England. There were, however, 1 no reports from Ireland after early September. From mid-September until the end of the year I have records from 102 areas, distributed as follows: Bedfordshire, Berkshire (seven, one including part of Oxfordshire and another a part of Surrey), Buck- 1 inghamshire (two), Cheshire (three), Cumberland, Derbyshire, I Devon (five), Essex (five), Gloucestershire (four), Hampshire (two), Herefordshire (four), Hertfordshire (three), Kent (eight), Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire (two), Northumberland, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire (three), Rutland, 486 CROSSBILLS IN I 9 6 3 Shropshire (two), Somerset (four), Staffordshire (three), Suffolk, Surrey (four, one including part of Sussex), Sussex, Warwickshire, Wiltshire (two), Worcestershire (three), and Yorkshire (eight); Anglesey, Breconshire (two), Caernarvonshire, Glamorgan (four) and Monmouth; and Kirkcudbright, Lewis, Shetland (three) and Wigtown- shire. Presumably there were also birds in two areas where Crossbills have been established for many years, Breckland (Norfolk and Suffolk) and Dorset, but no details are available. Crossbills were seen in 35 of these areas in late September, in 52 in October, in 50 in November and in 50 in December. The regional distribution of the records did not change markedly in the period, but there were several indications of increasing numbers in the west throughout the autumn. In Herefordshire ‘numbers increased and became widespread in October’ and remained high later; in Glouces- tershire none was seen in the Rendcomb area until 20th November, then about 20 were resident, and at Dymock Forest many arrived in late December, up to 1,000 being seen early in 1964. In Somerset Crossbills were first recorded at Blagdon Reservoir on 1 6th November and there were up to 30 there by mid-December, while in the Butleigh- Copley area up to 25 were seen from late November. In Devon small flocks appeared in the Fernworthy area from November onwards; and in Glamorgan up to 22 were resident at Welsh St. Donats from 10th November. The few records of flight-directions in October-Decem- ber tend to confirm a westward shift: small westerly movements were noted in Hampshire in mid-October and late December, and in west Sussex in November, while southerly movements were recorded at Havering (Essex) on 12th October and at Hilbre (Cheshire) on 8th December. The only report of a flight-direction with an easterly or northerly component came from Staffordshire on 27th October. There were, however, few indications of decrease in the eastern half of England; populations in areas frequently examined appear to have been fairly steady. ORIGINS AND COURSE OF THE I 9 6 3 INVASION Movements in Europe Correspondents in various countries of northern and western Europe have generously supplied information on Crossbill movements in their respective areas. Prof. E. Kumari of the Baltic Commission for the Study of Bird Migration states that in Estonia and Latvia there were no considerable movements of Crossbills in the summer or autumn of 1963. Small groups appeared more frequently from i8th-2ist June, as in most years, and occurred widely until late August when numbers diminished; few were seen in September and very few later. The same corres- pondent mentions that there was more pronounced activity in the 487 BRITISH BIRDS region of Leningrad and eastern Karelia, reaching its climax on 21st- 2 5 th September, and that a similar pattern was shown at R ybachj ornitholo- gical station (formerly Rossitten) in the Lithuanian S.S.R. He con- cludes that Plstonia and Latvia were by-passed during these late movements. The situation in the Baltic countries ‘does not coincide with that of Czechoslovakia and the German D.R., where a great invasion was registered in June and July 1963’. In the Karkonosze mountains (Riesengebirge) in south-west Poland, according to Dr. A. Dyrcz, Crossbills had a successful breeding-season following a very rich crop of spruce-seed in 1962/63, and many parties of independent young were seen at midsummer. There was, however, no evidence of a fresh invasion from outside the area up to the time when regular observations ceased on 10th August. From Sweden, information has been sent by Dr. Kai Curry-Lindahl from Revsudden on the east coast opposite Oland (R. Edberg), from Ottenby (A. Larsson) and from Hammaro bird-station (= Skagen) at the north end of Lake Vanern in western Sweden (B. Ehrenroth). At Ottenby observatory, on the island of Oland, Crossbills occurred in only very small numbers throughout the autumn, except for a passage of 120 on 8th August. Jan W. Mascher has also forwarded the Hammaro data, and supplied detailed figures from the Falsterbo observatory at the extreme south of the country (G. Roos). At Revsudden there were no Crossbill movements before late August, then only a very light passage which reached its peak in mid-October (15 on the 13th, 30 on the 15th, 13 on the 16th). At Hawmaro the passage was much more pronounced: 234 passed on 29th June, but no comparable movements were seen during intermittent observations to mid-August. There was some revival in the second half of August (a total of 199 birds during eight davs of observations between the 20th and 31st), but few passed in early September. Strong passage took place in late September and early October, however, with totals of 462, 422, 265 and 658 in the four weeks from 15th September to 1 2th October. Few occurred later. At Falsterbo the pattern was very different ; some passage occurred from 30th June and in early July (max- imum 34 on the 4th), up to 50 were seen in the last week of July, then on 2nd August came the peak movement of 1,410 birds. Daily totals of up to 200 were frequent throughout August, and greater numbers were seen on the 17th (820), the 19th (338) and especially the 27th (1,130). Passage continued on a smaller scale in September, and revived in October, the maxima being 131, 218 and 134 on the 5 th- 7th, 147 on the 14th, 249 on the 19th and 200 on the 23rd. Only small numbers were seen later. At Revfangen , in south-west Norway, according to a letter from Dr. H. Holgersen, Crossbills were on the move in small numbers from mid-July, increasing towards the end of the month; a striking increase 488 CROSSBILLS IN I 9 6 3 occurred in the first days of August, 29 being trapped on the 3rd and over 150 present on the 5th. Smaller numbers, with no marked arrivals, were seen throughout the autumn. In all, 301 L. curvirostra and 20 L. pytyopsittacus were ringed, compared with 353 and 104 respectively in the same period of 1962. In north-west Germany (region of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, and Ltibeck) the reports of R. Schlenker and J. Dien indicate that only small numbers of Crossbills were recorded in June and that, though there were more in July, the main arrivals occurred in August (a total of over 800 reported), the numbers then declining in September (350) * and October (180) and few remaining in November and December. P. J. Wilkinson was in Bremerhaven from mid-June to the end of July; his first record of Crossbills was of four or five on 17th Julv, followed by two or three on the 20th and 27th, seven moving west on the 28th and ten south on the 30th. M. J. Tekke of the Nederlands Ornithologische Unie has provided a full list of records in Holland, produced with great efficiency and promptitude by the organisation’s data-processing system. Although ‘resident’ and migrant Crossbills are not distinguished in the list, an analysis of the occurrences makes it apparent that the pattern of move- ment was similar to that in north-west Germany, with reports totalling 33 birds in June, 83 in July (mainly late in the month), 751 in August (mainly the first half), 456 in September and only 5 5 in October. The number of separate observations was seven in June, twelve in July, 48 in August, 38 in September and 16 in October. An additional list of Crossbills in the district of The Hague, furnished by D. A. Vleugel, shows that small-scale migration along the coastal strip, headed mainly to the south-west, continued through September and much of October. For Belgium, a summary has been prepared by P. Herroelen and A. Rappe, and forwarded by P. Devillers. Over the whole country there were 14 observations in June, 45 in July, 57 in August, 32 in September and 16 in October, the birds being mainly in small groups with no record of more than 30. Recorded flight-directions during July to September were all between west and south. The authors sum up by saying that ‘in July, but above all in August, the invasion was general throughout Belgium’. For France, Erard (1964) has traced the generally south-westward progress of Crossbills through that country, showing that numbers entered north-eastern France at the same period as the main invasion of Belgium (mid-July through August). He refers to observations made by K. Westermann at Freiburg in the Black Forest (south-west Ger- manv), where some Crossbills arrived in late July, there were larger numbers from 13th August, and a September influx reached its peak about the i8th-22nd, though birds were frequent later; and connects these observations with those in eastern France, where large numbers 489 BRITISH BIRDS were ‘held’ by a line cone-crop and subsequently bred very successfully in 1964. One which had been ringed at Gibraltar Point (Lincolnshire) on 25 th August 1962 was recovered at Trois Fontaines (Dreibrunnen), about 25 miles WNW of Strasbourg, on 2nd October 1963; it is sad that we know nothing of its movements in the intervening year, but probably, like the Fair Isle bird in 1953 that was recovered six weeks later in Italy, it had not remained in Britain for the winter. Great movements were observed at Col de Bretolet on the Franco- Swiss border south-east of Geneva, mainly in the second and third weeks of July (believed to be an exodus of alpine breeders, which were numerous in 1963) and again in mid- August; 1,116 Crossbills were ringed there, although effective large-scale mist-netting was not started until after the second peak of movement! It is with this exodus that Erard links the main penetration of central and southern France. Several birds from Bretolet were subsequently recovered in the south (mainly between the Rhone and the Alps) and others in north-west Italy. At Tour du Valat observatory in the Rhone delta, Crossbills reached a peak between 13th and 20th August, and occurred in larger numbers from 25 th to 9th September. A westward spread across central France may also have occurred, and Erard refers to northward move- ments in Vendee on the Biscay coast as indicating an extension of this movement. There were also indications of movement towards Spain, at both ends of the Pyrenees. The extent to which the smaller stream from the direction of the Low Countries penetrated to the west and south-west could not be stated; there were few reports from the north- west and it may be that most birds halted in the extensive coniferous forests in the north, where the cone-crop was a rich one. There were, however, some southward movements in Morbihan in late July and early August, and a letter from Dr. J. S. Ash reports that Crossbills were moving south at the rate of 100 per hour on the Gironde coast on 5 th August. Several reports of Crossbills in north and east Spain from nth August are given in Ardeola (9 : 1 5 7-1 5 9) and the same issue lists three recoveries of foreign-ringed birds. Two ringed at Memmingen, Bavaria, on 13th July and 4th August 1963 were recovered respectively at Madrid on 27th October 1963 and near Barcelona on 2nd February 1964, while one ringed on the Swedish island of Gotland on 12th June 1962, was in Guadalajara province, east of Madrid, on 22nd January 1964. The first two show that Crossbills from central Fiurope moved far south-west, as in previous large invasions; a direct route from Mem- mingen to either recovery locality would pass very close to Bretolet. This information from Europe, though not so comprehensive as one could wish, shows that considerable Crossbill movements occurred in most of north-west Europe, from Stavanger and Falsterbo to northern 1 ranee, at the same period as the main arrivals in Britain. The large 490 CROSSBILLS IN I 9 6 3 movements in late September and October in north-west Russia, at Rybachy, and in east and south Sweden appear not to have made any great impact further south-west, and there is no evidence that they reached this country. The cjuestion that arises is whether the main influx in north-west Europe and Britain represented an eruption from Scandinavia or a westward shift of part of the ‘great invasion’ recorded in Czechoslo- vakia and east Germany in June and July. In view of the negative reports from north-west Russia, the Baltic States and east Sweden in July and August, it is unlikely to have originated in, or traversed, that part of northern Europe, the probable source of the midsummer movements of 1962 (see Williamson 1963a). The available records do not permit a complete solution of this problem and the Crossbills arriving in Britain may have derived from more than one area, especially those in southern England; but the evidence appears to favour the view that most came from Scandinavia. This evidence may be itemised as follows: (1) The earliest significant arrivals in Britain occurred in mid-July in the Northern Isles; the 34 at Fair Isle on 13th July were moving south. The largest numbers in the first big wave in early August were also apparently in Scotland and north-east England. By contrast, the invaders of 1962, which were believed to have traversed central Europe, first appeared in numbers in south-east England. (2) The observations made bv D. G. Bell on the North Sea crossing from Newcastle to Oslo supply visual evidence of movement from southern Scandinavia towards Britain. (3) The peak movements recorded at Stavanger and Falsterbo, in the first days of August, preceded those in Holland (and probably also those in north-west Germany) as well as the first large influx in Britain. (4) If the large early-August passage seen at Stavanger and Falsterbo derived from central or eastern Europe rather than from the hinterland of Scandinavia, it is surprising that no corresponding movements were observed at Rybachy or at Revsudden and Ottenby in south-east Sweden. (5) The timing of the main passage at Freiburg and Bretolet, and in eastern and central France, suggests that Crossbills moved out of central Europe from mid-August, after the peak movements in the north-west. The recoveries of birds ringed at Bretolet and in Bavaria suggest that this shift was to the south-west and south rather than to the west and north-west. (6) The Crossbill population in late autumn 1962 in Sweden was reported to be unusually high (Currv-Lindahl quoted by Williamson 1963a). The bulk of these birds had probably arrived from the east in early autumn, as the spruce-seed crop failed in Sweden in 1961 and local breeding cannot have been very successful in 1962. The crop 491 BRITISH BIRDS was a little better, though not good, in 1962, so that a considerable population could be maintained into 1963; but another crop-failure occurred in 1963 (Dr. K. Curry-Lindahl in lift.). Additional evidence of a high population-level in Scandinavia in autumn 1962 was given by the catch at Stavanger (353 L. curvirostra and 104 L. pytyopsittacus ), which was exceptionally high. Thus the situation in Scandinavia seems to fit with the theories of Svardson (1957) in that the Crossbill population was probably fairly high in the winter of 1962-63 but a food-shortage would arise in the spring and summer of 1963 and an exodus from Scandinavia would be expected. It should be mentioned at this stage that the age-ratios of birds trapped at Stavanger and Fair Isle, as well as elsewhere in Britain at the time of the main immigrations, suggest that the erupting population had not bred successfully in 1963. At Stavanger a sample of 72 birds taken in August 1963 contained 40 adults, ten ‘immatures’ (Pfirst-summer birds) and only 22 juveniles. At Fair Isle the ratio was even more markedly in favour of adults (including first-summer), the birds trapped comprising 69 adult males, 48 adult females and only nine birds of the year. Similarly, at Spurn the catch was composed of eight adult males, five adult females (plus one ‘full-grown’) and only two juveniles; while at the Isle of May one adult male, five adult females and only two birds of the year were caught. A sample taken bv Ian Newton at Wytham Wood, near Oxford, on 26th-27th October 1963 contained 14 adults and only one juvenile. The age-ratio at these four British localities (the only ones where more than odd birds were trapped) is therefore 150:14, which suggests an almost complete failure to breed in 1963. These figures contrast markedly with those of the only previous large British sample of trapped Crossbills, taken at Fair Isle in 1953; then the figures were 17 adult males, 37 adult females and 45 juveniles. A series of small catches in the invasions of 1958, 1959 and 1962 gave four adult males, five adult females and eight juveniles, similar proportions to the 1953 figures. It seems clear that in 1953 the irruption followed successful breeding, while in 1963 it did not. It is generally accepted that high density in relation to food-supply is the immediate cause of eruption behaviour, and presumably this situation can arise either by an exces- sive increase through successful breeding or by excessive failure of the food-crop, so that it becomes insufficient to maintain a population which has not bred successfully; the former situation would fit the 1953 figures and the latter the 1963 ones. (7) The meteorological situation in the North Sea area, at the time of most of the arrivals recorded in eastern Britain, appears to have been more favourable to movement out of Scandinavia than from central Europe. The weather-situation at the time of the main observed arrivals in Britain is briefly described below. / ith-i)th July (arrivals in Shetland and Fair Isle). On the ioth/nth a 492 CROSSBILLS IN I 9 6 3 shallow depression lay over the extreme south of Scandinavia; this drifted slowly north on the n/i2th. Throughout the period the weather was fair in western Norway, with light north-east to north winds ; a broad trough lay across north-west Europe and the southern half of the North Sea, with westerly winds and extensive cloud-cover. Movement from any area south of the Skagerrak seems improbable. jst-jth August (arrivals from Shetland to Norfolk). An anticyclone moved ENE across Britain on the 25th/27th July and high pressure was established over Scandinavia by the 27th/28th. This intensified and covered much of Europe from north Russia to France by the 28th- 29th, then declined on the 3 ist-ist and shifted east. A weak low- pressure system moved slowly from the west to affect all the maritime regions of west and north-west Europe on the 3ist-ist, but mainly fair weather with light easterlies persisted across Germany and the southern half of the North Sea, and there were calm conditions or light northerly winds in the area between south-west Norway and Scotland, behind one of the shallow low centres off Denmark. The big passage at Falsterbo on the 2nd took place in the southerly air- stream (with broken cloud) ahead of this centre, which filled by the 3rd, and was succeeded by fair weather in Scandinavia with light easterlies in the North Sea as far north as northern Scotland and south-west Norway. Thus the situation is not conclusive with regard to the origin of the Crossbills which crossed the North Sea at this period. Conditions in late July over Scandinavia could well have stimulated an exodus from there, and the main movements at Falsterbo and Stavanger coincided with a deterioration in these conditions ; but the weather was equally suitable for westward movement out of Germany. The falls in eastern Britain really began on the 2nd and reached their culmination on the 3rd at Spurn and the Isle of May and on the 4th in Norfolk and Shetland; during the period of easterly wind across much of the North Sea. ?tb-8th August (mid-North Sea passage observed by D. G. Bell). These movements took place at a time when conditions were fair in Scandinavia but poor in north-west Germany, with rain and overcast, and were probably an upwind departure from south-west Norway. nth- 1 2th August (widespread arrivals from Sussex north to Shetland). These movements occurred in very unsettled weather on the ioth/i ith, with low centres over Norway and over the North Sea near Denmark, and troughs across Britain and north-west Europe with extensive cloud-cover and some rain. Movements to the east coast possibly had their origin in south-west Norway, where there was broken cloud- cover and some easterlv wind on the north side of the low centre off Denmark. The birds moving north at Beachy Head may have crossed the English Channel from France. i6th-iyth August (arrivals in Norfolk and north-east England). Ridge 493 BRITISH BIRDS weather over Scandinavia, more cloudy with fog patches in north-west Germany and the Low Countries; light south-west winds in the North Sea. Most likely an upwind passage from the north-east. 1 8th August (arrivals at Cley and Spurn). Pressure high over Scan- dinavia, low over the southern half of the North Sea and also across central Europe, where there was extensive cloud and rain. The birds probably moved in the north-east airstream between Scandinavia and eastern England. i<)th-2ist August (Norfolk). The North Sea low shifted slowly north on the i9th-2oth, resulting in a deterioration in southern Scandinavia and an improvement in conditions in the southern North Sea. Passage is most likely to have occurred in the light westerly airstream south of the depression, on the 20th or 21st. 22tid-2jrd August (passage in mid-crossing on the 22nd, arrival at Fair Isle on the 23rd). The low had filled oft' Denmark by early on the 22nd; there was fair weather in south-west Scandinavia although rainy overcast weather obtained further north, as also in Germany and central Europe. Winds in the northern half of the North Sea became fight easterly. 29th August (Norfolk). Mainly settled conditions over the North Sea basin, with a weak ridge over the western half of the area; unsettled, with rain, in extreme south Sweden and in north Germany. Winds were easterly in south Norway and north-east in the northern half of the North Sea south to Norfolk. As on the 18th, there would be no westward drift of birds heading west to south-west and this would explain an absence of arrivals further north. The various small arrivals between 3 1 st August and 4th September on the east coast coincided with a large ‘early September rush’ of night-migrants. These movements, which apparently originated in Scandinavia, were discussed in detail in Davis (1964). My conclusion from the evidence laid out above is that the invasion of Britain had its origin in Scandinavia and that most of the birds crossed direct from Scandinavia, though a proportion may have moved south-west on the Continental coast before crossing into Britain. If one accepts, however, that many of those present in Scandinavia in the winter of 1962/63 had earlier arrived from further east and had not bred with any great success in Scandinavia in 1963, it follows that many of the adult birds had been only temporary residents in Scandinavia, and came originally from northern Russia. The 1963 invasion would, for such birds, be simply an extension of a movement begun in the summer of 1962. It is probable that the 1963 invaders were not of the same local stock as those of 195 3, for a comparison of measurements taken at Fair Isle in the two years shows that the 1963 birds had stouter bills than those of 1953. The wing-measurements, on the other hand, were identical 494 CROSSBILLS IN I 9 6 3 Table 1. Wing and bill measurements in millimetres of Crossbills Loxia curvirostra at Fair Isle 1 95 3 1963 Adult dc? Wing-length 9I-IOI 90-102 (average 96) (average 96) Bill-depth IO. 5-12 11-13.5 (average 11) (average 12) No. in sample 17 69 Adult $9 Wing-length 89-99 89-99 (average 94) (average 94.5) Bill-depth IO-I2 II-I2.5 (average xi) (average 12) No. in sample 37 48 in the two years. The figures are given in table 1. Measurements obtained at Spurn in 1963 confirm that the immigrants were large-billed; there the eight adult males had bill-depths of 11-13 and the five adult females 10-13. So far as bill-depth (but not wing- length) is concerned, these 1963 birds fall midway between the 1953 sample and the measurements of Parrot Crossbills taken at Fair Isle in 1962 (see Davis 1963). The explanation of this variation remains obscure; possibly the birds could be of a hybrid stock, or be derived from the far eastern end of the Crossbill’s range, where the population tends to be somewhat larger (Vaurie 1959). It may be worth men- tioning that, according to G. Stout, the old collectors at Fair Isle believed that the bill-sizes of Crossbills varied in the several invasions that reached the island earlier in the century, some being composed of fine-billed and others of broad-billed individuals. There now seems to be some confirmation of this view. REFERENCES Davis, P. (1963): ‘The Parrot Crossbill irruption at Fair Isle’. Bird Migration, 2: 260-264. (1964): ‘Aspects of autumn migration at the bird observatories, 1963’. Bird Study, 11: 77-122. Erard, C. (1964): ‘L’invasion de bccs-croises Loxia curvirostra en France en 1963’. Alauda, 32: 105-128. Svardson, G. (1957): ‘The “invasion” type of bird migration’. Brit. Birds, 50: 314-343- Vaurie, C. (1959): The Birds of the Palearctic Fauna. London. Williamson, K. (1963a): ‘The summer and autumn Crossbill irruptions of 1962, Part I’. Bird Migration, 2: 252-260. - — (1963b): ‘The summer and autumn Crossbill irruptions of 1962, Part II’. Bird Migration, 2: 329-340. 495 BRITISH BIRDS Appendix A. Breeding-records of Crossbills in Britain in 1963 Crossbills were proved to breed, or strongly suspected to have bred, in the following areas: ENGLAND Bedfordshire, Sandy Lodge. Birds were present in the grounds of Sandy Lodge during the winter; two were seen gathering nest-material (shreds of bark) on 10th and 24th March. ‘Five or six pairs’ remained throughout the spring and parties of up to twelve birds were seen in early Junefprr F. D. Hamilton). Berkshire, Barkham Common. Crossbills were seen in this locality in all months, and breeding was reported, but no details are available ( Oxford Orn. Soc. Report). Berkshire/Surrey. There were fairly frequent reports of Crossbills in the general area of Ascot, Sunningdale, Sunninghill, Virginia Water and Bagshot throughout the year. The only direct evidence of breeding in the area is a report of a party of 30-40, including several juveniles, at Virginia Water on 5th May (E. E. Green). Males had been heard singing at Sunningdale on 24th March, near Ascot on 10th April and at Virginia Water on 25th April. Essex, near Little Baddow. Crossbills were seen in the area in January, February and April, and a juvenile observed on 7th July ( Essex Bird Report). Hampshire, Crookham, near Aldershot. Birds were seen frequently from January to June, but the only proof of breeding was a party of five birds, including three juveniles, on 23th May (N. H. Pratt). FIampshire, New Forest. Crossbills were seen frequently in many parts of the Forest throughout the year. Four nests were located in one area by D. A. Humph- reys, who has been studying the species in the New Forest for several years: (a) In Douglas fir, about 30-60 feet above ground; birds watched building on 24th March and two eggs on 5th April. (b) In pine; female building on 7th April and four eggs on 14th April. (c) In pine; female building on 7th April and three eggs on 14th and 15th April. (d) In larch; three eggs on 14th April. Several other pairs were suspected of breeding in the same part of the Forest. Mr. Humphreys remarks that he strongly suspected that the local population had been reinforced by incomers in 1963, as some showed an unusual tendency to feed in larch rather than in pine, and the nest in larch was most surprising. The only other reports indicating breeding in the area involved a fledged juvenile at North Oakley Inclosure on 19th May (D. F. Billett) and one begging food from adults near Bishop’s Dyke on the same day (G. A. Sutton). Hertfordshire. Birds were reported from several localities in the large area between St. Albans, Welwyn and Hertford throughout the year. One pair is reported to have nested successfully near Welwyn, at least one nest was seen, but not examined, in Bramfield Forest, and ‘possibly two pairs nested, young were seen’ at Panshangcr ( per T. W. Gladwin). Unfortunately no further details have been obtainable. Huntingdonshire, near Kimbolton. Crossbills were present here from October 1962 and throughout 1963. The gamekeeper in the woodland concerned told (.. F. Tebbutt that he saw young birds being fed out of the nest in the first week of July and later found a number of empty nests within a small area. The keeper, who knew the birds well from previous experience in the Thetford district of Norfolk, estimated that about ten pairs had bred. Norfolk, near Ilorsford. Crossbills were found in a pinewood near Horsford on 9th April, the first seen in this area during about five years of fairly frequent visits. 496 CROSSBILLS IN I 9 6 3 The birds were still present on 15th April, when it was seen that several were streaked juveniles, presumably birds of the year (G. R. South, M. J. Seago). Norfolk, Kelling. A pair watched feeding young on 3rd March ( Norfolk Bird Report). Northamptonshire, Newton area. Up to twenty birds were resident in various small larch plantations in this area from January until late April. A nest was found on 16th April, about 25 feet up in a larch, and the female appeared to be sitting. During the next few days the birds were watched on several occasions and the male fed the female at the nest. After 24th April no birds were seen, and certainly no young were reared. The nest was not examined (M. Goodman, J. L. Moore). Nottinghamshire, near Newark. Parties of Crossbills were present in an area of woodland near the Lincolnshire border throughout the year; up to 15 males were seen on one occasion in the winter, but numbers decreased in early spring. Cn 19th May a pair with three juveniles (flying well) were found, and they were fre- quently observed until 18th July, when fresh arrivals began (N. J. Antoine, 'I 'rent Valley Bird Watchers). Rutland, Eye Brook Reservoir. Crossbills were seen in this locality from at least late February, having probably wintered; up to 20 were present in March. Two pairs were ‘apparently established’ on 30th March and a male was heard singing on 15th April. About thirty birds were seen on 28th April, including two juveniles begging food from adults; these were still there on 3th May. There were still about 20 Crossbills on 12th May, but no further record until August (Corby Natural History and Archaeological Society). Staffordshire, near Envillc. Crossbills were in the area during the winter and at least until late April. A nest was found, wdth three eggs, on 21st April, but no further details are known ( West Midland Bird Report). Suffolk. Reports of Crossbills came from several places in the coastal strip between Yarmouth and Aldeburgh throughout the year. ‘Adults and young’ w ere seen at St. Olave’s ‘in summer’ and a male and three juveniles at Bcnacre in early June ( Suffolk Bird Report). Surrey, near Wisley. Crossbills were present in the general area of Wisley, Oxshott and Esher for much of the year. Flocks of up to 60, apparently all adults, occurred at Oxshott in late spring (S. Greenwood). At Wisley a nest was constructed, possibly by Parrot Crossbills, but was apparently not examined later. On 23rd April a female was w atched carrying nest-material (shreds of bark of oak, alder and silver birch) to the nest-site in a pine; both she and her mate were believed to have abnormally heavy bills compared with other Crossbills seen in the vicinity. An undoubted Parrot Crossbill was trapped near-by, at the same time as two Common Crossbills, on 15th May, but unfortunately it is not definitely established that there was any connection with the nest. This bird, an adult female, had the following measurements: wing 103 mm., tail 63 mm., bill-length 20 mm., bill-depth 14.5 mm. ; the call on release was deeper in tone than that of the Common Crossbills (K. D. Edwards). Surrey, Reigatc Heath. A party of about 20 seen on nth May included at least one streaked juvenile (Mrs. D. M. Kuscl). Surrey/Hampshire/Sussex. There were many reports in the south-wrest corner of Surrey (Frcnsham, Haslemere and neighbouring localities), and from adjacent parts of Hampshire and Sussex, throughout the year. Breeding was established in the Frensham district and on the Hampshirc-Susscx border near l.iphook. At Frcnsham, song and display were noted in March and April, and, not far away, a female was observed feeding four young with half-growm tails in a pine tree on 497 BRITISH BIRDS 29th May and 1st June; it was thought that the nest had probably been in the same tree. Local observers believe that several pairs nested in this district (P. G. Davis). Near Liphook, a pair was located on 19th March and the female was building a nest about 70 feet up in a Scots pine on 24th and 25 th April (carrying first small sticks and later shreds of spruce bark) ; the nest was left undisturbed for about three weeks and then examined, but found to be empty; this nest was a few yards inside Sussex (P.G.D.). A later report of breeding in the same locality (certainly within a few hundred yards of the unsuccessful nest) came from P. J. Stanswood: a local gardener showed him a nest about 40 feet up in a Scots pine in June and he was able to watch the birds visiting the nest during the following days; on a later visit in early July, he was informed that the young had flown when the gardener used a long ladder to climb to the nest in an attempt to take one of the birds. Yorkshire, Harrogate. Small numbers of Crossbills were seen on several occasions between February and May in Harrogate Pinewood, and also within a radius of ten miles at Harewood and Eccup. On 4th May a party of about twelve at Pinewood included several juveniles, presumably reared somewhere in the area (A. F. G. Walker). WALES Breconshire, The Myarth. Up to ten or twelve were often seen in this locality through the winter and spring. On 24th May at least 24 were found, including a juvenile being fed by one adult (R. Hester, B. A. Owen). SCOTLAND Angus, Kinnaird Park. Crossbills were present from September 1962 until at least May 1963. In this month a nest was found in a newly-felled tree, in a place where an agitated female Crossbill had been seen earlier ; this was the first breeding-record for the county (H. Boase in Scot. Birds, 2: 478). Apart from these breeding-records, there were a number of reports suggesting possible breeding elsewhere. These include notes of ‘courtship feeding’, ‘courtship display’, or ‘nuptial activities’ at Tynmghame, East Lothian, on 3rd March; at Bray, Wicklow, in April; at Oxshott Heath, Surrey, on 14th April; and in the Ambcrley-Parham district, Sussex, in March. Reports of birds in song outside the areas already listed came from Anglesey (Newborough on 22nd January and Menai Bridge on 20th March), Kent (near Canterbury on 3rd March), Oxfordshire (Chinnor Hill on 16th February), East Lothian (Ncwhall on 17th March), Nottinghamshire (Bingham on 3rd March), Northumberland (Blagdon on 2nd February), and Yorkshire (Kilton, North Riding, on 15th March, and Baxton Rigg, North Riding, on 18th April); but these do not necessarily imply breeding. Crossbills were present in some numbers in the spring in the Breckland (Norfolk and Suffolk) and in the Poole basin in Dorset, both areas where Crossbills have been established for many years, but there are no reports of breeding in either case. Appendix B. Food of Crossbills in 1963 Comparatively few observers contributed details of habitat and food and some used imprecise terms such as ‘conifers’ and ‘firs’ (the latter evidently not confined to spruces and their near relatives, as it should strictly be); but there were still sufficient identifications to make it worthwhile to summarise them here. I he figures in table 2 combine the records of birds seen actually feeding with those of birds reported to be occupying stands composed 498 CROSSBILLS IN I 9 6 3 largely of one genus of conifer, where it seems fair to conclude that they were attacking the cones of this genus. The records of thrift, juniper, crowberry, and oats all derive from Fair Isle, where there are no cone-bearing conifers and these are the normal foods of immigrant Crossbills. Thistle-seed was recorded only at Fair Isle and Cley. The record of aphides and one of rowan-seed came from a coastal locality in Norfolk, where the Crossbills were newly-arrived. The remainder were all inland reports. It has long been recognised that Scots pine and larch provide the main foods of Crossbills in Britain, but so far as I am aware there has been no quantitative study of these preferences. The paucity of records in spruce is surprising, since the Common Crossbill is essentially a bird of spruce forest in Northern Europe. According to a recent publication of the Forestry Commission ( Forestry in Great Britain, 1964), there has been no census of the propor- tions of the various coniferous trees in High Forest in Britain since 1947, when Scots pines constituted about 38% of all large conifers in such forest, spruces about 32% (with Sitka spruce Picea silcbensis and Norway spruce P. abies in roughly equal proportions) and larches about 20% (almost three-quarters being European larch); no other conifer provided as much as 4% of the total. These figures presumably exclude shelter belts, avenues and isolated trees (which produce the best cone-crops and are therefore particularly attractive to Crossbills), and Scots pine is much the commonest conifer in such situations, so that it must form a higher proportion of productive conifers over the country as a whole. The same publication gives figures for recent planting which show that in 1963 Sitka spruce was providing a third of all conifers planted, lodgepole pine Finns contorta and Scots pine each a little under a fifth, and Norway spruce about a tenth ; the larches and other trees are now planted in comparatively small numbers. These trends will not yet have affected the proportions of productive conifers to any vast extent, and presumably large Scots pines are still more numerous than large spruces, while both are considerably more abundant than larches. Viewed against this background, the high proportion of Crossbills feeding in larch, and the very low proportion in spruce, is even more striking. No detailed information on cone and seed production in the 1962/63 and 1963/64 seasons is available, but I am told by the Forestry Commis- sion (G. Buszewicz in lift.) that in both seasons the cone crop for pines, spruces and larches was ‘rather poor’. This may help to explain why there was so little evidence of successful breeding in Britain in 1963, but it does not clarify the position with regard to food-prefer- ences, since it implies no acute shortage of spruce cones as compared with those of pine and larch. Cones ripen in autumn and shed their seed by the following spring. 499 Table 2. Food of Crossbills Loxia spp. in Britain in 1963 BRITISH BIRDS D si u «-?* Cm .X O C X) i —4 V c o *» .g -0 gc M *•< » O <5 O ^5* 0 N^/ O O .§ » f * -? •C § 0 g ^ § 0 s is •£ ^ XI 8 ^ .. p S ^ <-*-< „ H. ^ * « O •C; *-* . r> n h .4j ^ O' - 11 Gj _Q eq ~ xi C' o 15 £ o g > s M C "C e r1 •S g ~ t * 8 2 ^ 6 J3 C/5 {J H U ^ 2-6 rtS ^ ’«-< O C/3 -h CO n. X) T3 CO .^Lco CO CO CO r~-- -tf’ «/-n m CN Tf CD CM | N CD M */“\ fv| tJ" H (A | N *-• | *3 C>'& < % b 6| . o o y o H „ u a 60 a v r fluttering and hovering outside the vegetation to pick food from BRITISH BIRDS the outermost leaves; it was at these times that the pale yellow rump was at its most conspicuous (this manner of feeding and the associated prominence of the yellow rump is apparently a marked character of the species, see Ticehurst 1938 and Alexander 1955). Laboratory descriptions The following details are based on the laboratory exaininations made by P. R. Clarke and J. Crudass (Holme) and R. E. Scott (Dungeness): Holme Crown stripe Yciiow, lacking slight buff tinge of superciliary, irregular and not well defined Superciliary Yellow, with very slight buff tinge, extending almost to nape Eye-stripe Dark olive, almost black, and extending full length of super- ciliary Ear-coverts Mottled Upper-parts Mossy green Wings and tail Wing-bars whitish very faintly tinged with yellow; inner secon- daries edged pale yellowish Rump Lemon yellow Under-parts Greyish- white with faint yel- lowish tinge; under tail-coverts washed lemon yellow to almost same intensity' as flanks Bill Blackish, somewhat stouter than Chillchaft P. collybita or Willow Warbler P. troebilus Legs and feet Pale brown Iris Black Dungeness Yellow, pale and indistinct ex- cept towards nape, bordered on either side by dusky olive, be- coming blackish towards nape and extending down to super- ciliary Straight, broad, orange-yellow, becoming paler towards nape and joining on forehead to form orangc-vcllow area above base of bill Blackish, long, extending from base of bill Mixture of dusky green and yellow Mantle, back, wing- and tail- coverts bright olive-green but not as intense as that of the wing- and tail-feather edgings Brown, edged intense bright yellow-green; tcrtials tipped whitish-yellow; median and greater coverts broadly tipped whitish-yellow forming two pro- minent bars; pale yellow spot showing at base of bastard wing Bright, pale yellow, square-cut Dusky greyish-white on throat and chin, becoming dirtier on breast and shaded lightly with yellow on belly and in region ot vent; under-wing well suffused with yellow Dark brown, slightly paler at base of lower mandible Dark horn Dark brown or black 5>2 PALLAS’S WARBLERS IN I 9 6 3 Holme Gape Yellow Measurements Wing 5 2 mm. Bill 9 mm. Tarsus 16 mm. Tail 37 mm. Weight Wing formula 1st primary 3.5 mm. longer than coverts; 4th primary longest; 2nd shorter by 6 mm. ; 3 rd by 1 mm.; 5th by 0.5 mm.; 6th by 2 mm. ; 7th by 4 mm. ; 8th by 7 mm.; 9th by 8 mm. ; 10th by 10 mm.; 3rd-6th cmarginated Dungeness Orange-yellow 54 mm. 11 mm. 1 9 mm. 41 mm. 5.4 gm. (16.20 hours GMT) 1st primary 8 mm. longer than coverts; 4th primary' longest; 2nd shorter by 7 mm.; 3rd by 1.5 mm.; 5th by 0.5 mm.; 6th by 2.5 mm.; 7th by 5 mm.; 8th by 6.5 mm.; 9th by 8 mm.; 10th by 10 mm.; yrd-hth cmarginated ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I should like to thank all those listed on page 510 who submitted descriptions to the Rarities Committee and allowed me to use them for this paper. I am also indebted to H. A. R. Cawkell and D. D. Harber for help at various stages. REFERENCES Alexander, H. G. (1955): ‘Field-notes on some Asian leaf-warblers— 1’. Brit. Birds, 48: 293-299. Davis, P. (1964): ‘Aspects of autumn migration at the bird observatories, 1963’. Bird Study, 11: 77-122. ! Ferguson-Leps, I. J. (1964): ‘Recent reports’. Brit. Birds, 57: 43-48. Harber, D. D. (1964a); ‘Report on rare birds in Great Britain in 1963’. Brit. Birds, 57: 261-281. ~ (1964b): ‘The influx of Cranes in October 1963’. Brit. Birds, 57; 502-508. Ticeiiurst, C. B. (1938): A Systematic Review of the Genus P/jylloscopus. London. 1 Williamson, K. (1962) : Identification for Ringers II. The Genus Phyltoscopus. Oxford. Appendix. British records of Pallas’s Warbler 31st October 1896: Clcy, Norfolk ( Zoologist , 1896: 466) 13th October 1951: Scahouses, Northumberland (Brit. Birds, 45 : 258-260) 17th November 1957: Holme, Norfolk (Brit. Birds, 51 : 197) 13rd November 1958: Sandwich Bay, Kent (Brit. Birds, 52: 317-318) 6th October i960; Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex (Brit. Birds, 54: 73-74) !2nd-23rd October i960: Spurn, Yorkshire (Brit. Birds, 54: 364-365) 2th-i3th October 1962; Hartlepool, Co. Durham (Brit. Birds, 56: 112-113) •7th October 1963 : St. Catherine’s Point, Isle of Wight 7th-29th October 1963: Holme, Norfolk 1st October 1963: Dungeness, Kent 1st October 1963: St. Agnes, Isles of Scilly rd November 1963: Spurn, Yorkshire 6th November 1963: Walberswick, Suffolk 513 Notes Apparent anting by Kestrel. — On 22nd September 1962 a friend and I were driving along the main road between Port Clarence and Seaton Carew, Co. Durham, when we saw a female Kestrel Falco tinnunculus fly up from an adjacent strip of rough grassland and alight on a fence near-by. It appeared in an almost dazed condition and sat hunched on the rail. We stopped the car and, hoping to film the bird, reversed to within six yards. As we set the camera up inside the car, however, the Kestrel flew oft" and alighted again on the fence a few yards further back. Again we reversed and again it flew a short distance. This process continued for perhaps a hundred yards until eventually the Kestrel flew oft across the fields and began hovering. Keeping it in sight, we followed it along a side road until we eventually lost track of it. We returned to the main road and were amazed to find it back where we had first seen it. The short flights continued as before and this time it would not leave the area at all, even when two passing boys threw stones at it. By then it was clear that the bird was showing a decided preference for a rather bare, ashy area at the spot where we had first seen it and, as soon as we gave it time, it flew from the fence down to this place. Once on the ground there it flopped limply with half-spread wings and 1 tail and then lay motionless for several minutes before beginning to shuffle as if trying to press its body into the ash. Its actions were rather like those of a House Sparrow Passer domesticus having a dust- bath, except that it did not shake its wings. Then it lay motionless again for a while, without any contortions or excitement, before beginning the shuffling movement once more. This continued for about 1 5 minutes and then it picked up a small object in its bill and placed it below one of its half-spread wings. This it did several times, not necessarily under each wing alternately, but sometimes under the same wing two or three times in succession. There was no question of stroking or sweeping movements down the wing: it merely placed something underneath the wing and then usually closed it. It paid no attention whatsoever to the feathers of its tail. On several occasions it swallowed one of the objects. When we approached more closely, it again flew up in the strange manner which had first attracted our attention. When we retreated, it returned to the spot and in one of these later periods we succeeded in filming it as it put something under its wing. Finally, it flew off when we got too close and this time did not return, although we saw it hunting and hovering some distance away. Close examination of the area where the bird had been lying showed a number of dark red ants and we concluded that the bird must have NOTES been anting although we did not actually identify any of these insects on it or in its bill. Since anting does not appear to have been indis- putably recorded among any non-passerines, let alone birds of prey, it has been suggested that this Kestrel might have been affected bv a sub- lethal dose of toxic chemicals, but I have seen a number of Wood- pigeons Columba pahmbus and other birds in this state and their appearance and actions were very different. The whole episode lasted about an hour, during which time the Kestrel returned to this one spot on at least a dozen occasions. Its behaviour otherwise was completely normal. Victor F. Brown [We discussed this note and the him with K. E. L. Simmons, whose paper ‘A review of the anting-behaviour of passerine birds’ (Brit. Birds, 50: 401-424, plates 57-62) is one of the major works on the subject, and he remained unconvinced that the Kestrel was actually anting. He commented: ‘I still hold the view that true anting is confined to the passerines; I have yet to read a convincing report of anting in non- passerines and my work on mixed collections of birds at the London Zoo produced records of anting only from numerous species of pas- serines (altogether I have now observed anting by no less than 103 species). On the other hand, anting by non-passerines is accepted by other workers in this held, including Dr. Maurice Burton, A. H. • Chisholm, Mrs. M. M. Nice and Mrs. L. M. Whitaker.’ Of the him he wrote: ‘The bird on the ground, presumably at the ants, was • making pecking movements downwards and an indeterminate move- ment towards one wing. However, I saw nothing that certainly suggested anting. The bird could have turned its head to look at or peck at ants that had crawled onto it while it was feeding on them. Dr. J. H. Crook saw the him sequence with me and we both thought that the bird looked unwell.’ We must obviously respect Mr. ' Simmons’s enormous experience of this subject, but from the account given it is difficult to see how this bird can have been solely or even primarily concerned with anv of the likely alternatives of feeding, preening, dust-bathing or sun-bathing (Mr. Brown tells us that the day was actually overcast), while the rest of its behaviour and, indeed, the persistent returns to the same place seem to rule out the suggestion of abnormality induced by toxic chemicals. — Ed.] Spur- winged Plovers wetting their feathers before incubating. — In his recent article accompanying the photographs of the Slender- billed Gull Laras genei (Brit. Birds, 57: 242-247), D. I. M. Wallace referred to Col. R. Meinertzhagen’s record of this species sprinkling sea water on its eggs in southern Bahrein. This reminded me of an observation which I made on Spur-winged Plovers Hop/opferas spinosus 5M BRITISH BIRDS near Deversoir, Egypt, in July 1952. There were two nests, with four and three eggs respectively, on open sand not far from the edge of a saline lagoon. On several occasions one or other of the adults from either nest was seen to wade into the water of the lagoon and crouch down, wetting the feathers of belly and lower breast, immediately before returning to incubate. I took this to be an attempt to cool the eggs, for the heat at that time of year was intense out in the open. Roy Crossley [This is a most interesting observation on a wader which, it should be added, now nests regularly in south-east Europe (Greece and perhaps Bulgaria). However, Dr. J. S. Ash suggests that the birds watched by Mr. Crossley were possibly correcting more for humidity than for temperature, this being a species where both parents normally in- cubate in turns with the result that the nest is seldom left uncovered and it is difficult to understand why the eggs should have to be cooled. In this connection, too, we have received some very relevant observa- tions from S. D. Jayakar and Dr. H. Spurwav (Mrs. J. B. S. Haldane) on Yellow-wattled Lapwings V anellus malabaricus at Bhubaneswar, India. In the latter half of March 1963 a pair of these birds, which likewise cover the eggs in turns, were found to have adopted a definite routine: at each change-over the one relieved would go to stand in the shade of some plants and then, just before its next shift on the nest, would rub its under-feathers on the wet concrete beneath a garden tap. Further evidence of egg-wetting at other nests of Yellow-wattled Lapwings was obtained by the same observers in late April and early May 1964 and Mr. Jayakar has drawn our attention to records of analogous behaviour in White-headed Plovers Xiphi- diopterus albiceps in Africa (W. Serle, Ibis, 1939: 669), sandgrouse Pterocles spp. in Iraq (S. Marchant, Bull. B.O.C., 81: 134-141 and 82: 123-24) and terns in India (H. Abdulali, J. Bombay N.H.S., 41 : 43 3-434; and E. H. N. Lowther, 1949, A Bird Photographer in India). He also tells us that R. S. Dharmakumarsinhji has seen various other waders, including Kentish Plovers Charadrius alexandrinus and Black- winged Stilts Himantopus himantopus , wetting their eggs in India. We should be interested to receive further observations of such behaviour in hot climates. — Eds.| Lesser Black-backed Gulls breeding in Nottinghamshire. — Since the Lesser Black-backed Gull Pants fttscus is generally a coastal breeding species in England, and when it does nest inland is largelv confined to moors, bogs and upland reservoirs, it seems worth recording that a pair succeeded in rearing young at a gravel pit in the Trent Valley, Notting- hamshire, in both 1963 and 1964. However, the story really begins NOTES nearly 20 years earlier and the following details are taken from the records of the Trent Valley Bird Watchers. The first known nests were as far back as 1945 when two clutches of eggs were taken by a boy on Nottingham sewage-farm. Then, 1 5 years later, in i960, came the first attempt at the gravel pit, but again the three eggs were taken. In 1961 a single egg was laid, but did not hatch. In 1963 a pair nested, a chick ‘the size of a man’s fist’ was seen on 23 rd June and a juvenile was present on 14th July. In 1964 three young were reared to the flying stage. A. Dobbs [These records are of particular interest in that they provide further evidence of the adaptation of the larger gulls to inland habitats. It will be remembered that 1963 saw the first successful breeding of the Herring Gull Larus argentatus in London (Br/V. Birds, 57: 80-81). — Pins.] Feral Pigeons nesting in tree. — In my small London garden I have a large black poplar Pop ulus nigra in which Woodpigeons Cohmba palumbus and Blackbirds Turdus rnerula usually nest each year. In 1964 I noticed two Feral Pigeons C. livia constantly visiting the tree and bringing nesting material. They duly laid and hatched out two young about 20 feet above the ground in the tree’s lowest fork which is very wide and has a considerable flat expanse. No Woodpigeon had nested on this fork for at least two years and so I believe that the Feral Pigeons built their own nest from scratch. Jean Delacour tells me that Feral Pigeons often breed in trees in New York but it seems to be very unusual here. Phyllis Barclay-Smith [Neither Derek Goodwin nor I know of another successful case of ' tree-nesting by Feral Pigeons in Britain, though one pair did sit for (• some time on an old Woodpigeon’s nest in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London. However, nests occur in trees in America and Spain and t may be that this has happened on other occasions in this country without being recorded. — S.C.] Hetti’s Warblers in Jersey. — The first Cetti’s W arbler Cettia cetti to be ecorded in the Channel Islands was trapped at Jersey Bird Observatory >n 1 6th October i960 {Brit. Birds, 54: 208). Since then two more have >een caught at the same place. The first of these was found by J.H.R. i the catching box of the Heligoland trap late on the afternoon of 10th December 1961 ; it was examined by E. D. H. Johnson and A. and F. -e Sueur as well as J.H.R. before being ringed and released, and was ot seen again. Much more recently, on the morning of 25th October 964, J.H.R. discovered another in the trap and, after a detailed xamination by A. and F. Le S., and F. C. Hamon, this was also ringed 50 BRITISH BIRDS and released ; it was then retrapped by A. Le S. on the morning of 15 th November 1964. Both the 1961 and 1964 birds were thus seen by at least three of those who had examined the i960 one in the hand and there was no hesitation over either identification. The long, broad and rounded first primary and the ten rectrices provided immediate confirmation and a full description was taken in each case. The wing lengths of the two birds were 5 6 mm. and 5 5 mm. respectively, which placed them in the range for females given by K. Williamson in his Identification for Ringers I (revised edition). J. H. Richards and R. Long [The i960 and 1961 records were mentioned in my recent outline of the northward spread of Cetti’s Warbler in western Europe (Brit. ' Birds, 57: 357-359), but the 1964 occurrence is of considerable interest i since it suggests that this range expansion is continuing in spite of widespread losses in France in the 1962/63 winter. In this connection, it is interesting to note two Belgian records which have come to my < attention since the publication of my summary. From 8th May to 28th September 1962 a male Cetti’s Warbler was regularly heard singing in the region of Mons (roughly the same latitude as Portland 1 Bill in Dorset) and then, after an apparent absence in 1963, a pair was 1 located in the same place on 1st May 1964; this was followed by the t discovery of a nest with five eggs on 27th May, the most northerly I breeding record of the species to date (L. Hachez, Ares, 1 : 49-50). 1 Evidently, in spite of the 1962/63 winter, observers in southern Eng- 1 land would be well advised to watch, and particularly listen, for this 1 curious bird. — I.J.F.-L.] Parrot Crossbills wintering in Lincolnshire. — On 16th January 1963 ( P. Prince found a dead male Parrot Crossbill Loxia pytyopsittacus in a small wood of Scots pines Pim/s sylvestris at Hartsholme gravel pit, Lincoln. He visited the wood again on the 19th and located a small party of crossbills of both sexes, which he considered to be of the same species as the dead bird. Later that day he was joined by A. D. Townsend and myself, and together we had good views of about six. All had very heavy bills and we were convinced that they were Parrot Crossbills. Their main call, which we wrote as chup-chttp, seemed deeper and louder than the corresponding note of the Crossbill L. curvirostra , though no direct comparison could be made. On 26th January nine were counted in one tree and this was the maximum number recorded. Subsequently the party was kept under regular observation by P.P. and seen by several other people. During February three or four were found on most visits and on 17th March 518 REVIEWS P.P. discovered a partially buried female which also proved to be a Parrot Crossbill. About this time a female with an injured wing was captured and kept at a house near-by. It was thought that this and the dead birds had been shot by local youths. An abundant supply of cones ruled out any question of food shortage and on many occasions a crossbill was seen to break one off, carry it in its bill to the centre of the tree and there extract the seeds with its bill while holding the cone with one foot against a branch or the trunk. Occasionally single birds were seen feeding on fallen cones on the ground and also eating snow. At least a pair were still present until the end of May 1963 but, although the male was heard singing on several occasions, there was no evidence of breeding. The song consisted of a series of trills and twittering notes; it closely resembled that of a Greenfinch Chloris chloris but seemed more subdued. The captive female escaped during the spring and remained in the area until at least the beginning of 1964. The measurements of the two found dead were identical except in wing-length where the male was 100 mm. and the female 99 mm.; in each case the tarsus was 20 mm., the length of the upper mandible from the feathers 20 mm. and the bill depth at the base 14.5 mm. Both identifications were confirmed by R. Wagstaffe at the City of Liverpool Museums. This appears to be the first record of a flock of Parrot Crossbills wintering in Britain. It should be remembered that in the autumn of 1962 there had been an unprecedented irruption of this species at Fair Isle and elsewhere {Bird Migration, 2: 260-264 and 329-340), during which time a male was trapped at Tetney, Lincolnshire, on 13th October 1962. K. Atkin Reviews The Black-tailed Godwit. By F. Haverschmidt. Brill, Leiden, 1963. viii-f 120 pages; frontispiece, 17 black-and-white photo- graphs, 1 drawing and 2 maps. No price marked. The author intended this book for ordinary bird-lovers and general ornithologists, particularly those fortunate enough to visit the breed- ing areas of the Black-tailed Godwit. As one who has done so, this reviewer is grateful to him. Hitherto, most of the literature relating to the species has been published in Dutch or German. This book provides English readers with an excellent survey of habitat require- ments, breeding range, breeding behaviour and present knowledge of BRITISH BIRDS migration and survival, each section with a comprehensive bibliog- raphy. Mr. Haverschmidt discusses many questions which must have occurred to those whose watching at home or abroad has introduced them to this beautiful wader. He also succeeds admirably in convey- :: ing its essential characteristics and the excitement and delight he him- , self has enjoyed from watching what is a common bird in his native country, the Netherlands. It is evident that, ever since he found his first godwit’s nest as a boy, it has been for him the genius loci of a countryside which, as K. H. Voous remarked in Nederlandse Vereniging tot Bescberming van Vogels, Jaarverslagen 19 / j-19 j6 (p. 72), is the bastion of the species in western Europe. What chiefly concerns the author is the growing threat to the commonness of the Black-tailed Godwit. The loss of suitable habi- tats through increasing urbanisation or drainage and reduced breeding success due to earlier cropping of new strains of faster-growing grasses are equally familiar problems to us in Britain. He stresses the neces- sity for preserving some of the best of the existing habitats and for enlisting the co-operation of farmers, and he records the success of a federation formed in Friesland for this purpose (see Brit. Birds, 57: 189-190 and plate 24, for an account of a method devised there for protecting waders’ nests from grazing cattle). The author’s photographs illustrate habitats, nest sites and several interesting aspects of nesting behaviour. H. J. Slijper contributes a full page drawing of the tail display. The maps show the breeding range and ringing recoveries to December 1961. Terry Gompertz Pesticides and the Living Landscape. By Robert L. Rudd. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1964. 320 pages. $6.50. In 1958 the Conservation Foundation of New York asked Dr. Rudd to undertake a general study of the influence of pesticides in nature. It was an apt choice for so formidable a task, for not only was Dr. Rudd the joint author of a massive survey of the literature on pesticides and j wildlife,* which has been the indispensable reference book for all working in this field, but he had carried out important research on i toxic chemicals in California, where more are used than in any other state (25% of the U.S. total) and which has been the scene of some of the J most dramatic effects of mass campaigns on wildlife. He begins his survey with five introductory chapters for readers not 1 familiar with the subject, covering the different types of pesticides, the *Rudd, It. L., and Genelly, R. E. (1956): Pesticides: Their Use and Toxicity in * Relation to Wildlife. Calif. Dept. Pish & Game, Game Bull. No. 7. REVIEWS economics of their use and the U.S. legislation concerning them. He then surveys, in detail and with a wealth of documentation, the res- ponses of animals to chemical control, covering invertebrates (includ- ing soil fauna), vertebrates, sub-lethal effects, the growth of resistance among insects and what little is known on human hazards, and goes on to discuss the responses of the environment, including changes in the biological landscape and pesticide residues. The broad pattern of much of this will be familiar to the many who have read the late Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, but, though Dr. Rudd lacks her com- pelling style, he is able to give more examples and a greater wealth of supporting detail. Most of his argument is necessarily based on U.S. experience, and so will not convince those who attempt to main- tain that this is unique and not applicable to other countries, and it is • therefore a pity that his book was completed before basicallv similar t effects had been demonstrated in Britain and, in particular, before the publication of research here which established the responsibility of the persistent chemicals for the decline of some birds of prey and the importance of sub-lethal effects on their fertility. The final section, showing how ecological relationships can be upset by the continued use of chemicals, is of the greatest importance. The few countries which have so far imposed any restrictions on the use of chemical pesticides have done so because of the possible dangers of '.residues in human food or more rarely, as in Britain, because of the ' threat to wildlife. Such arguments alone are unlikely to move many i crop producers, especially in countries facing acute food shortages, and iDr. Rudd’s demonstration that the massive use of non-selective :hemicals, however initially successful, can in the long run produce nore rather than fewer pests is likely to be more compelling. He hows how often the parasites and predators able to cope with strong esurgences of pest numbers are reduced, resulting in more frequent aid violent outbreaks; chemicals are then applied more often and in tronger doses, and, if resistance had developed, new chemicals have 0 be introduced, or two or more combined. The end result from he grower’s viewpoint may be worse than the beginning, as was found 1 California with the vital alfalfa crop. Here massive applications •ver the years produced resistance in the pest and killed nearly all the rthropods in the soil, facing the industry with disaster. The solution as been found just recently in ‘integrated control’, using introduced rasps to parasitise the pest, with low dosages of one chemical at aitable times. This, and other experiences, led entomologists in teir Twelfth Congress in London this July to stress the dangers of lass insect outbreaks on monocultural crops if ecological principles 'ere not more judiciously applied. The danger is now world- wide, id unfortunately the developing countries are least likely to have the loney, time and skill needed for the new methods and so will be 5zi BRITISH BIRDS tempted to continue to import chemical pesticides from those which are learning to avoid their dangers. Nevertheless, the conservationists have been powerfully reinforced in their criticisms of the unwise use of such chemicals and Dr. Rudd’s comprehensive and factual survey should play a major part in achieving a new and wiser approach to the problem. Stanley Cramp News and comment Edited by Raymond Cordero B.T.O. launches a major appeal. — The British Trust for Ornithology has launched an appeal aimed at raising £25,000. It is made in a brochure (splendidly designed 1 by Robert Gillmor) which gives a concise history of the Trust and outlines its need for a sound financial basis if it is to carry' out the tasks that face it in this critical time for bird life. The Trust has not merely been a part of the growth of the bird- ( watching movement in Britain; it has done much to stimulate and direct that growth. It was founded in a small way in 1932 to provide a clearing house and directing centre for field ornithologists. By 1935 there were a mere 165 members; « today there are about 3,500, a permanent staff of 16 and over 80 regional represen- tatives. It has many fine achievements to its credit, notably in the field of enquiries, in the battle against the irresponsible use of toxic chemicals and, of course, in ringing. It has been in control of British ringing since 1937, during which time the scheme has become by far the largest in Europe. Now at last the Trust is under one roof at Tring, Hertfordshire, is better equipped < than ever before and, with ‘a research policy orientated towards clear objectives, is poised for a major advance’ in the fields of population study, migration and ringing, i and what can be termed education — the dissemination of new techniques, the organisation of lectures and courses, and the development of its publications and library. Normal income is fully committed, however, and unless additional money is found the new headquarters will have to be paid for out of reserves, so that future work and expansion will be jeopardised. Only a modest effort by every member, preferably in the form of a covenant, would enable the Trust to reach its target. If you have not already joined, then you could help by adding your name to the rapidly expanding membership. A New Dictionary of Birds. — November saw the appearance of the centenary publication of the British Ornithologists’ Union, A New Dictionary of Birds. This will be fully reviewed in British Birds at a later date, but we should like to take the opportunity of welcoming this monumental work on which the editor, Sir I.ands- borough Thomson, has laboured so long and so painstakingly. Nearly two hun- dred experts have contributed their knowledge to this worthy successor to Alfred Newton’s classic Dictionary of Birds. It runs to some 900 pages, and ranges from ' encyclopaedic articles on general subjects to shorter entries defining terms and English names of birds throughout the world. Though it costs five guineas, we think this is a book which no ornithologist or serious bird-watcher would dare confess to not having in his library. More national nature reserves. — The urgent task of acquiring more reserves is being pressed forward on several fronts, not least by the indefatigable Nature Conservancy itself, whose declarations seem to come almost ever)' month. On 29th NEWS AND COMMENT September there were in fact two, one of a new reserve and the other of an extension to an existing one, both in Wales. The Whiteford National Nature Reserve, Glamorgan, is an area of about 344 acres consisting of sea-washed turf which is submerged during extreme high tides. It lies in a remote corner on the north side of the Gower Peninsula at the mouth of the •Burry estuary and has been leased from the owner, C. P. Methuen-Campbell. Whiteford is one of the most important wintering stations for wildfowl in south Wales. Large numbers of Wigeon, Teal and Shelduck occur there during the winter months and White-fronted Geese arc also recorded occasionally. Slavonian, Black- neckcd and Great Crested Grebes arc among the less common visitors. Although most of the reserve will provide undisturbed roosting and feeding grounds for wildfowl, shooting will be permitted in a specified area by agreement with the West Glamorgan Wildfowlers’ Association. Except for those having common : rights, access to the reserve is by permit only. With the Gower Coast and Oxwich National Nature Reserves, the Nature Conservancy has now declared about 1,000 1 acres on this famous peninsula. At the same time, 107 acres on the west bank of the Afon Pysgotwr have been 1 added by purchase to form an extension of the Allt Rhyd-y-Groes National Nature 'Reserve, Carmarthenshire, declared in 1959. Pied Flycatchers and Wheatcars are 1 among the many birds breeding on the reserve. Access away from the rights of way is by permit only. ''Natural Environment Research Council. — Among major Whitehall changes to oe introduced by the new Government will be the creation of the Natural Environ- ment Research Council, in which will be incorporated the Nature Conservancy and he Geological Survey and Museum. The Secretary of State for Education and 'Science will be formally responsible for the N.E.R.C., but there will be a link be- wween the latter and the newly created Ministry of Land and Natural Resources. I l.T.O.’s new President. — At the annual general meeting of the British Trust for ^Ornithology in October, R. C. Homes was elected President in succession to C. A. Norris. Mr. Homes thus becomes the first person ever to have held this office " wice. I I correction. — E. M. Nicholson has been awarded a Hon. LL.D. by the University f Aberdeen, and not an Hon. D.C.L. as stated in the September ‘News and com- ment’. Mr. Nicholson asks us to make it known that he does not desire this degree » be used after his name except in such formal circumstances that its omission would e incorrect and that he does not wish to be addressed as ‘Dr.’. Recent reports By I. J. Ferguson-Lees (These are largely unchecked reports, not authenticated records) lis summary outlines the rarer passerines in the two months from 19th September 19th November, thus overlapping slightly with the previous one (Brit. Birds, 57: 1-444); the more regular passage-migrants and the non-passerines will be dealt th in the next issue. 523 BRITISH BIRDS The fortnight from 19th September to 2nd October showed a distinctly eastern bi flavour in the main: several Scarlet Grosbeaks Carpodactts erythrinus, a Rustic Bunting Ember i^a rustica, two Richard’s Pipits Ant bus novaeseelandiae, a Citrine h Wagtail MotaciUa citreola (see 5 7 : 444) and a female Black-eared Wheatear Oenantbe m bispanica on Fair Isle (Shetland); three more Scarlet Grosbeaks, another Rustic sj Bunting and a Yellow-breasted Bunting F.mberi~a aureola on Auskerry (Orkney); two more Richard’s Pipits at Spurn (Yorkshire); two Two-barred Crossbills Loxia leucoptera in Bawtry Forest (Nottinghamshire); an Aquatic Warbler Acro- cephaltts paludicola at Dungeness (Kent) a Greenish Warbler Phyl/oscopus trocbiloides in Dollis Hill, London, N.W.2, and another, less unexpectedly, at Cape Clear (Co. Cork) ; and a Short-toed Lark Calandrella cinerea on St. Agnes (Isles of Scilly). In addition, there were half a dozen each of Red-breasted Flycatchers Muscicapa parva (Shetland to Co. Cork) and Yellow-browed Warblers Pbylloscopus inornatus (Northumberland and Norfolk to Caernarvonshire and Co. Donegal). This bias towards eastern species was firmly underlined in the three days from 3rd to 5th October when there were half-a-dozen Richard’s Pipits from Fair Isle to Cheshire and Cornwall, another Rustic Bunting and Scarlet Grosbeak on Fair Isle, a Red-throated Pipit Anthus cervinus on St. Mary’s Island (Northumberland), an Aquatic Warbler on Marazion Marsh (Cornwall), an Icterine Warbler Hippolais icterina at Old Head of Kinsale (Co. Cork), a Radde’s Warbler Pbylloscopus scbrvarsp at Walberswick (Suffolk) on 4th October and what seems to have been an Eye-browed Thrush T urdus obscurus at Oundle (Northamptonshire) on the 5 th. In these three days, too, although there were only three or four more Yellow-browed Warblers (Fair Isle and St. Agnes), there was a spate of some 20 Red-breasted Flycatchers on the east and south coasts. The next ten days from 6th to 15 th October were comparatively uneventful, the only rarities being Little Buntings Ember/ya pusilla on Fair Isle and at Langney Point (Sussex) on the 7th and 15 th, and another Greenish Warbler at Cape Clear on the 10th. However, this period did produce another half-dozen Red-breasted Fly- catchers Northumberland down to Scilly) and at least eight Yellow-browed Warblers (all but one in the north-east from Shetland to Co. Durham). Then came what was perhaps the most striking batch of eastern birds, in the four I or five days from 16th October. Apart from five more Red-breasted Flycatchers ■ (Fair Isle to Cornwall) and another six Yellow-browed Warblers (this time all but I one on the south coast), there was an even more convincing report of an Eye- JJ browed Thrush on North Rona (Outer Hebrides) on the 16th, a Citrine Wagtail ■ at Minsmere (Suffolk) on the 1 7th (stayed to 1 4th November), a Steppe Shrike Lanius m excub/tor pallidirostris on Fair Isle on the 18th (probably present on the 17th) and a ■ Dusky Warbler Pbylloscopus fuscatus on St. Agnes on the 19th. There were also it further Richard’s Pipits at Fair Isle, Holme (Norfolk), Portland (Dorset) and St. H Agnes, and at the first and last of these places several more to the end of the month, ■ as well as one on St. Mary’s (Isles of Scilly). The next ten days were very quiet, apart from Tawny Pipits Antbus campestris (V at St. Agnes and Portland, and then the three days from 30th October to 1st Novem- I ber produced another little spate of eastern birds : a Siberian Lesser Whitethroat n Sylvia curruca blythi at Minsmere on the 30th; and on the 1st a Siberian Stonechat ps Saxicola torquata maura on Fair Isle, a Dusky Warbler at Huttoft (Lincolnshire) and a it Pallas’s Warbler Pbylloscopus proreguhts on St. Agnes, as well as a Serin Serinus p canarius at Portland. T'his period also saw the last Red-breasted Flycatchers ft- (Portland and Spurn, 30th October) and Yellow-browed Warblers (St. Agnes and 1 Spurn, 1st November). There was then a third Greenish Warbler at Cape Clear on I 4th November and, finally, a Rcd-runipcd Swallow Hirnndn dattrica on St. Agnes I on the remarkable dates of 10th and 1 itfi Novemher. i \ I 124 BRITISH BIRDS Special Supplement A discography of Palearctic bird sound recordings By JEFFERY BOSWALL • Covers all known recordings of European and Asiatic bird voices • Reviews separately every published disc or set of discs • Gives a cross-index of species showing what recordings of each are available • Details unpublished recordings of birds not on commercial discs • Lists the European species whose voices have still to be recorded 64 pages 4 plates 6s. (plus 6d. postage) from H. F. & G. WITHERBY LTD 61/62 Watling Street, London, E.C.4 The Irish Naturalists’ Journal SPECIES INDEX to Vols. I-XII 1925 - 58 Jage numbers are given to each men- ion of a species in the twelve volumes tnd symbols indicate the scope of the nformation concerned (distribution, «ology, etc.). essential reference manual for •iologists and palaeontologists. ' *rice 30s. (interleaved 35s.) post free Obtainable only from the Ion. Treasurer: Mr. C. LOGAN, Plant Pathology Field Station, New Forge Lane, Belfast 9, Northern Ireland. The Birds of Natal and Zululand P. A. CLANCEY The author has engaged in extensive original research over the years since 1950 in order to make this account of the birds of Natal and all the immediately adjacent territories as up-to-date and authoritative as possible. No work on South African birds since 1900 has given such detailed descriptions of each species, and much infor- mation, hitherto available only in museum and ornith- ological publications, has been collected in this volume for the first time. The fine series of paintings of birds has been prepared specially by the author. The ornithologist will find this book not only a useful work of reference but also a source of much pleasurable reading. 84s. OLIVER & BOYD WITH ■ or without ■ SPECTACLES ■ The latest Zeiss 8x50B binoculars are unique. With a simple adjustment to the eyepiece they give maximum field of view to the spectacle wearer or the naked eye alike. This feature is found only in binoculars made by the CARL ZEISS Foundation of Western Ge,many £EISS 8x50B For full details please write to the sole U.K. importers: 28.15 & CO. LTD., CARL ZEISS HOUSE, 20/22 Mortimer Street, London, W.l. LANgham 6097 (9 lines) British Birds Report on bird-ringing for 1963 Robert Spencer Recoveries in Great Britain and Ireland of birds ringed abroad Robert Hudson Ringing Supplement 1964 British Birds AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY JOURNAL Editors: Stanley Cramp, I. J. Ferguson-Lees, P. A. D. Hollom, E. M. Nicholson Photographic Editor Eric Hosking 'Editorial Address 30 St. Leonard’s Avenue, Bedford 'News and Comment’ Rarities Committee Raymond Cordero D. D. Harber Rohan Lodge, Wadhurst Park 59 Bridge Road Wadhurst, Sussex Eastbourne, Sussex Contents of Volume 57, 1964, Ringing Supplement Page Report on bird-ringing for 1963. By Robert Spencer .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 525 Recoveries in Great Britain and Ireland of birds ringed abroad. By Robert Hudson .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 583 List of bird observatories in Great Britain and Ireland, the addresses of their organisers, and their charges . . . . . . . . Inside back cover Map of bird observatories and certain other ringing stations in Great Britain and Ireland . . . . . . . . . . Outside back cover Annual subscription £2 6s. (including postage and despatch) payable to H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Wading Street, London, E.C.4 British Birds Vol. 57 1964 Ringing Supplement Report on bird-ringing for 1963* Bj ILobert Spencer Ringing Officer, B.T.O. No reporton birds in 1 96 3 could avoid reference to the effects of the arctic winter. It is a subject which has received much attention and an excellent account by H. M. Dobinson and A. J. Richards has already appeared in this journal (f3r/V. Birds, 57: 373-434). So far as ringing was concerned, it was a unique testing time. Ringing on a scale large enough to permit annual comparisons of recoveries is a very recent development, and 1963 was the first year in which we could expect the technique to make a worthwhile contribution to our know- ledge of the effects of cold on bird life. In the event, the recoveries were both numerous and informative, and in order to review the cold weather aspects this report has been specially enlarged. For this purpose four methods of presentation have been adopted. Firstly, a new type of table has been prepared to show the monthly incidence of recoveries throughout the year (table 3). In it have been included, for comparison, several species which apparently were little affected by the cold. For most species, however, the preponderance of recoveries in the first quarter was very marked. Secondly, the cold weather data are summarised by species in the main body of the report and a selec- tion of the more interesting recoveries has been published in full. Pre-eminent among these is the Redwing Turdus iliacus which travelled half way across the Atlantic in three days. Thirdly, a number of the summary tables (A-V), hitherto confined to foreign recoveries, have been elaborated to show the degree of movement within Great Britain. Lastly, maps have been used to illustrate some of the more interesting cold weather movements. Of these, the series of three relating to the Song Thrush T. pbilomelos are perhaps the most striking. ♦This is the twenty-seventh report issued on behalf of the Bird-Ringing Com- mittee and is a publication of the British Trust for Ornithology. For the twenty- sixth report see Brit. Birds, 56: 477-540. BRITISH BIRDS Taken together, these results demonstrate that, when ringing is carried out on an adequate scale, the recoveries provide an invaluable indicator to the well-being of populations and may thus be used as a guide to conservation policy. They were, in fact, put to just such a use for, as the only extensive numerical data available on cold weather losses, they carried great weight in the decision to repeal the Home Office Order which from 1955 had permitted the taking of eggs of certain common species. A comparison of ringing figures in 1962 and 1963 reveals other aspects of climatic effects, for the cold weather brought about consider- able changes in the numbers of the various species ringed. There were, for example, significant reductions in the totals of Mallard Anas platyrhynchos, Lapwing Vanellus vanellus. Snipe Gallinago gallinago. Black-headed Gull Lams ridibundus, Wren Troglodytes troglodytes , Song Thrush, Robin TLrithacus rubecnla , Pied Wagtail Motacilla alba and most of the finches and buntings (this list does not attempt to be compre- hensive). These came about partly because, as the cold weather con- tinued and the condition of many birds deteriorated, most ringers virtually ceased operating, and partly because there were many fewer birds available to ring later in the year. These losses might well have led to a lower annual ringing total, but for the fact that a number of species were caught on a much larger scale than in the past. Among these were Oystercatcher Haematopus ostralegus. Knot Calidris canutus and Dunlin C. alpina , all the objects of special studies, Blackbird Turdus merula and Starling Sturnus vulgaris , and many summer visitors including Swallow Hirundo rustica , Sand Martin Li pari a riparia and most of the warblers. The increases in these species more than com- pensated for the reductions in others and the grand total of birds ringed showed an increase of over 46,000 on the figure for 1962. Keen students of the ‘league positions’ in table 2 will note that five species gained promotion to section 1 in 1963. Some of these, such as the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker Dendrocopos minor, had risen the hard way by small annual increments over 50 years. In contrast, the fast- spreading Collared Dove Streptopelia decaocto took but eight years to achieve a similar total, while a brief campaign by the Wildfowl Trust added 320 to the previous total of four Barnacle Geese Branta leucopsis. Incidentally, the marking of the latter species both here and in the Arctic has now established that the Spitsbergen population winters exclusively on the Solway Firth, thus emphasising that successful conservation must be based on facts. There were five additions to the ringing list in 1963, bringing it to an impressive total of 3 1 1 species. The newcomers were Stilt Sandpiper Micropalama bimantopus, Sabine’s Gull Xenia sabini, Nutcracker Nucifraga caryocatactes, Rufous Warbler Agrobates galactotes and Scarlet Tanager Piranga olivacea. In the ten years 1954-63, sixty-one species have thus 526 REPORT ON BIRD-RINGING FOR I 9 6 3 been added to the list. Fifteen of these, including the Stilt Sandpiper and Scarlet Tanager, have been New World forms, two Holarctic in distribution and forty-four Old World. So many of the Palearctic species on the British and Irish List have now been ringed that future additions may well be chiefly of Nearctic species. The recovery section will be found to contain many recoveries of unusual interest. Among the Anatidae, for example, are the first Mallard in Switzerland, a Teal Anas crecca in Rumania, the first foreign recoveries of Goldeneye Bucephala clangula and Eider Somateria niollis- sima in Sweden and Denmark respectively, and a Shoveler ringed as pullus and recovered in the U.S.S.R. (the last being the first established case of abmigration for this species). For several years now, waders have featured prominently in the recovery lists and 1963 had an excellent quota of important records, including the first Golden Plover Cbaradrius apricarius in Iberia and the first Lapwing (ringed as a chick) in Iceland. Pride of place, however, must certainly be given to the very fine series of Knot recoveries, and in particular to CX25424 which performed the remarkable feat of flying 3,500 miles from the Wash to Liberia within eight days of being ringed. The large colony of Great Skuas Catharacta skua on Foula has been closely worked in recent years by members of the Brathay Exploration Group and has produced a steady flow of recoveries along the western seaboard of Europe from Denmark to southern Iberia, with an isolated inland record in the U.S.S.R. There has, however, been nothing be- fore comparable to the overland passage through central Europe in 1963, which led to recoveries in Germany, Austria and Poland. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the excellent co-operation we have received from our French colleagues in connection with the special Sand Martin enquiry. Of the 24 foreign recoveries of this species, no fewer than eight were of birds recaptured by French ringers working at roosts. This is a fine example of the value of co-operation, as indeed are the general results of the enquiry, for the 1,003 recoveries during 1963 contrast notably with the 64 reported in 1959, the last year before the start of the study. The great majority of the 1965 recoveries were of course ‘controls’ — the recapture by one ringer of a bird ringed by another — and many of them are likely to be recovered again in future years. Furthermore, in addition to the controls, several thousand birds were retrapped, these records providing important additional data. The advent of the small-mesh mist-net revolutionised the catching of warblers and nowadays we can expect to get as many recoveries in a single year as were formerly reported in one or two decades. This applies, for example, to Reed Warbler Acrocephalus scirpaceus and Willow Warbler Phjlloscopns trochilus , for both of which ten foreign 527 BRITISH BIRDS recoveries are listed in this report. Two recoveries of Blackcaps Sylvia atricapilla are of absorbing interest: ringed at Beachy Head on successive September days, they were recovered just over a month later, one in Portugal and the other in Lebanon. There are now three recoveries of this species from the Levant coast (the other two being spring records), but at least five times that number showing a south- westerly oriented migration. It is probable that the birds taking the easterly route originated in Scandinavia, but more ringing will be needed before this particular problem is understood. Finally, there is a most exciting refutation of the claim that vagrants are unlikely to produce recoveries and are therefore not worth ringing. A Rustic Bunting Emberi^a rustica ringed on Fair Isle in June (only the tenth to be ringed in this country) was recovered on the Greek island of Chios in mid-October. As the nearest wintering areas of this species are Russian Turkestan and occasionally north-east Iran, the bird was clearly moving in the right general direction. COMMITTEE The members of the Bird-Ringing Committee on 31st December 1963 were Sir Landsborough Thomson (Chairman), R. C. Homes (Vice- Chairman), Miss E. P. Leach, J. S. Ash, H. J. Boyd, E. J. M. Buxton, J. C. Coulson, J. Cudworth, P. R. Evans, P. A. D. Hollom, C. D. T. Minton, J. D. Macdonald (representing the Trustees of the British Museum), C. M. Perrins and R. G. Pettitt; with R. K. Cornwallis, Mrs. S. Cowdy, Stanley Cramp, J. M. McMeeking, C. A. Norris, and D. R. Wilson (ex officiis) and Robert Spencer (Secretary). FINANCE The work of the Bird-Ringing Committee is done under contract to the Nature Conservancy, an annual grant being received to cover the salaries of four out of the five members of headquarters staff. A grant of £50 from the main funds of the Trust was received towards the cost of special ringing enquiries and the publishers made their annual grant of £25. The Wildfowl Trust obtained their rings at cost price and made a contribution of £75 towards the costs of adminis- tration. All other expenses were met from the sale of rings and equipment and from revenue derived from ringing permits. Full accounts for the year 1963 have been published in the Annual Report of the British Trust for Ornithology. STAFF Robert Spencer, R. W. Hudson, C. J. Mead, Miss U. V. Walker, Mrs. H. Hill and Miss E. McMeeking (April to September). Miss E. P. Leach, in an honorary capacity, had charge until 1st September of all reports of rings from foreign schemes. 528 REPORT ON BIRD-RINGING FOR I 9 6 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Grateful acknowledgement is made to the Nature Conservancy for their indispensible financial support, to H. F. & G. Witherby for their annual grant and to the Wildfowl Trust for their contribution. We are indebted to the Trustees of the British Museum for accommodation at the Museum until nth September, and for permission to use the address of the Museum on rings. Several ringers assisted in the office from time to time and, as in previous years, Derek Goodwin and W. R. Rybotycki helped us with translations. PUBLICATIONS The following papers, based wholly or partially on the results of British ringing, have been published: J. V. Beer and H. Boyd (1964): ‘Deaths of wild White-fronted Geese at Slimbridge in January 1963’. Wildfowl Trust, ijtb Ann. Rep.: 40-44. Hugh Boyd (1964) ‘Recoveries of ducks ringed in Aberdeenshire by Miss E. A. Garden.’ Wildfowl Trust, ijtb Ann. Rep.: 77-78. Hugh Boyd and Malcolm Ogilvie (1964) ‘Losses of Mute Swans in England in the winter of 1962-63’. Wildfowl Trust, ijtb Ann. Rep.: 37-40. Stanley Cramp (1963): ‘Movements of tits in Europe in 1959 and after’. Brit. Birds, 56: 237-263. G. M. Dunnct, A. Anderson and R. M. Cormack (1963): ‘A study of survival of adult Fulmars with observations on the pre-laying exodus’. Brit. Bird,, 36: 2-18. Robert Spencer (’1963): ‘The bird ringing scheme, 1958-61’. Bird Study, 10: 133-1 37. Table 1 NUMBERS OF BIRDS RINGED AND RECOVERED Juvf Adult — Ringed Pullus* Total Recovered Total 1963 .. .. 355,007 80,918 435,925 M,397 1962 . . . . 307,924 81,551 589,475 1 1,689 1961 . . .. 272,919 77,443 350,362 9,238 i960 . . .. 219,104 60,085 279, i89 7,9* 1 1959 .. .. 184,837 57,488 242,325 6,949 1958 .. .. 155,4m 45,42i 200,835 6,374 1957 . . 1 37,060 49,286 1 86,346 5,497 1956 . . 104,665 40,069 M4,734 4,808 1955 .. 90,585 35,7i8 126,303 4,063 Grand total ringed 1909-63 • • • • . . 3,707,020 Grand total recovered 1909-63 . . 104,024 *An explanation of the term pullus or pull, appears on page 536. 529 BRITISH BIRDS Table 2 RINGING AND RECOVERY TOTALS TO 3 I ST DECEMBER 1 96 3 Section 1 — Species of which more than 100 have been ringed 196) Grand Gi Juv.l Adult Pullus total total 1963 Little Grebe 18 — 18 235 — Leach’s Petrel 27 — 27 935 2 Storm Petrel 783 22 805 9,409 5 Manx Shearwater . . 2,573 4,316 6,889 115,712 65 I, Fulmar 131 988 1,119 8,532 9 Gannet 32 1.952 1,984 26,544 153 I. Cormorant . . 109 ill 486 7,330 155 1, Shag 125 2,517 2,642 18,031 169 I, Heron 4 45 49 4,726 27 Mallard 3.M8 176 3,324 43,369 948 7, Teal 1,877 — 1,877 38,117 746 7, Garganey . . 23 — 23 232 I Gadwall 1 — I 198 I Wigeon . . 203 2 205 2,442 27 Pintail 76 — 76 707 20 Shoveler 37 — 37 668 14 Tufted Duck 176 — 176 1,182 29 Pochard 28 I 29 263 6 Eider 195 907 1,102 3,940 42 Shelduck 113 152 265 1,646 27 Grey Lag Goose . . 634 9 643 1,226 l6 White-fronted Goose I I 582 20 Pink-footed Goose . . I — I 11,823 214 2, Barnacle Goose* . . 316 4 320 324 5 Canada Goose 128 64 I92 1,518 29 Mute Swan 2,116 187 2,303 10,429 851 2, Buzzard 3 40 43 1,099 I Sparrowhawk 18 29 47 1,448 4 Marsh Harrier . . — 123 — Hen Harrier — 54 54 677 4 Montagu’s Harrier . . 3 3 261 — Peregrine . . — I I 187 — Merlin II 55 66 793 II Kestrel 33 181 214 3,252 37 Red Grouse — L538 Partridge . . 37 — 37 285 4 Water Rail . . 70 2 72 748 6 Corncrake . . 6 — 6 745 — Moorhen . . 339 20 559 7,Mi 63 Coot 338 5 343 2,395 49 Oystercatcher 3.451 571 4,022 12,329 173 Lapwing . . 106 1,147 i,i53 78,779 132 1, Ringed Plover 166 162 328 5,777 19 Little Ringed Plover . . l6 36 52 489 2 Grey Plover 492 492 599 3 Golden Plover . . 22 26 48 770 2 Turnstone . . 191 — '91 i,i57 2 Snipe 538 18 5 56 7,52i 90 Jack Snipe . . 51 — 5 1 544 4 Woodcock . . 39 3 42 5,818 7 Curlew 73 163 236 7,778 45 Bar-tailed Godwit 35 35 163 2 ■"Newly promoted from Section 2 53° REPORT ON BIRD-RINGING FOR X 9 6 3 ■reen Sandpiper . . '’ood Sandpiper . . ommon Sandpiper :,edshank . . roe; is hank not irple Sandpiper . . .ttle Stint . . .unlin rrlew Sandpiper . . wnder ling . . .iff one Curlew Arctic Skua l .teat Skua I teat Black-backed Gull . . l-isser Black-backed Gull. . k arring Gull liammon Gull » tck-hcaded Gull I' ttiwake . . ■mmon Tern nctic Tern iseate Tern tie Tern ldwich Tern zorbill lillemot tack Guillemot . . rHfin { eck Dove c ck Dove toodpigeon rtle Dove Jared Dove* I : :koo I n Owl . . Itle Owl . . 1 vnv Owl lg-eared Owl . . irt-eared Owl . . hchtjar irft . gfisher . . esen Woodpecker at Spotted Woodpecker ser Spotted Woodpecker meek oodlark . . I ‘lark H How M tse Martin M 1 Martin Bren H "ion/Hooded Crow U k H :daw Juv.l Adult Ringed- Pullus 196} total Grand total 196) 'vered Grand total 43 — 43 257 2 8 33 — 33 145 — I 347 73 420 5, ^4 7 44 408 93 501 8,726 109 326 39 2 4i 192 2 7 2,599 — 2,599 3,638 15 26 I I — II 185 — — 26 — 26 35 1 — 7 6,635 7 6,642 22,799 id 223 34 — 34 210 — — 18 — 18 21 I — 5 94 — 94 590 4 20 — 7 7 374 — 21 I 146 147 1,582 4 59 — 997 997 5,074 41 116 I I 637 648 4,827 57 318 119 5,523 5,642 37,880 227 1,561 177 7,636 7,8i3 52,529 333 2,083 221 135 356 5,453 9 227 902 4,956 5,858 70,049 414 3,546 107 1,088 i,i95 20,157 47 447 39 2,242 2,281 37,922 40 751 166 3>°9° 3,256 28,725 75 459 I 829 830 7,938 12 83 — 73 73 2,376 5 36 104 3,77° 3,874 46,680 124 891 D3 443 596 12,824 D 585 70 267 337 8,923 22 307 2 59 61 111 2 9 387 733 1,120 18,197 IO ”3 22 39 61 2,239 5 162 — — — 125 — 5 383 237 620 9,957 123 834 *79 44 223 2,196 4 72 39 3 42 106 3 to 70 23 93 2,211 7 73 7 20 27 1,443 16 218 59 38 97 1,897 IO 162 26 82 108 2,995 14 217 26 12 38 607 2 39 IO 4 14 471 2 37 II 6 17 517 I 12 8,261 ”3 8,374 30,346 122 630 63 — 63 1,742 2 61 24 — 24 671 7 34 125 t7 142 1,362 6 65 ‘ 6 — 6 103 — — 49 — 49 658 — 13 2 — 2 503 — 2 1,589 295 1,884 13,446 24 105 21,437 7,938 29,375 172,626 239 1,232 3,289 32 3,321 33,370 38 261 46,364 IO 46,374 J35,332 1,003 1,940 — Il6 116 1,129 5 ”3 25 116 141 4,433 20 292 187 327 514 11,416 49 111 307 293 600 11,187 48 653 *Newly promoted from Section 2 5 31 BRITISH BIRDS Ringed- Rea wered— Magpie Juv.j Adult 61 Pullus 136 1963 total 197 Grand total 3,7H 1963 15 Gn to 1 Jay 236 15 251 2,659 24 2 Chough I 7 8 320 4 Great Tit . . 5.395 2,766 8,161 82,745 159 1,4 Blue Tit 13,980 4,176 18,156 178,161 376 3,3 Coal Tit . . 43i 201 632 9,286 4 I Marsh Tit . . 418 50 468 4,095 3 Willow Tit 393 22 415 i,473 2 Long-tailed Tit 499 5 504 4,405 IO Bearded Tit 42 — 42 i,i34 I Nuthatch . . 158 147 3°5 3,183 9 Treecreeper 321 52 373 2,033 1 Wren 696 I I 707 18,271 21 I Dipper 124 292 416 5,752 7 Mistle Thrush 864 170 1,034 I3,H7 72 Fieldfare 1,164 1,164 3,668 39 Song Thrush 6,907 1,214 8,121 154,787 531 4,<: Redwing 2,606 — 2,606 15,730 124 4 Ring Ouzel 34 98 132 2,076 2 Blackbird . . 29,338 3,089 32,427 283,065 1,594 10,5 Wheatear . . 1.275 131 1,406 19,716 5 Stonechat . . 67 9 76 3,828 7,653 3 Whinchat . . 43i 185 616 6 Redstart i,i34 508 1,642 i6,739 15 Black Redstart 60 18 78 754 — Nightingale 87 29 Il6 3,868 3 Bluethroat . . 19 — • 19 223 — Robin 6,837 599 7,436 103,501 237 2,< Grasshopper Warbler 107 IO xi7 1,050 I Reed Warbler 3,083 I90 3,273 11,783 24 Marsh Warbler* . . 19 — J9 116 — Sedge Warbler 4,269 2 1 1 4,480 21,712 19 Icterine Warbler* . . 15 — 15 114 — Blackcap 1,874 6l i,935 8,384 12 Barred Warbler 35 35 250 — Garden Warbler . . L552 81 1,633 7,867 8 Whitethroat 5,599 441 6,040 60,491 38 Lesser Whitethroat 831 39 870 4,672 7 Dartford Warbler . . — 153 — Willow Warbler . . 8,207 1,293 9,500 78,343 26 2 Chiffchaff . . 2,425 77 2,502 18,143 17 Wood Warbler 37 92 129 2,516 8,360 — Goldcrest . . 216 216 4 Firecrest 19 — 19 298 — Spotted Flycatcher 1,075 5 26 1,601 16,212 I I Pied Flycatcher 7i4 546 1,260 18,305 4 Red-breasted Flycatcher 13 13 151 — Dunnock . . 8,064 522 8,586 85,578 183 1,1 Meadow Pipit 2,865 367 3,232 37,896 64 Tree Pipit . . 1x7 78 195 4,575 I Rock/Water Pipit . . 473 41 514 9,634 9 Pied/White Wagtail 2,178 348 2,526 32,153 145 Grey Wagtail 75 25 IOO 3,492 7 Yellow Wagtail ssp. 1,634 i37 i,77i i5,47i 14 1 Waxwing . . 35 35 158 2 Red-backed Shrike 49 23 72 2,664 I Starling 54,092 1,129 55,221 386,405 1,467 14,4 *Newly promoted from Section 2 532 REPORT ON BIRD-RINGING FOR 1 9 6 3 Jm1./ Adult Ringed- Pullus 196} total Grand total Rtcot 1969 ered Grand total iwfinch . . 23 4 29 264 2 r.eenhnch . . 17,186 254 17,440 145,568 492 2,851 ddfinch . . 2,044 80 2,124 12,631 3i 159 It kin 25 — 25 794 I 9 iinet 8,019 1,040 9.059 72,013 118 527 rite 103 IO ”5 2,547 3 12 dpoll . . 890 32 922 4,374 6 48 llitnch 3.909 231 4,140 18,778 72 410 ossbill 181 — 181 45 3 I 3 * affinch . . 8,623 313 8,936 111,007 152 T,343 ; ambling . . 1,391 — C59I 7,661 18 59 Uowhammcr 1,523 210 1,735 20,597 22 179 - m Bunting . . 146 14 160 1,361 2 22 1 Bunting IO 3 13 195 — 1 ed Bunting 5,030 173 3>223 27,267 32 163 5w Bunting 132 — i32 2,990 158,562 I 23 . use Sparrow 15,432 854 16,286 394 2,502 tie Sparrow 4,198 709 4,907 34,386 72 216 Section 2 — Species of which fewer than 100 have been ringed (1963 total, grand total, 1963 recoveries and grand total recoveries are given in that order) ck-throated Diver ;at Northern Diver 1-throated Diver eat Crested Grebe id-necked Grebe f vonian Grebe •y’s Shearwater .son’s Petrel de Bittern leem id-crested Pochard up r ndarin Duck ddeneye . . lg- tailed Duck vet Scoter nmon Scoter l-breasted Merganser ■©sander . . cw nt Goose ooper Swan rick’s Swan » igh-legged Buzzard den Eagle iby I -footed Falcon :k Grouse "migan . . ercaillie . . -legged Partridge iil — 3 — — Pheasant — 64 — 3 — — Spotted Crake 3 13 3 18 — 3 Kentish Plover — 1 10 47 — Dotterel 4 44 — 2 — — Solitary Sandpiper . . — 1 — 5 — — Whimbrel 7 75 — 1 — — Black -tailed Godwit 1 11 — 2 — — Spotted Redshank . . 7 54 — 1 — — Temminck’s Stint . . — 4 6 48 2 8 White-rumped Sandpiper — 3 — 16 — 4 Pectoral Sandpiper 2 17 5 53 2 1 1 Stilt Sandpiper* 1 1 5 — — Western Sandpiper — 1 8 23 I — Buff-breasted Sandpiper — 2 1 5 — 1 Avocet — 1 — 3 — 1 Grey Phalarope 3 43 1 14 I 3 Red-necked Phalarope — 24 3 20 — 1 Pomarine Skua 1 2 5 69 — 10 Glaucous Gull — 5 2 — — Little Gull . . — 1 — 7 — 1 Sabine’s Gull* 1 1 8 18 I 3 Black Tern . . 1 3 8 it — Gull-billed Tern — 1 — 1 — — Little Auk . . 3 22 — 1 — — Scops Owl . . 1 3 56 — 4 Snowy Owl — 1 2 63 — 5 Hoopoe 2 11 — 1 — — Short-toed Lark — 3 15 — 1 Shore Lark . . 2 21 — 3 — — Golden Oriole — 4 3 — — Nutcracker* 1 1 2 87 I 18 Crested Tit 1 65 — 6 — — Black-throated Thrush — 1 4 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 ‘Added to the list in 1963 533 BRITISH BIRDS Dusky Thrush — 2 — — Red-throated Pipit I 4 — American Robin I 2 — — Yellow-headed Wagtail — 3 — Siberian Thrush — I — — Great Grey Shrike I I 64 — Grey-cheeked Thrush — 3 — 1 Lesser Grey Shrike — 5 — Desert Wheatear — 2 — — Woodchat Shrike 2 37 — Black-eared Wheatear — 1 — — Myrtle Warbler — 1 — Pied Wheatear — 1 — — Northern Water Thrush . . — 1 — Thrush Nightingale — 2 — — Yellowthroat — 1 — Rufous Warbler* . . I 1 — — Bobolink — 1 — Cetti’s Warbler — 2 — — Slate-coloured Junco — 1 — River Warbler — 1 — — Rose-coloured Starling — 2 — Lanceolated Warbler Pallas’s Grasshopper — 1 — — Baltimore Oriole Summer Tanager . . I 2 1 — Warbler 1 — — Scarlet Tanager* I 1 — Great Reed Warbler 2 6 — — Arctic Redpoll — 3 — Paddyfield Warbler — 1 — — Serin — 1 — Aquatic Warbler 4 3° — — Scarlet Grosbeak I 29 — Thick-billed Warbler 1 — — Pine Grosbeak — 1 — Melodious Warbler 6 95 — — Parrot Crossbill I 42 — Olivaceous Warbler ■ — 3 — — Black-headed Bunting I 2 — Booted Warbler — 1 — . — Red-headed Bunting 3 — Orphean Warbler . . — 1 — — Yellow-breasted Bunting . . 2 4 — Sardinian Warbler — 1 — — Ortolan Bunting 4 3i — Subalpine Warbler . . 1 10 — — Rustic Bunting 1 10 1 Greenish Warbler . . 1 l9 — . — Little Bunting 1 15 — Bonelli’s Warbler . . 1 10 — — Fox Sparrow — 1 — Arctic Warbler — 9 — — Song Sparrow — 1 — Yellow-browed Warbler Pallas’s Warbler Dusky Warbler Radde’s Warbler Richard’s Pipit 5 2 59 5 1 — 1 Lapland Bunting Hybrids 7 76 — 2 4 — — Mallard x Wigeon . . Common x Red-crested — 1 — Tawny Pipit — 3 — — Pochard — 1 — Pechora Pipit — 1 — — House x Tree Sparrow — 3 — *Added to the list in 1963 Table 3 DISTRIBUTION BY MONTHS OF RECOVERIES OF SELECTED SPECIES This table, which is confined to species wintering in Great Britain and Ireland, shows the numb ■of recoveries occurring in each month of 1963. Although it includes some live birds, and is th not a table of mortality, it nevertheless reflects the severe weather during the first quarter, table confined to birds dying natural deaths would be valuable, but it is often impossible to esta lish whether death was, in fact, due to natural causes. Furthermore, the cold undoubtedly caus many birds to move to localities where they were more likely to be shot. It also induced others take shelter in buildings, so that there was an increase in live recoveries. For each species, t highest figures are printed in bold type Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Cormorant *5 18 8 20 10 4 5 8 8 10 19 Shag M 12 15 16 4 14 14 16 10 1 1 >7 Heron 3 8 5 _ 2 3 _ _ 3 Mallard 202 54 21 22 *5 5 9 39 90 1 10 1 18 Teal *5i 36 18 1 1 14 4 3 ?8 42 59 5* Eider z 2 1 3 3 6 5 2 3 2 5 Shclduck 5 4 2 2 2 3 2 4 White-fronted Goose IX 3 _ _ _ 1 1 _ Canada Goose 6 4 _ X 1 _ 3 _ 2 6 _ Mute Swan 104 127 *49 82 64 33 22 59 32 5° 40 Kestrel 1 2 3 2 2 3 5 3 2 6 Jan REPORT ON Feb Mar BIRD-RINGING Apt May Jun FOR Jul 1963 Aug Sep Oct Nov Dee rhcr. *9 7 8 6 2 1 3 3 X 5 2 2 18 »3 6 2 2 1 X - X - 1 3 •rcatcher 19 5 12 6 5 7 x7 9 29 7 12 37 'ing 5* 3* 8 2 7 6 2 2 - - - 8 cd Plover 9 2 X - - 1 - 2 1 1 1 1 J 57 8 5 - - - - X 2 2 3 8 tw 12 12 1 3 - 1 2 - 4 2 3 3 hank 43 26 M 8 1 4 X - - X 7 4 in 1 4 3 4 6 - 5 6 8 8 6 6 ng Gull *3 18 M *9 16 >4 37 76 54 31 18 18 4-headed Gull 61 5» 21 20 34 33 54 27 16 IX 6 I X dpigeon 46 *7 1 1 4 6 1 4 6 7 - 2 3 Owl 2 6 - 2 - - X - - - 1 1 I Owl 1 4 - - - 1 I - - X 1 - 1 iy Owl 1 - 2 2 3 1 - X - 1 1 - rk 7 4 3 1 3 I - 1 - 1 - 6 3 2 2 4 9 7 7 4 - 1 - | law 2 - 2 3 4 6 7 3 5 2 - - ,ie - - 2 2 - 3 1 1 - I - 1 1 1 1 2 2 3 4 - - 2 - 4 : Tit ■ 2 >3 1 1 5 31 18 x3 4 4 5 5 16 : Tit 44 37 40 36 26 34 XO 9 6 21 21 39 -tailed Tit 3 - 2 - - - - - - 2 1 1 5 4 3 2 - 2 - - - - - - : Thrush 19 12 8 1 8 5 3 5 - 1 1 4 I are 11 9 3 1 3 3 - - - 1 - X [ Thrush 17a 73 57 29 5° 34 37 x9 11 1 1 7 16 I tog 63 •9 21 7 2 3 X - - 1 1 4 1 bird 276 »73 162 165 1 3 3 163 121 86 36 5*> 4X 56 1 1 40 22 21 10 16 17 9 1 3 12 10 10 18 1 ock 18 19 24 >3 20 16 ii 1 1 3 4 5 5 I ow Pipit 18 8 5 1 - 3 2 3 - 5 XO 2 1. Wagtail 66 >9 10 4 3 5 3 5 5 3 4 3 1 >g 144 185 189 168 209 •33 89 56 55 66 50 5° 1 ifinch 94 53 41 54 56 48 54 23 7 x4 x4 23 inch 5 - 1 2 2 - 4 X - 2 5 2 t ( *5 9 6 4 8 3 5 2 1 12 6 7 ich 6 - 3 4 x4 6 9 2 1 3 6 12 nch *9 16 9 x7 x7 12 2 3 5 12 8 8 1 >l'ng 7 5 2 - - - - 1 - 2 - 1 m whammer 2 4 - 4 1 7 X - 2 1 - - 1 Bunting 11 6 2 3 2 - X 1 1 - 2 1 1 '* Sparrow 21 x9 33 28 45 60 55 23 16 XX 8 20 nparrow 8 9 2 2 5 11 x7 3 - 2 - 8 Table 4 I IBERS AND DISTRIBUTION OF RINGERS (AS AT 3 I ST DECEMBER 1963) INLAND Category oj permit Category oj permit ■y A B C Total County A B C Total 1 ordshire 5 1 2 8 Herefordshire 4 — — 4 1 s.rshire • • *3 3 I 17 Hertfordshire 22 — — 22 1 inghamshire . . • • 14 — M Huntingdonshire . . 1 — — 1 loridgcshire . . 14 1 2 17 Kent . . 42 15 — 57 f hire • • 25 3 10 38 Lancashire • • 24 3 8 35 I-' wall 4 1 — 3 Leicestershire 8 1 9 ■ herland 3 — I 4 Lincolnshire . . 19 1 6 26 ■'■y shire .. 6 — — 6 London .. 17 3 4 24 (to •• !3 — I 14 Middlesex . . . . 21 1 2 24 t et 7 1 2 10 Norfolk 8 4 2 14 1 *iam • ■ !3 1 — •4 Northamptonshire •• 7 2 9 1 c . . 40 3 12 55 Northumberland . . •• M 4 5 23 I ccstcrshirc . . . . 14 3 2 19 Nottinghamshire . . 9 — 2 11 | pshire • • 31 1 5 37 Oxfordshire . . 28 4 2 34 535 BRITISH BIRDS County Category of permit ABC Total Shropshire 3 — 1 4 Somerset • • 13 1 5 !9 Staffordshire . . 12 — 5 17 Suffolk .. 15 2 2 *9 Surrey .. 45 3 7 55 Sussex . . 22 — 2 24 Warwickshire . . 24 1 8 33 Westmorland 2 — 2 4 Wiltshire 11 — 3 14 Worcestershire 5 — 5 Yorkshire . . 81 10 D 106 Isle of Man 1 — — 1 SCOTLAND Aberdeenshire 4 3 3 10 Ayrshire 3 3 Caithness . . . . 1 — 2 3 Clackmannanshire 1 — — 1 Dumfriesshire 5 — — 3 Dunbartonshire . . . . 1 — 1 2 East Lothian 3 — — 3 Fife . . 2 — — 2 Inverness-shire 3 — — 3 Kirkcudbright 2 — — 2 Lanarkshire 1 — — 1 County Category of per , ABC To Midlothian . . 17 5 — 2 Orkney . . I 1 Peeblesshire . . 2 — — Perth . . 1 — Ross I — — Shetland 2 4 — Sutherland I — WALES Anglesey 4 — — Breconshire 2 — — Caernarvonshire . . 3 — 1 Cardiganshire 2 — — Denbighshire . . 2 — — Glamorganshire . . .. 6 — 1 Montgomeryshire . . 1 — — Pembrokeshire 2 1 — IRELAND Antrim 5 3 2 1 Cork 1 Down 5 4 2 ] Dublin 3 1 Wexford . . 1 — — ABROAD . . 10 1 3 1 Selected list of recoveries reported during 1963 The following list is highly selective. To indicate the quantity and nature of t material omitted, the total number of recoveries is stated in brackets after t scientific name of each species, followed by the minimum movement to quali for inclusion and the longest time lapsed between ringing and recovery. I foreign recoveries are either given in full or mentioned in the summaries. Sped which produced only local movements — generally less than ten miles — -are left oi but the individual totals thus omitted are listed in table 2. Key to symbols and terms Ring number: Age: Sex: Manner of recovery: 5 Where this is in italics the ring has been returned. pull, (pullus) — nestling or chick, not yet flying ; juv. — young, able to fly freely, istW. — lirst winter; istS. — first summer (one year old); f.g. — full-grown, age uncertain; ad. — adult; at least one year old. i ad. 1.8.63 Fair Isle v 4.8.63 Foula (Shetland) 45m. N. Manx Shearwater (l* r ocellar ia pujffitms ) (65 ; 9^ years) (479' f-g. X 10.9.58 late 4.63 fJJ 7 f-g- X 6.9.63 7.9.63 (477 * pull. X 23.8.54 late 54 1890 pull. X 11.9.62 29.9.63 +459 pull. X 7.9.63 29.10.63 :)67 pull. X 10.9.63 (7.11.63) Hallival: 56°59'N. 6°i6'W. Rhum (Inverness) PW llolm, Pomona (Orkney) 175m. NE. Copeland Eckington (Derbyshire) 190m. ESE. Skokholm near Porto Alegre: c. 3o°3o'S. 50°4o'W. (Rio Grande do Sul) Brazil Skokholm Sao Scbastiao: 22°49'S. 44°09'W. (Sao Paulo) Brazil Skokholm Guaratuba: 25°5o'S. 48°36'\V. (Parana) Brazil Skokholm Swinton, Manchester (Lancashire) 1 80m. NE. hie recoveries omitted, eight were in French Biscay waters between March and lust and six were off the north coast of Spain between March and October, [■remainder were in British waters. Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis) (9; 40 miles; years) 965 pull. X 31.7.63 15.10.63 Hermancss: 6o°52'N. o°5 3'W. Unst (Shetland) JGW Arum: 54°39'N. 8J2o'E. North Frisian Islands, Germany 119 pull. X 4.8.58 31.5.63 Foula: 6o°o8/N. 2'05'W. (Shetland) D&Q llirtshals: 57°36'N. 9°58'E. (Jutland) Denmark 07 ad. X 27-5-59 5.7.63 Eynhallow: 59°o8'N. 3c’oS/W. (Orkney) AU Boulmer, Alnwick (Northumberland) 270m. S. ’13 ad. X 13.7.60 0.12.62 Eynhallow AU off NW. Iceland: c. 65°55'N. 26°oo'W. M167 pull. 0 21.8.62 3.11.63 South Ronaldsay: 58°47'N. 2°56'W. (Orknev) AU West of St. Kilda: 57°45'N. 9°25'W. Gannet {Sul a bassana) (153; 5 $ years) tal of 1 12 recoveries were reported from abroad. An unusual one is pub- 1 in full and the remainder are summarised in table A. Only eleven recoveries >me waters showed movements of more than 150 miles. 441 pull. 22.7.62 Bass Rock PY + 8.12.63 1-ago di Patria: 40°j6'N. i4c02'E. (Naples) Italy 537 BRITISH BIRDS Table A — Countries and months of recoveries of Gannets Country of recovery Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Denmark (3) - - Germany (5) - - Netherlands (7) - - France (12) and Channel Isles (1) 1 - ‘Biscay* (3) - - Spain (22) - 1 Portugal (34*) 2 - NW Africa (1 8) 4 1 Senegal (4) -•--453 - - - - 1 5 I • - - - 5 7 5 - - - - I 12 13 I - - - - 4 5 1 2 — — — — — *Total includes fout reported as ‘October/November* Note. The monthly columns in tables A-V, unless otherwise stated, are confined to 1 recovered in 1963. For the sake of completeness, however, the country totals include rec reported in 1963 but relating to earlier years, as well as imprecisely dated recoveries Cormorant ( Phalacrocorax carbo) (155 ; 10^ years) Foreign recoveries are summarised in table B. 80 % of movements over 100 n within British waters showed a southerly trend, the chief exceptions being b from colonies in the south-west (Saltee and Isles of Scilly), for which the main 1 masses lie to the north and east. Table B — Countries and months of recoveries of Cormorants Country of recovery Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Netherlands (i) - i ________ France (13) 1 2 Spain (4) - See footnote to table A Shag ( 'Phalacrocorax aristotelis) (169; io-fy years) One from the Fame Islands was recovered in its first summer near Cuxlm Germany, on 14th July 1963. Immatures from Cornwall and Devon v. recovered in Finistere (four) and Cotes du Nord (one), France, between June October, and a four-year-old bird from Fair Isle was in Seine Maritime, France August. Only 26 recoveries in home waters showed movement of more than miles. Heron (Ardea cinerea) (27; 100 miles; 10 years) COLD WEATHER. Fewer recoveries were reported than in any year sii J95 5» km several factors could have been responsible for this. Two-thirds of j year’s recoveries were reported in the first quarter but show no evidence of oriented cold weather movement. 520208 pull. 10.5.59 X 26.1.63 I02JI42 pull. 26.5.62 X 16.2.63 Elmore: 5 1°5 i'N. 2°i9'\V. (Gloucester) TOJ Hazel Grove (Cheshire) 105m. N. Alice Holt: 5i°u'N. o°5o'W. (Hampshire) PGD Bussicre-St. Georges: 46°24'N. 2°09'E. (Creusc) France 53* REPORT ON BIRD-RINGING FOR I 9 6 J Bittern (Bo/aunts stellar is') (255 miles; 1-3V years) j 52 pull. 1. 6. 61 Minsmere: 52°i4'N. i°37'W. (Suffolk) HEA X 23.1.63 Hickling (Norfolk) 35m. N. Mallard {Anas platyrhjncbos ) (948; io|§ years) j LD WEATHER. Shooting pressure was heavy' in January and fewer than | nty of the birds reported had died natural deaths. Ringing produced little Idence of a cold weather movement, most of the recoveries coming from locali- i within fifty miles of the four main ringing stations at Slimbridge, Peakirk, I >erton and on the Medway estuary. The majority of the birds recovered in : xuary and March were found dead or dying. ry of recovery :(3°) m(2) ■Viands (5;) irk (35) ny(i9) 1(3) >y(0 En(M) i(“) (States (7) * Mu) Table C — Countries and months of recoveries of Mallard Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct 1 x 1 Nov Dec 1 3 6 4 7 6 3 a See footnote to table A lished in full are the extreme northerly and easterly recoveries, the first record British-ringed Mallard in Switzerland, and an interesting double recovery': ft f.g.9 19.1.63 V 17.8.63 + end 9.63 '243 f-g- ¥ 15.10.60 + (10.10.63) 519 juv. $ 28.9.61 J- 28.1.63 '099 fig- d 8.12.62 + 25.9.63 Ludham: 52°42'N. i°33'E. (Norfolk) Naarden: 5 2°x 8TSI. 5°io'E. (Noord-Holland) Netherlands Bodedern: 53°i9'N. 4°29'W. (Anglesey) Deeping St. Nicholas: 52°43'N. o°i2'W. (Lincoln) Ovre Soppero: 68°o8'N. 2i°4i/E. (Lappland) Sweden Peakirk: 52°38'N. o°i7'W. (Northampton) Vouvry: 46:i2i'N. 6'52'E. (Valais) Switzerland Slimbridge near Pervomayskiv: 5i°3o'N. 5 5^02 'E. (Orenburg) U.S.S.R. Teal {Anas crecca ) (746; 1 1 years) vD WEATHER. Rather more were recovered than in a normal winter 1 there was clearly a southerly emigration. This probably occurred gradually, n ing before the onset of severe cold. The number of recoveries in France, >ugh high, was not the highest ever recorded: the cold spell at the end of I ary 1954 produced a more sudden and spectacular movement (see Brit. Birds, I 175). On the other hand, the volume of recoveries in Iberia was unpreceden- Within Great Britain all but a handful of the recoveries reported in January I )uth of a line from the Mersey to the Wash, the chief exceptions coming from 539 BRITISH BIRDS south-west Scotland. Teal from south-east England moved westward south-west England, Wales and Ireland, but the recoveries were not marl more numerous than for a typical January. Table D — Countries and months of recoveries of Teal Country of recovery Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Italy (2) - - 1 Spain (39) 27 7 2 Portugal (1) - 1 - France (121) and Channel Isles (1) 70 12 7 Ireland (70) 41 6 - Belgium (1) 1 - - Netherlands (11) - - - Denmark (27) - - - Germany (11) - - - Poland (2) - - - Norway (2) - - - Sweden (10) - - - Finland (15) - - - Baltic States (5) - - - U.S.S.R. (31) - - - 3213 3 3 2 1 7 1 3 5 6 2 1 3 1 4 1 1 1 1 2 I 1 See footnote to table A The first recoveries of British-ringed Teal in Rumania and Sardinia and an inte ing French recovery (included in the table above) are published in full : 3021526 ad. d /?/ 3.12.56 0.9.57 Abberton Saucesti: 46°37'N. 26°54'E. (Bacau) Rumania EC17004 ad. d + 24.6.62 10.1.63 Abberton Arborea: 39°47'N. 8°43'E. (Cagliari) Sardinia Copenhagen 535829 EC28J42 juv. V + 31.8.62 29.12.62 13.1.63 Amager: 5 5°38'N. I2°34'E. (Sjaelland) Denmark Abbotsbury: 50°5o'N. 2°36'W. (Dorset) Ustaritz: 43°24'N. i°27'W. (Basses-Pyrenees) France Wigeon {Anas penelope) (27; 200 miles; 10 years) siTpp8ji ad. d + 20.2.63 9.9.63 Moray Firth: 57°28'N. 4°2o'W. (Inverness) Ringkobing Fjord: c. 56°oo'N. 8°i5'E. (Jutland) Denmar 32)178 ad. $ + 15.1.62 8.10.63 Newburgh: 57°i9'N. 2°oi'W. (Aberdeen) AU Borisoglebsk: 5i°23'N. 42°03'E. (Voronezh) U.S.S.R. ^97927 ad. ? + 18.1.63 20.8.63 Newburgh EAG near Ust-Usa: 65°5 8'N. 56°5 5'E. (Komi) U.S.S.R. 364309 f-g- d + 7.1.63 28.9.63 Mahee Island: 54°3o'N. 5°39'W. (Down) PPM Kiev: 5o°28'N. 3o°29'E. (Ukraine) U.S.S.R. 919043 f-g- d + 12.2.57 15.9.63 Deeping St. James: 52°4o'N. oai7'W. (Lincoln) Vercnda: 58°2o'N. 3i°oo'E. (Novgorod) U.S.S.R. 3042497 f-g- ? + 21. 10.61 0.8.63 Deeping St. James Alvsbyn: 65°42'N. 2i°i5'E. (Norrbottcn) Sweden 1082179 ad. d + 3.2.63 28.5.63 Chetney: 5i°26'N. o°44'E. Shcerness (Kent) MKRG Salekhard: 66°3o'N. 66°4o'E. (Tumen) U.S.S.R. 540 REPORT ON BIRD-RINGING FOR I 9 6 3 ringed at Abberton were recovered as follows : : Ringed Recovered /* 23.11.56 15.2.63 St. Simon: 49°45'N. 3°ii'E. (Aisne) France i 90* 3.3.62 1.5.63 Staraya Russa: 5 8°oo'N. 31 °22'E. (Novgorod) U.S.S.R. 1 04 * 30.8.62 (2.2.63) Budleigh Salterton (Devon) 200m. WSW. 1 30.1.60 8.1.63 St. Boswells (Roxburgh) 300m. NW. 4 16.3.56 11. 10.63 Dybso Fjord: 5 5°o8'N. 11 °47'E. (Sjaelland) Denmark 8.2.53 spring 63 Leshukonskoye : 64°54'N. 45°42'E. (Arkhangel) U.S.S.R. •Ringed as juvenile; the remainder were ringed as full-grown Pintail ( Anas acuta) (20; 150 miles; 2^ years) )) WEATHER. Rather more recoveries were reported than normal. The fery in Ireland is unusual and may indicate a westerly movement. 1(6 f.g. $ 7.3.63 Mahcc Island: 54°3o'N. 5°39'W. (Down) PPM + 26.12.63 estuary of R. Seine: c. 49°27'N. o°i5'E. (Seine-Maritime) France ad. $ 16.12.62 Abberton + 28.1.63 Malltraeth (Anglesey) 240m. WNW. r ringed at Slimbridge were recovered as follows: i Ringed ^5 19.2.61 J2* 29.IO.62 77 3O.i2.6l iij i5.IO.60 '77 27.12.62 Recovered 2.2.63 Tralee Bay (Kerry) c. 315m. W. 27.8.63 Odense Fjord: 55°3o'N. io°34,E. (Fyn) Denmark 30.9.63 Svendborg: 5 5°o2/N. io°34'E. (Fyn) Denmark 7.10.63 Syzran: 5 3°io'N. 48°27'E. (Kuybyshev) U.S.S.R. 30.12.63 Glencaple (Dumfries) 230m. N. •Ringed as juvenile; the remainder were ringed as full-grown Shoveler ( Spatula cljpeata ) (14; 70 miles; 2^- years) f) pull. + 1.7.62 13.10.63 Lough Neagh: 54°32'N. 6°29'W. (Armagh) TE near Le Havre: 49°3o'N. o°o8'E. (Seine-Maritime) France pull. + 8.7.62 4.9.63 Shrewsbury: 52°43'N. 2°45'W. (Shropshire) S&B Boguchar: 49°54'N. 4o°35'E. (Voronezh) U.S.S.R. 3) f-g. ? + 19.9.61 18.10.63 Peakirk Amposta: 4o°43'N. o°34'E. (Tarragona) Spain ; r juv. $ X 22.8.62 (6.2.63) Peakirk Sarzeau: 47°32,N. 2°46'W. (Morbihan) France tf7 juv. $ + 19.11.62 22.8.63 Slimbridge Pyanskiy: 55°34'N. 44°3o'E. (Gorkiy) U.S.S.R. " 3 juv. + 15.8.63 21.8.63 Slimbridge Vlaardingen: 5i°55'N. 4°2o'E. (Zuid-Holland) Netherlands • ringed at Abberton were recovered as follows : l inged H:6 16.9.60 |\3 14.7.62 t(7 3-8-6z t<8* 10.6.63 >9 6.7.63 Recovered 4.1.62 St. Aubin-sur-Quillebeuf : 49°z7'N. o°32'E. (Eure) France 20.2.63 Riola Sardo: 4o°oo'N. 8°32'E. Sardinia 15.9.63 Fongrave: 44°25'N. o°32'E. (Lot-et-Garonne) France 29.11.63 Barton-on-Humber (Lincoln) 140m. NNW. 12.8.63 near Greetsiel: 53°3i'N. 7°o6'E. (Niedersachsen) Germany •Ringed as adult; the remainder were ringed as juvenile or pullus 541 BRITISH BIRDS Tufted Duck ( Aythya fuligula) (29; 100 miles; 7 years) COLD WEATHER. More recoveries were reported than for any previous ; Many of the birds were not far from the place of ringing, but there was evidt an emigration southwards and the two recoveries in Iberia are the first for species. AJ11104 ad. $ 16.6.62 Lough Neagh: 54°32'N. 6°35'W. (Armagh) JAB Tudela: 42°04'N. i°37'W. (Navarra) Spain + 20.1.63 AJ11106 ad. $ 16.6.62 Lough Neagh JAB + (10.2.63) Belclare, Tuam (Galway) 117m. SW. Birds ringed as first- winter at Newburgh, 57°i9'N. 2°oi'W., Aberdeenshire, 1 recovered as follows : Kinged Recovered AJ26478 7-1.63 17.2.63 Broager: c. 5 4°52'N. 9°4o'E. (Jutland) Denmark AJ26445 7.1.63 30.10.63 Skjern: 55°57'N. 8°3o'E. (Jutland) Denmark A]264jj 8.1.63 22.9.63 Lainio: <$7°47'N. 22°2o'E. (Norrbotten) Sweden ATpjpo/ 12.1.63 9.5.63 Lake Sindor: 62°45'N. 5i°35'E. (Komi) U.S.S.R. AT95971 27.1.63 1.9.63 Toombridge (Antrim) 245m. SW. Birds ringed at Abberton were recovered as follows : Kinged Recovered 3008740 30.3.56 23.5.58 Troitsko-Pechorsk: 62°4i'N. 56°i2'E. (Komi) U.S.S.R. AT71711 31.5.61 9.5.63 Krasnoborsk: 6i°34'N. 45°59'E. (Arkhangel) U.S.S.R. AT71425 21.5.62 20.1.63 Mollerusa: 4i°37'N. o°5 3'E. (Lerida) Spain AT87J18* 17. 11. 62 30.12.62 Vertou: 47°io'N. i°28'W. (Loire-Atlantique) France AT83542 16.5.63 3.12.63 Calais: 50°57'N. i°52'E. (Pas-de-Calais) France ♦Ringed as first-winter; the remainder were ringed as adults See also Helsinki ring H33819 in the foreign section of this report (page 5 Pochard (. Aythya ferina ) (6; 3-fV years) 948525 f-g. 47'N. o°oo' (Hertford) RMRG Woerden: 5 2°o6'N. 4°54/E. (Zuid-Holland) Netherlands 173 f-8- V 26.6.63 24.12.63 Shoreham- by-Sea: 5o°5o'N. o°i6'W. (Sussex) DAS Schermeer: 52°36'N. 4°49'E. (Noord-Holland) Netherlands Kestrel ( Falco tinnunculus) (37; 150 miles; 3 J8 years) tJ2) pull. X 20.7.63 5.11.63 Evie: 59°07'N. 3°07'W. Pomona (Orkney) EB Ovington (York) 325m. S. ,°97 pull. 0 25.6.6X 25.3.63 Bassenthwaite : 54°39'N. 3°i4'W. (Cumberland) RHB Vitry: 50°2o'N. 2°58'E. (Pas-de-Calais) France °79 pull. X 22.6.6l (18.2.63) Hilton: 54°36'N. 2°24'W. Appleby (Westmorland) RWR war Kettering (Northampton) 165m. SE. .•484 pull. + 22.6.63 23.11.63 near Sennv Bridge: 5i°53'N. 3°32'W. (Brecon) RD Villanueva: 37°ii,N. 4°27'W. (hlalaga) Spain Moorhen ( Gallinula cbloropus ) (63; 50 miles; 6-^ years) LD WEATHER. Mortality was heaviest in January, declining in February March. The majority died within a few miles of where they had been ringed. -769 istW. 1.9.61 V (21.1.63) '928 ad. 9.11.63 + 1.12.63 523 istW'. 27.11.62 V 20.4.63 near Sutton Bridge: 5 2°44,N. o°n'E. (Lincoln) M&B Sturminster Newton (Dorset) 165m. S\V. Winchester: 5i°04'N. i°i9'W. (Hampshire) WC near Cloyes: 47°59'N. i°2i'E. (Eure-et-Loire) France near Christchurch: 50°44'N. i°44'W. (Hampshire) CHRS Lille Vildmose: 56°53'N. io°i3'E. (Jutland) Denmark Coot (Fulica atra ) (49; 100 miles; 8 years) r .D WEATHER. Mortality • was above average in each of the first three I1 ths, especiallv in January. Many died locally, but there is evidence of a 545 BRITISH BIRDS movement to the south and west. Subsequent recoveries suggest that Continei birds were present in some numbers. Note the rapid journey of 3082587. AJ7347 ad. V 29.12.61 13.1.63 Fairburn: 53°45'N. i°i8'W. (York) CW Elstrce (Hertford) 150m. SSE. 949*31 ad. X 2.2.63 24.11.63 Hoddesdon: 5i°47'N. o°oo' (Hertford) RMRG Lemmer: 52°5i'N. 5°43'E. (Friesland) Netherlands AJ 48346 f-g- transp. X 26.1.62 26.1.62 4.7.63 Slimbridge Slapton: 5o°i7'N. 3°39'W. (Devon) Bergummermeer: 53°i2'N. 6°03'E. (Friesland) Netherland AJ78941 f-g- transp. X 12.2.63 12.2.63 19.12.63 Slimbridge Shrawley: 52°i7'N. 2°i7'W. (Worcester) near Couddes: c. 47°22'N. i°27'E. (Loir-et-Cher) France A]78966 f-g- transp. + 12.2.63 12.2.63 25.9.63 Slimbridge Shrawley near Preetz: 54°i4'N. io°i7'E. (Schleswig-Holstein) Germa 3082387 f-g- + 5.1.63 6.1.63 Chetney : 5 1 °26"N. o°44'E. (Kent) MKRG Bremes les Ardres: 5o°5i'N. 2°oo'E. (Pas-de-Calais) France AJ63677 f-g- X 27.1.63 17.3.63 near Redhill: 5i°i3'N. o°io'W. (Surrey) RLR Stadil Fjord: 56°io/N. 8°i3'E. (Jutland) Denmark Birds ringed at Abberton were recovered as follows : R inged AJ4965 28.12.58 17.2.63 AJ42990 7.1.62 (7.2.63) AJJ2406 12. 11. 62 4.1.63 AJ34479 19.6.61 15.1.63 AJ3241 7* 24.11.62 c. 25.1.63 Recovered Charron: 46°i8'N. i°05'W. (Charente-Maritime) France Wormerveer: 52°3o'N. 4°47'E. (Noord-Holland) Netherlai Rochefort: 45°57'N. o°5 8'W. (Charente-Maritime) France near Barnstaple (Devon) 215m. WSW. Milford-on-Sea (Hampshire) 127m. SW. ‘Ringed as juvenile; the remainder were ringed as full-grown Oystercatcher ( Haematopus ostralegus) (173; 7-jV years) 3078719 pull. + 14.6.61 c. 8.5.63 Graven: 6o°26/N. i°i4'W. (Shetland) CJB Murtosa: 40°45'N. 8°39'W. (Beira-Litoral) Portugal 3071183 pull. + 7.6.63 0.12.63 River Naver: 58°3o'N. 4°i3'W. (Sutherland) EGH near Quiberon: 47°3i'N. 3°o8'W. (Morbihan) France AT79243 pull. X 17.6.62 (20.9.63) Blair Atholl : 56046'N. 3°5 i'W. (Perth) DRW Baie de Morlaix: 48°4o'N. 3°47'W. (Finistere) France SS00038 pull. + 21.6.63 24.8.63 Calf of Man Plouharnel: 47°36'N. 3°o7'W. (Morbihan) France SS01233 istW. X 9.3.63 14.8.63 Talacre: 53°2i'N. 3°23'W. (Flint) MAFF Tvoroyri: 6i°33'N. 6°48'W. (Suduroy) Faeroe Islands SS06321 ad. + 9.5.63 31.12.63 Skokholm Pointe d’Agon: 49°o2'N. i°34'W. (Manchc) France 3019803 ad. X II. II. 62 12.4.63 Whiteford: 5i°39'N. 40 1 5 'W. (Glamorgan) MAFF Ilafnarfjordur : 64°04'N. 2i°57'W. S.W. Iceland There is no evidence from ringing of either heavy cold weather mortality movement. Twenty-one recoveries showing movement over 100 miles within British Isles conform to the known pattern of a S to SW dispersal from Scotl and northern England in autumn with a corresponding return in the spring. 546 REPORT ON BIRD-RINGING FOR I 9 6 3 t . Recoveries of Ringed Plovers Cbaradrius biaticula (at 100 miles or more from the point of ringing) in January and February 1963 Lapwing ( Vartellus vanellus ) (132; 8-^- years) )LD WEATHER. Ringing results indicate that the majority of Lapwings left eat Britain, westwards towards Ireland or south to Iberia. Movements of this ure occur annually, but on a much smaller scale. In most years numbers of tish-ringed Lapwings winter in Brittany and the other western departments of .nee. In 1963, however, many were driven further south and the number of overies in Iberia is unprecedented. joi) pull. 25.6.61 Sandsting: 6o°i6'N. i°25'Vk’. (Shetland) CJB X 29.5.63 Skriduklaustur: 65°02'N. i4c57'W. (Nordur Mulasysla) Iceland <2})o ad. 2.10.62 war Sittingbourne: 5i°23'N. o°43'E. (Kent) MKRG + 27.4.63 war Elektrostal: 5 5°47'N. 38°28'E. (Moscow) U.S.S.R. 3015 is the first British-ringed Lapwing to be recovered in Iceland. The recoveries are summarised in table E. Table E — Countries and months of recoveries of Lapwing iy of recovery Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec l Britain 1 miles (25) .00 miles (4) f miles (2) l(io) ■(}o) •(45) (■4) See footnote to table A 547 BRITISH BIRDS Ringed Plover ( Charadrius hiaticula) (19; 251 miles; 7-^ years) COLD WEATHER. The first death was not reported until the end of the t week in January, but in the ensuing two weeks as many recoveries were repo as in the whole of a normal year. All had been ringed in south-eastern Eng. and the more distant movements are shown in map 1. 44179X pull. + 15.7.61 14.11.63 near Skegness: 53°i4'N. o°i9'E. (Lincoln) JMcM Westport Bay (Mayo) 405m. W. 62)4)7 juv. + 17.9.63 27.10.63 Bardsey Alverca: 38°56'N. 9°oi'W. (Ribatejo) Portugal 629)66 juv. + 9.8.61 c. 10.9.63 Abberton Bassin d’Archachon : 44°43'N. i°io,W. (Gironde) France 91820S pull. X 9.6.62 Foulness: 5 i°37'N. o°57'E. (Essex) PR (x2.12.63) La Foret-Fouesnant: 47°55'N. 3°59'W. (Finistere) France Little Ringed Plover ( Charadrius dubius) (2 ; 40 miles ; year) J9894X pull. 3.7.63 Castle Donington: 5 2°5i'N. 1 °2o'W. (Leicester) NRL x 8.9.63 Las Cabezas: 36°59'N. 5°56'W. (Sevilla) Spain 2068316 7997iS Golden Plover ( Charadrius apricarius ) (2 ; T82- year) pull. 10.6.62 near Kinbrace: 58° 1 7'N. 4°oo'W. (Sutherland) EGH 0 4.2.63 near Santa Eulalia: 39°oi'N. 7°i5'W. (Alto-Alentejo) Port f.g. 31.10.62 Sittingbourne: 5i°2 3'N. o°43'E. (Kent) MKRG + 5.2.63 Fregenal: 38°io'N. 6°39'W. (Badajoz) Spain These are the first recoveries of British-ringed Golden Plover in Iberia. Snipe {Gallinago gallinago) (90; 6 years) COLD WEATHER. Rather more Snipe were recovered than in any prev year, well over half of them in January. The pattern of events is to be see table F and it is only necessary to add that all January movements in Great Br. were between south and west and that 20 of those travelling less than 25 r were shot. Table F — Countries and months of recoveries of Snipe Country of recovery Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Great Britain 0-25 miles (45) 31 - 2 25+ miles (15) 812 Ireland (7) 51- France (14) 84- Spain(j) 4 Portugal (2) 1 1 Morocco (1) - — 1 Netherlands (1) - Finland (1) — — — U.S.S.R. (1) 1 See footnote to table A The recovery in Finland is unique and merits publication in full: 71853X f.g. 23.8.61 Grove Ferry: 5 i°i9'N. i° 13 'E. (Kent) SBBO x 22.9.63 Talpianjarvi: 6o°45'N. 23°34'E. Forssa (Hame) Finland 548 +X Curlew {Numenius arquata) (43; 50 miles; years) _'D WEATHER. Over half the year’s recoveries occurred in January and |)JdaT t tL nun?^er of ,the b^s died within a few miles of where the? were d’ but,tbe CoId weather movement (see map 2 on page 551) was much more ounced than on any previous occasion. — Ringed REPORT ON BIRD-RINGING FOR 1963 Jack Snipe ( "Lymnocrjptes minimus) (4; j miles; year) f.g. 14.10.62 + 12.1.63 Marton: 53;48'N. 3°02'W. Blackpool (Lancashire) Ballycastle (Antrim) 1 60m. NW. JHM '16 fg- 9.11.60 /?/ 25.5.63 IT 8 fg- 22.10.60 + 1.1.63 9 fg- 4.1.63 + 6.12.63 Fair Isle * iv.au. ) 4 u7 iN. o 04 w. t York) SI Loolderry, Carrickmacross (Monaghan) 265m. W. Portland Bill ;7 6 18.6.60 A* 4f 29-5-57 B 112 5.7.62 C iS6 4.6.60 D 1 • 30.5.60 E 25. 11. 61 F 122 24.3.62 F UJ 25.8.62 F F'i 19.2.61 G l»8 26.8.61 G v6 12.8.61 G 1 ?6 16.1.61 H I TI 18. 1. 61 H $8 8.1.62 H 1:2 14.1.62 H (1.2.63) 27.1.63 26.1.63 21.1.63 10.2.63 18.2.63 (10.2.63) 6.2.63 3.1.63 22.2.63 30.1.63 9.3.63 -Recovered- (31.1.63) 13.1.63 12.2.63 Caldey (Pembroke) 215m. WSW. Belle-Isle: 48*3 3/N. 3°23/W. (C6tes-du-Nord) France Port Laoighise (Leix) 245m. WSW. St> Alartin’s: 49°25'N. 2°32'W. Guernsey, CI. near YVadebridge (Cornwall) 197m. SW. La Haye-de-Puits: 49°i9'N. i038'W. (Manche) France Llandudno (Caernarvon) 70m. NW. Castel: 49^27^. 2°35/W. Guernsey, C.I. Hendaye: 43°22'N. i°46/W. (Basses-Pyrenees) France near Olonne: 4603o'N. I°47'W. (Vendee) France ”wDax: 43°43'N. i°o3'W. (Landes) France Gross-Reken: 5i°49'N. 7°o3'E. (Nordrhein-Westfalen) Germany 7 Helford, Helston (Cornwall) 82m. WSW Plouye: 48T9'N. 3°44'\V. (Finistere) France Carentan: 49T8,N. i°i4'W. (Manche) France Cb^'rin^Tvfv metit mf™°n: rin«ed La™rk. recovered Antrim in feed bZor^t “d W'“ ” SeptCmb"; and ri"Sed f Common Sandpiper (Tringa hypoleucos) (7; 50 miles; 2 & years) ad. 7.8.62 Abberton /?/ 27.10.63 Agadir: 3o‘33o'N. 9°4j'W. Morocco juv. 9.8.63 Abberton + (30.8.63) Aljustrel: 37°52'N. 8°io'W. (Baixo-Alcntejo) Portugal 549 BRITISH BIRDS Redshank (Trittga totanus ) (109; 6 ^ years) COLD WEATHER. This species suffered most heavily of the shore waders more recoveries were reported in the first quarter than in the whole of the previ<^< three years. The pattern of mortality and movement may be seen in the table a the list of recoveries relating to this period and in map 3. Table G — -Countries and months of recoveries of Redshank Country of recovery Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Great Britain 0-25 miles (60) 26-50 miles (15) 50+ miles (17) Ireland (i) Finland (i) Norway (i) Germany (i) Netherlands (j) France (9) Portugal (1) »9 8 8 1 3 See footnote to table A -R itiged- - Recovered - 29280X 17.6.62 A* 17.6.62 Zandvoort: 52°22'N. 4°3i'E. (Noord-Holland) Net lands 3J447X 15.6.60 B 3.2.63 Broadstairs (Kent) 430m. SSE. Zuid Sloe: 5i°27'N. 3°4o'E. (Zeeland) Netherlands S 41 279 2.6.56 C 10.3.63 02877X 19.6.60 D (6.3.63) Cowes, Isle of Wight, 220m. S. 02639X 30.6.60 D 16.1.63 l’Aiguillon: c. 46°2o'N. i°i8'W. (Vendee) France R70427 26.6.61 E 0.1.63 Fouesnant: 47Q54'N. 4°oo'W. (Finistere) France PlpIJO 26.8.60 F c. 20.1.63 Weymouth (Dorset) 1 90m. S W. P19146 26.8.60 F (27.1.63) Blyth (Northumberland) 170m. NNW. DS02007 29.8.61 F c. 27.1.63 Dymchurch (Kent) 130m. SSE. P29777 29.8.61 F (7-3-63) Bamburgh (Northumberland) 205 m. NNW. Coutances: 49°03'N. i°27'W. (Manche) France P10005 18.8.59 F 13.1.63 P10062 18.8.59 F (24.1.63) A ber (Caernarvon) 180m. WNW. 95057X 20.8.61 F 2.2.63 Fawley (Hampshire) 145m. SSW. Boulogne: 5o°43'N. i°37'E. (Pas-de-Calais) France | V623JI 26.7.60 G 13.1.63 V62486 13.8.60 G 9.3.63 Champagne: 46 23'N. i°07'W. (Vendee) France CK06007 20.5.62 H 13.1.63 Duclair: 49°29'N. o053'E. (Seine-Maritime) France 1 }}62jS 13.5.62 I (28.1.63) Boulogne, France 719986 29.7.61 J c. 23.1.63 Bembridge, Isle of Wight. 100m. WSW. Fresnay: 48cT6'N. o°oo' (Sarthe) France 97042S 8.7.62 K 15.1.63 *A=Lairg: 58°oi'N. 4°25'W. (Sutherland); B = Newburgh: 57°i9'N. 2°oi'W. (Aberdi C= Stokesley: 54°o5'N. i°49'W. (York); D=Ilkley: 53°56'N. i°49'W. (York); E=Scolt 1 52°59'N. o°45'E. (Norfolk); F = tiear Sutton Bridge: 52°44'N. o°ii'E. (Lincoln); G=Wal wick: j2°i8'N. i°37'E. (Suffolk); H = Abberton: 5i°5o'N. o°53'E. (Essex); I=Bradwell Harty: 5i°22'N. o°55'E., Sheppey (Kent); K=Selsey: 50°43'N. o°47'W. (Sussex). The recoveries in Germany, Norway and Sweden are without precedent w".1 accordingly are published in full: Pl4d}0 ad. 14.8.62 Fair Isle /?/ 18.4.63 near Biisum : 54°o8'N. 8 52'E. (Schleswig- 1 lolstein) Germanr* CK2788) ad. 17.8.62 Stoke: 5i°27'N. o°38'E. (Kent) NKRG + 26.5.63 Donna Island: 66°to'N. I2°35'E. (Nordland) Norway CK09946 fg- 17.8.62 Harty: 5i°22'N. oc’5 5,E., Shcppv (Kent) SWG V 12.6.63 Valassaarct: 63' 25'N. 2t°05'E. Bjorkci (\'aasa) Finland REPORT ON BIRD-RINGING FOR I 9 6 3 ps 2 and 3. Recoveries of Curlew Numenius arquala (left) and Redshank Tringa tot anus in tary and February 1963. The letters correspond to those in the summaries under each species, capitals and lower case showing the points of ringing and recovery respectively Greenshank (Tringa nebnlaria ) (2 ; 5 miles ; 4 days) "7S ad. 13.8.63 Abingdon: 3 i^iTS1. 1 I7'W. (Berkshire) CMR 4- 18.8.63 he Verdon: 45°33'N. i°o4'W. (Gironde) France :re is only one previous foreign recovery of a British-ringed Greenshank, also ■ranee. Knot ( Cali dris canutus ) (15; 50 miles; 3 years) Is ringed on Holbeach Marsh, 5 2°54'N. o°o4'E. (Lincoln), were recovered as >ws: — Ringcd- 02* 26.8.60 (26.1.63) 22 17.8.62 18.3.63 1)6) 3.9.63 26.10.63 I424 3.9.63 11.9.63 t*J9 3.9.63 27.12.63 1719 3.9.63 29.9.63 $635 6.9.63 23.9.63 *680 6.9.63 13.10.63 >864 6.9.63 25.9.63 Recovered near Marazion (Cornwall) 303m. SW. Termonfeckin, Drogheda (Louth) 270m. W. near Grimsby (Lincoln) c. 60m. N. Bomi Hills: c. 6^5 5 'N. io°5 5'W. Liberia Strangford Lough (Down) c. 260m. WNW. near Dakar: i4°38'N. I7°27'W. Senegal wtwThies: 14 49'N. i6°32'W. Senegal Lake Tamna: i4=5 3'N. i7024'W. Senegal near Thies, Senegal ♦Ringed as adult; the remainder were ringed as juveniles >e are the first recoveries of British-ringed Knot from Africa. 55i BRITISH BIRDS Dunlin (Calidris alpind) (74; 160 miles; 5^- years) COLD WEATHER. There is no evidence from ringing that this species w affected by the cold weather. Table H — Countries and months of recoveries of Dunlin Country of recovery Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nor Great Britain 0-50 miles (44) 2 2 2 2 - - X 5 5 5 5 504- miles (5) - - 1 - - - - I X - Portugal (5) - I - - - - - - 2 - France (14) - - - 2 4 - - - - [ X Germany (1) - - - - - - - - - l - Denmark (i) - - - - - - - - - I - Sweden (4) - - - - - - 4 - - - - U.S.S.R. (2) - - 2 - - - - See footnote to table A 61661s juv. 29.8.61 Dawsmere: 52°5i'N. o°o7'E. (Lincoln) WWG + 19.5.63 near Severodvinsk: 64°32'N. 39°55'E. (Arkhangel) U.S.S.R. 6ZJ949 ad. 16.4.61 East Tilbury: 5i°28'N. o°26'E. (Essex) ABO + 19.5.63 near Severodvinsk, U.S.S.R. These are from much further north-east than the two previous recoveries British-ringed Dunlin in the U.S.S.R. Ruff (Philowachus pugnax) (4; 40 miles; 4^- years) DS00064 f-g. $ + 14. 10. 61 19.11.63 near Sutton Bridge: 5 2°447\T. o°n'E. (Lincoln) C&PM Silla: 39°22'N. o°25'W. (Valencia) Spain 96079s f.g.9 + 14.10.62 3.9.63 near Sutton Bridge DS Ponte a Buriano: 43°27'N. ii°57'E. (Arezzo) Italy Arctic Skua (Stercorarius parasiticus) (4 ; 5 miles ; 4^- years) 3075585 pull. 0 1 5-7-59 1.11.63 Fair Isle o^Ilha da Berlenga: c. 39°25'N. 9°32'W. (Estremadura) PortujJ Great Skua (Catbaracta skua) (41 ; 5 years) Table I — Countries and months of recoveries of Great Skuas Country of recovery Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Great Britain (2) _ _ _ _ _ _ 2 _ _ _ Faeroe Islands (i) - - - - - I - - - - - Greenland (4) _ — _ _ _ I 2 X - - Newfoundland (i) - _ _ _ - - - _ - - i Denmark (4) - - _ _ - _ ■ - - - 5 1 Netherlands (6) - _ _ _ _ — - - 5 1 Germany (6) - - - - - - -• I 4* r Austria (2) - - _ _ _ - - - - 2 - Poland (1) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ I - France (8) 1 - _ _ _ _ _ _ - 5 2 Spain (3) 1 - - - - - - - - 1 Portugal (3) 2 - - - - - - - - - 1 Tunisia (1) - - I - - - - ♦Includes one bird recovered also in Austria See footnote to table A 552 REPORT ON BIRD-RINGING FOR I 9 6 3 'here are only two previous recoveries in Greenland and one in the New World, ither recoveries published in full provide evidence of a remarkable passage across urope, and there is one bird far into the Mediterranean. J73049 pull. 16.7.62 I Icrmaness : 6o°5 2'N. o°j3'W. Unst (Shetland) NJG /?/ (7.11.63) Bonavista Bay: c. 48*5 5 'N. 53°io'W. Newfoundland irds ringed as pulli on Foula, 6o°o8'N. 2°05'W\ (Shetland), were recovered as ■ilows : Ringed Recovered- 6162 28.7.61 16.8.63 Quioge: 6i°56'N. 49°49'W. Frederikshab Greenland FrederikshAb : 62°05'N. 49°3o'W. Greenland 6:80 28.7.61 11.7.63 6089 1. 8. 61 1 6.6.63 Jakobshavn: 69°io'N. 5i°oo'W. Greenland 629} 2.8.61 16.7.63 FrederiksMb, Greenland 146; 6.8.63 10.10.63 10.10.63 Jochenstein: 48°3i'N. i3°43'E. (Nicdcr-Baycrn) Germany Niederkappel : 48°28'N. 13'53'E. (Miihlviertel) Austria 1592 26.8.63 18.10.63 Lake Constance: 47°29'N. 9°42'E. (Vorarlberg) Austria 1268 27.7.63 2.10.63 mar Glogow: 3i°4o'N. i6°o6'E. (Ziclona-G6ra) Poland 2209 26.7.63 9.11.63 Aix-les-Bains : 45°4i'N. 5°5 5,E. (Savoie) France 5234 7.7.62 0.11.63 Martigues: 43°23'N. 5°02'E. (Bouches-du-Rhone) France 1946 4.8.63 6.10.63 Briouze: 48°42'N. o°22'W. (Orne) France 6107 1. 8. 61 10.3.63 Gab6s: 33°32,N. io°o6'E. Tunisia Great Black-backed Gull (Laras marinas ) (57; 8^ years) 16237 ad. X 11. 11. 60 2.4.63 Fair Isle near Molde: 62°44'N. 7°o8'E. (Mbre-og-Romsdal) Norway ’16274 ad. X 1 3.12.61 27.6.63 Fair Isle near Nordvagen : c. 7o°59'N. 26°oo'E. (Finnmark) Norway NX OO pull. + 2-7-57 13.1.63 Steep Holme: 5i°2i'N. 3°07'W. ^Somerset) SIIT Fredrikstad: 59°i5'N. io°53'E. (Ostfold) Norway 826 pull. /?/ 27.6.62 23.5.63 Annet: 49 ’54'N. 6J22'W. Isles of Scilly SABO Pont-Aven: 47^5 i'N. 3°44'W. (Finistere) France ily rive les. recoveries within the British Isles showed movements greater than Lesser Black-backed Gull (Laras fuscus ) (227; 9 years) Table J — Regions and months of recoveries of Lesser Black-backed Gulls itry of recovery Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec sh Isles (116) - - kond’(i) 1 *y* (14) - 1 >ain and rrtugal (71) u 3 ish ciditerrancan (10) 3 2 * >cco (6) 2 1 ish West ' rica (3) 1 6 5 7 - - 1 5 1 4 1 — — 1 1 1 38 28 4 4 9 12 3 5 4 9 20 3 1 1 1 Sec footnote to table A : following recoveries are additional to those in the table (inland recoveries of i species in Iberia are exceptional) : 1 02740 pull. 3.7.63 Walney Island: 54°05'N. 3°i5'W. (Lancashire) WP&M 0 22.12.63 °ff Canary Islands: c. 28“oo'N. 15 r'oo'W. 553 BRITISH BIRDS A] 8 r 47 9 pull. 12.7.63 Skokholm + 31.10.63 Usagre: 38°2i'N. 6°io'W. (Badajoz) Spain Herring Gull ( Larus argentatus ) (335; 9 years) Movements within the British Isles conformed to the normal pattern and do no call for comment. Four recoveries in France — Vendee (January), Bouches-dv Rhone, Finistere and Morbihan (February) — must be treated with reserve : all foi]J were ringed as pulli in colonies where the Lesser Black-backed Gull also breed?* There are few recoveries of British-ringed Herring Gulls in Norway and r previous records in the Faeroe Islands. AJ372J3 ad. /?/ 13. 12. 61 16.4.63 Fair Isle Stavnesosen: 67°5o'N. i5°3o'E. (Nordland) Norway Aj7046r pull. X 1.7.62 3.8.63 Point of Stoer: 58°i6'N. 5°23'W. (Sutherland) PRC Sorvaagvatn : 62°03'N. 7°i3'W. (Vagar) Faeroe Islands Common Gull (Larus canus ) (9; 150 miles; 9 years) AT 7 8 267 pull. X 29.6.62 summer 63 Whiteness: 6o°io'N. i°i5'W. (Shetland) CJB Thisted: 56°57'N. 8°42'E. (Jutland) Denmark 3017727 ad. X 10.1.59 13.5.63 Fenwick: 55°39'N. i°54'W. (Northumberland) ND&N Inderoy: 63053'N. ii°i6'E. (Nord-Trondelag) Norway 342097 istW. + 1.3.54 15.9.63 Spurn Point Abecknas: 58°ii'N. i6°47'E. (Ostergotland) Sweden Black-headed Gull ( Larus ridibundus) (414; 1 3 years) COLD WEATHER. Ringing results indicate that this species was serious affected by the cold weather. Apart from local mortality, there was a big mov ment to the west and south-west, 14 being recovered in Ireland in January and 1 5 February. Other British-bred birds moved south into France and Spain. Table K — Countries and months of recoveries of Black-headed Gulls Country of recovery Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct British Isles 0-50 miles (216) 16 25 51-150 miles (62) 18 14 1 5 1-250 miles (28) 11 8 250+ miles (23) 9 8 France (9) 6 2 Spain (1) - 1 Netherlands (2) 1 Germany (3) - Denmark (3) - Sweden (3) I.atvian S.S.R. (7.) - Finland (i) - 21 6 x$ 2 7 2 1 1 Nov Dc 5 1 All those recovered in France and Spain had been ringed as pulli; the remaining foreign recoveries were winter-ringed H Sec footnote to table A Kittiwake (R/ssa tridactyld) (47; 170 miles; 9 years) 202i 9 j8 pull. 6.7.59 Dunbar: 5 6°oo'N. 2°3 1 'W. (East Lothian) JCC + 6.8.60 Simiutarsuaq : 68°io'N. 5 3°45'\V. Iigedesmindc, Greenland '1 554 REPORT ON BIRD-RINGING FOR I 9 6 3 ! 4981 pull. 6.7.61 Dunbar JCC + 2. n. 63 Hermitage Bay : 47°32'N. 56°oo'W. Newfoundland ds ringed on the Fame Islands, 5 5°37'N. i°37'W. (Northumberland), were overed as follows : — Ringed- 96676* 19.6.56 0.10.58 41907* 3.7.56 summer 63 UJ2 27.6.59 29.7.60 r 494 27.6.59 17.7.60 W97 9-7-59 24.8.63 >264 6.7.60 17.9.63 >29) 10.7.61 1961/63 2717 23.6.62 (15.1.63) 2199 7.7.62 1963 2491 7.7.62 20.11.63 2969 7.7.62 mid 1963 7047 7.7.63 20.10.63 7967 11.7.63 19.9.63 6186 16.7.63 2.11.63 Recovered Wcstkapellc: 5i°}2'N. 3°26'E. (Zeeland) Netherlands Sardloq: 6o°4o'N. 45°59'W. (Julianehab) Greenland Hundr Ejland: 68°5o'N. 53°oo'W. Egcdesminde, Greenland Ata: 69°45'N. 50°5 5'W. Jacobshavn, Greenland Fredcrikshab: 62°05'N. 49°30/W. Greenland off St. Anthony: 5i°2o'N. 5 5°3o'W. Newfoundland Julianehab: 6o°457vered as follows : — Ringed Recovered 17 jy 16.6.62 14.2.63 Le Havre: 49°3o'N. o°o6/E. (Seine-Maritime) France !! (677 23.6.62 12.2.63 Kvitsoy: 59°o4'N. 5°26'E. (Rogaland) Norway 1 1654 23.6.62 5.2.63 Lindesnes: 5 8°oo'N. 7°05'E. (Vest- Agder) Norway !■ '974 24.6.61 c. 15.3.63 Bacton (Norfolk) 230m. SE. Puffin (F rater cula ar erica) (10; 100 miles; 8^- years) (23 ad. 20.6.6l X 27.I.63 (69 pull. xi. 7.62 x A c. 9.2.63 797 pull. 19.7.63 -L. 5.10.63 •871 f-g- 2.4.61 4- 10.2.63 Fame Islands Hornsea (Yorkshire) 130m. SE. Fame Islands Withernsea (York) 145m. SSE. Fame Islands Faerder Fyr: 59co2,N. io°32'E. Oslo Fjord, Norway Skomer: 5i°44'N. 5 °i9'W. (Pembroke) MPH near Nazare: 39°36'N. 9°04'W. (Estremadura) Portugal Woodpigeon ( Columba palumbus) (123; 75 miles; 11^ years) i.D WEATHER. Although the total number of recoveries reported was not , it was greatly in excess of normal. As will be seen from table N, Wood- ! >ns moved more than usual, but no great distances were involved and there I 10 evidence of emigration or immigration. The data are inadequate to show f! >nal differences. 557 BRITISH BIRDS Table N — Recoveries of Woodpigeons by months and distances moved Distance moved Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov 0-10 miles 21 l6 7 3 6 I 4 6 3 _ 2 j 1-20 miles 8 3 - - - - - - 3 - - 21-30 miles 6 4 1 - - - - - - - 31-40 miles 6 1 1 - - - - 1 - - 41-50 miles 5 1 1 - - - - - - - - 5 1-60 miles - 2 1 - - - - - - - - 61-70 miles I - - - - - Turtle Dove (Streptopelia turtur ) (4; year) Birds ringed at Abberton were recovered as follows : Kinged 299289 4.6.62 29929 j 6.6.62 2099716* 11.7.65 2079722 11.7.63 Recovered 13.9.62 Evora: 38°35'N. 7°55'W. (Alto-Alentejo) Portugal 30.8.63 Lc Boucau: 43°32'N. i°29/W. (Basses-Pyrenees) France 31.8.63 Biarritz: 43°29'N. i°34'W. (Basses-Pyrenees) France 7.9.63 near Zumarraga: 43°03'N. 2°i7'W. (Guipuzcoa) Spain * Ringed as juvenile; the remainder were ringed as adults Cuckoo ( Cuculus canorus ) (7 ; 5 miles ; -}j year) 251454 juv. V X 11.7.63 3.8.63 14.8.63 Spurn Point Garding: 54°i9'N. 8°47'E. (Schleswig-Holstein) Germany Garding 298696 juv. X 30.9.62 17.8.63 Benacre: 52°2i'N. x°43'E. (Suffolk) AGH La Escala: 42°o8'N. 3°o8'E. (Gerona) Spain 2074082 juv. + 13.8.63 early 9.63 Sandwich Bay Rambervillers: 48°2i'N. 6°38'E. (Vosges) France Barn Owl ( Tylo alba ) (16; 20 miles; 9 years) AJ62935 pull. X 1.7.62 14.2.63 Sacriston: 54°49'N. i°37'W. (Durham) FC Kilham, Driffield (York) 70m. SE. Short-eared Owl (Asio flam mens) (2 ; 5 miles ; 6-^ years) AF9998 pull. + 8.5.56 c. 5.1.63 near Barr: 5 5°i3'N. 4°43'W. (Ayr) GHO Merlin, Newmarket (Cork) 270m. SW. Nightjar (Caprimulgus europaeus ) (1 ; 4^ years) Pi 1682 pull. X 26.7.59 (6.9.63) Sawley: 53°55'N. 2°2i'W. Ripon (York) SS&W near Bayonne: 43°3o'N. i°28'W. (Basses-Pyrtinccs) France | Swift ( Apus apus) (122; 60 miles; 7 years) BA10205 ad. X 30.4.62 0.6.62 Fair Isle near Ostersund: 63°09'N. I4°27'E. (Jamtland) Sweden SC27789 ad. X 19.5.62 1.9.63 Harrogate: 53°59'N. i°33'W. (York) SS&W Mezcray: 47°5o'N. o°oo' (Sarthc) France SC91009 ad. X 27.5.62 (8.6.63) Harrogate SS&W near Auzon: 45°24'N. 3°i9'E. (Hautc-Loire) France 558 REPORT ON BIRD-RINGING FOR I 9 6 3 C))J02 ad. X 19.6.62 25.5.63 Worsborough: 5 3°33'N. i°29'W. Barnsley (York) A&B Colby, Appleby (Westmorland) 85m. NW. CI433I ad. V 6.8.61 19.6.63 Woodhouse Mill: 5 y^'N. i°2i'W. Sheffield (York) SNHS near Floddesdon (Plertford) 125m. SE. C21I06 ad. X 14.6.63 27.7.63 Sleaford: 52°59'N. o°25'W. (Lincoln) WMP Horning (Norfolk) 80m. E. 22427 fig- V 1.8.56 22.5.63 St. Osyth: 5 i^'N. i°o5'E. (Essex) RWA Minworth (Warwick) 125m. WNW. 22431 fig. V 1.8.56 10.7.63 St. Osyth RWA Fishtoft, Boston (Lincoln) 90m. NW . ”24037 ad. X 4.7.62 9.5.63 near Barnes: 5 i°29'N. o°i4'W. (Surrey) M&B Amrum: 54°37'N. 8u2i'E. North Frisian Islands, Germany- -O4205 ad. V 21.6.62 27.6.63 East Mailing: 5i0i8'N. o°26'E. (Kent) MKRG Sleaford (Lincoln) 120m. N. hose ringed at St. Osyth are of interest: only 26 were marked there on 1st July 756, but, in addition to the two recoveries listed here, one was reported from . ilkirk, Stirlingshire, on 25th May 1958. This appears to be one of the rare .ses when Swifts have been caught while migrating rather than participating in a . eding movement. Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis ) (7; 5 miles; 3^ years) OLD WEATHER. Six of the seven recoveries reported during the year cxurred in January and February. Only one previous recovery has shown ovement of more than 20 miles. 1)741 ad. 23.7.61 Femilee: 53°2o'M. i°J9'W. (Derby) S&B + c. 30.1.63 Stretton (Stafford) 43m. S. Great Spotted Woodpecker ( Dendrocopos major) (6; 5 miles; 3-^ years) 919 istW. 13.10.62 Isle of May X 21.2.63 Larbert, Falkirk (Stirling) 50m. W. lis bird was identified as belonging to the northern race Dendrocopos m. major. Skylark (Alauda arvensis ) (24; 10 miles; 6-^ years) >LD WEATHER. Twice as many were recovered in the first quarter as in the ole of a normal year. Movements of more than five miles are very seldom orded. BA19885 was clearly of Continental origin; it was captured on board 1 ? during a day of very heavy passage. 7)2 istW. 2.10.56 X 15.1.63 '5276 istW. $ 9.9.61 X (15.5.63) 2128) ad. 15.10.60 x c. 18.1.63 9885 fig- 24.1.63 V 3.11.63 Fair Isle Freiston Marsh, Boston (Lincoln) 455m. S. Dungencss East Wittering (Sussex) 80m. W. St. Catherine’s Point, Isle of Wight JF Exmouth (Devon) 90m. W. Portland Bill 20m. ESE. of Flamborough Head (York) c. 270m. NE. 559 Map 4 . Recoveries of Swallows Hirundo rustica (at 100 miles or more from the point of ringi in Britain and Ireland in 1963. Seasons of ringing and recovery arc indicated by the lettci (spring), M (midsummer) and A (autumn) at the places concerned; solid lines mark recovc within three months and broken lines those after a longer period REPORT ON BIRD-RINGING FOR I 9 6 3 Swallow ( Hirundo r us tied) (239; 100 miles; 4-$ years) Table O — Countries and months of recoveries of Swallows itry of recovery Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct rjerlands(i) ---i------ *(4) 1(1) xco (2) >ria (4) Svaal (2) if - -- -- -- -- ge Free State (5*) Province (6) 2 5 -------- Nov Dec •Total includes one reported as ‘March/April’ fRccovercd 1961 ; all other recoveries relate to 1965 See footnote to table A p 4 shows Swallows recovered in Great Britain and Ireland in 1963 at 100 or re miles from the point of ringing. It reveals a marked south-easterly trend in autumn, similar to that which has been found in Sand Martins, and this evi- tce is supported by visual observations (see P. Davis, Bird Study, 11: 117). House Martin ( Delicbon urbica) (38; 100 miles; 2^ years) 9652 ad. 27,5.62 West Wycombe: 5 i°39'N. o°48'W. (Buckingham) DNM /?/ (2.7.63) Middle Rasen (Lincoln) 1 20m. N. Sand Martin ( Kiparia riparia) (1,003; 5 years) 91628 ad. + 2.6.62 1.11.63 Corbridge: 54°58'N. 2°oi'W. (Northumberland) CL&G near Jerez: 36°4i'N. 6°07'W. (Cadiz) Spain 289/8 ad. X 10.8.63 9.9.63 near Carnforth: 54°io'N. 2°36'W. (Lancashire) WP&M Cap Ferret: 44°42/N. i°i6'W. (Gironde) France 08971 juv. X 1. 8.61 0.6.62 Fairbum: 53°45'N. i'^'W. (York) CW St. Palais: 45°39'N. i°o7'W. (Charente-Maritime) France *7m juv. + 26.7.63 14.9.63 Fairbum CW Milagro: 42°i5,N. i°45'W. (Navarra) Spain 13887 ad. 0 28.6.61 5.4.63 Middleton: 52°44,N. o°28'E. (Norfolk) M&B Los Palacios: 37°io'N. 5°55'W. (Sevilla) Spain 101 juv. X 3.7.62 1.6.63 Minsmere: 52cli4'N. i°37'E. (Suffolk) HEA Bay of Biscay: 46°25'N. 4°3o'W. 456 ad. 0 11.6.62 7.5.63 Shefford: 52°o2,N. o°2o'W. (Bedford) M&B Tinerhir: 3 i°28/N. 5°3o'W. Haute Atlas, Morocco ■5795 ad. 0 9.7.61 (4.4-63) near Halstead: 5i°59'N. o°46'E. (Essex) JAC Las Cabezas: c. 37°oo'N. 6°oo'W. (Sevilla) Spain 41609 juv. X 13.9.63 20.9.63 Ashford: 5i°26,N. o°27'W. (Middlesex) TRG Riberac: 45°i4'N. o°22'E. (Dordogne) France 40079 juv. X 7.9.63 18.9.63 Chew Valiev: 5i°2i'N. 2°4o'W. (Somerset) MpRG St. Rampert: 45°3o'N. 40i5'E- (Loire) France 624 juv. X 11.7.63 18.8.63 near Sevenoaks: 5i°i6,N. o°i8/E. (Kent) MKRG St. Nazaire: 47°i7'N. 2°i2,W. (Loire-Atlantique) France 31918 juv. V 26.7.63 2.8.63 Littlebourne: 5i°i6,N. (Kent) SBBO Waasmunster: 5i°o7,N. 4°05'E. (East Flanders) Belgium 18872 juv. V 27.7.62 2.5.63 Wrecclesham: ji'hz'N. o^g'W. (Surrey) L&JW Figuig: 32°io'N. t°I5'V?. Morocco 561 BRITISH BIRDS N0922 / juv. X 25.8.62 (7.5-63) Chichester: 5o°49'N. o°46'W. (Sussex) M&B Heugas: 43&38'N. i°05/W. (Landes) France AE90356 juv. 0 29.8.62 (2.6.63) Chichester ABW Puebla del Rio: 37°i6'N. 6°o4'W. (Sevilla) Spain IV///72 juv. X 3.9.62 0.7.63 Chichester M&B St. Ciers: 45°i8'N. o°36/W. (Gironde) France Birds controlled at a roost at St. Pryve-St. Mesmin, 47°54'N. i°54'E. (Lo.)f France, had been ringed as follows : Kinged lie a AE34623 10.6.62 Masham: 54^14^. i°39'W. (York) 15 H62962 29.7.61 Elm Park: 5ic33'N. o°i2/E. Romford (Essex) 24 AH17089 13.7.63 Carnforth: 54“io'N. 2°36'W. (Lancashire) 27 Birds controlled at a roost at La-Chapelle-sur-Erdre, 47°i8'N. i°32'W. (Lcji Atlantique) France, had been ringed as follows: Kinged RectM AH23001 13.7.63 Wittering: 52°37'N. o°28'W. (Northampton) 17J5 AH16577 13.7-63 ltedbrook: 5 i^S'N. 2°42'W. (Monmouth) 17JJ H94914 29.6.62 Eggleston: 54°37'N. 2°oo'W. (Durham) 20* AK11932 17.6.63 Sedbergh: 54°i9'N. 2°32'W. (York) 25 Ig AK12419 6.6.63 Kincraig: 5 7°o8'N. 3°56'W. (Inverness) 2743 There are no previous recoveries of British-ringed Sand Martins in Belgium Africa. Raven ( Corvus corax) (6550 miles ; 2 -fe years) 413386 pull. 13.5.62 Moniaive: 55°ii'N. 3°55'W. (Dumfries) TT x 27.4.63 Fountainhall (Midlothian) 52m. NE. Carrion Crow ( Corvus cor one cor one) (20; 10 miles; 4]^- years) 3046690 pull. 21.5.61 Belford: 5 5°36'N. i°49'W. (Northumberland) CL&G /?/ (23.5.63) Elsdon (Northumberland) 30m. SSW. Recoveries showing movement of this order are exceptional. Rook (Corvus frugi/egus) (49; 30 miles; 1 4 years) 3094426 pull. 4.5.63 Wroot: 53°3i'N. o°56'W. Epworth (Lincoln) PG + c. 10. 11. 63 Ribston (York) 33m. NW. Jackdaw ( Corvus monedula) (48; 30 miles; 8 ^ years) 304281 / pull. X 8.6.58 25.5.63 Takeley: 5i°52'N. o°i5'E. (Essex) AD Little Clacton (Essex) 38m. E. Jay (Garrulus glandarius) (24; 10 miles; 5 }!) years) 3087317 juv. + 20.7.63 26.12.63 Bucklebury Slade: 5i°26'N. i°i2'W. (Berkshire) PDM Yelford, Witney (Oxford) 25m. NNW. 3028806 f-g- + 11. 6.61 9.6.63 Godaiming: 5i°n'N. o°37'W. (Surrey) PELS West Norwood (Surrey) 28m. NE. 562 REPORT ON BIRD-RINGING FOR I 9 6 3 Great Tit ( Pants major ) (159; 25 miles; 5 years) X)LD WEATHER. There was no significant increase in the number of re- overies reported during the first quarter and no evidence of a cold-weather novement. 34776 ist\V. wed a more south-westerly course from south-eastern England, as the map nplies, it seems rather more likely that the severe conditions in Cornwall and >evon led to a further movement of the birds assembled there, this time south- ■ards towards Brittany. Map 7, for the whole of January and February 1964, based on the same criterion as maps 5 and 6, i.e. movement over 100 miles, and rtamatically emphasises the exceptional scale of movements in 1963. This may so be demonstrated by comparing the records of January and February move- 1 uents over 100 miles for several years: 1959 5 1961 3 1963 no 1960 12 1962 30 1964 1 will be recalled that the first two weeks of January 1962 also were very cold. Finally, it should be stated that nearly half of the long-distance movements •ported during the cold weather were of birds ringed during the summer months, id that there is little evidence of a cold weather immigration from the Continent. Table P- —Countries and months of recoveries of Song Thrushes 1 untry of recovery Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec cat Britain miles (284) 57 31 37 25 22 *9 34 15 XX 9 4 IO l-too miles (84) 3J 14 14 2 6 4 3 4 - I 2 2 100+ miles (40) 27 7 1 2 I X - - - - - I land (54) 2* 5 5 - - - - - - - I • ttmscy (1) I - - - - - - - - - incc(47) 30 14 - - - - - - I 2 ain(a) 1 X - - - - ~ - - - - - rtugal (1) - I - - - - - - - - - lgium (1) - - - - - - - - - X - - amark (i) - - - - X - - - - - - - Sec footnote to table A Redwing (T urdus iliacus ) (124; 4 years) OLD WEATHER. Recoveries, which were much more numerous than in any levious year, are summarised in the table below. They indicate that birds left te country from the beginning of January, the earlier ones travelling as far as 3rth Spain while the later recoveries are more northerly in distribution. Of the les recovered in Ireland, only two had been ringed in the winter of 1962-63, 565 — X rri 1 \< \ \ TO' \ 1 \s&\ P* 4 Maps 5, 6 and 7. Recoveries of Song Thrushes T urdus pbilomelos (at 100 miles or more from the point of ringing) to show the movement into south-western England during ist-2ist January 1963 (map 5), the switch to north-western France during 22nd January-28th February 1963 REPORT ON BIRD-RINGING FOR 1963 a considerable movement into the south-west involved many recently ringed Is. The recovery on board a ship in mid- Atlantic is one of the most dramatic mples of cold weather movement ever recorded. Table Q — Countries and months of recoveries of Redwings Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct tty of recovery Jan Feb I : Britain miles (jj) 20 6 1 00 miles (27) 0 8 ■+ miles (12; 1 9 2 id (10) 5 2 tic(i) I - luey (1) I - *(«}) IO I (*) 2 - 0 I - ..R. (1) I - 497 fig- 27.12.38 -j- 4.1.63 32630 f-g- 4.1.63 X 7.1.63 Nov Dec See footnote to table A Rugcley: S2°49'N. t°56'\V. (Stafford) C&PM Tkvarcheli: 42°5o'N. 4i°4o'E. (Abkhazsk) U.S.S.R. Nuneaton: 52°52'N. i°28'W. (Warwick) mid Atlantic Ocean: 47’20'N. J4°45'W. HL Ring Ouzel ( Turdus torquatus ) (2; 5 miles; -fe year) ; tyR pull. 18.5.65 Buxton: 5 }°i7'N. i°57'W. (Derby) S&B -f- 6.10.63 Cassagnoles: 43°24'N. 2°4i'E. (Herault) France Blackbird (Turdus meruld ) (1,594, 8-/2 years) LD WEATHER. As table R below indicates, this species suffered heavy rtality during the cold weather and for some time afterwards, but in the latter of the year it was rather lower than usual. The severest weather of the winter urred between 16th and 25 th January and was marked by a big increase in the aber of Blackbird recoveries reported. Whereas only one-third of Song Thrush Jveries in January were of birds which had moved less than three miles, nearlv i-thirds of all Blackbird recoveries in that month were ‘local’. Some cold •ther movements undoubtedly occurred and account, for example, for the >veries in France. However, the figures in the table, especially those for vements over 100 miles within Great Britain and to Ireland, are probably leading. Two-thirds of the birds involved in these movements had been (ed at east coast stations during October and November and it is known that .1 immigrants normally continue westwards to winter in Ireland. It seems ly that many did so in the autumn of 1962 and that most of the birds dying ing the severe cold had thus been in Ireland for as long as two months, ublished in full are all recoveries from north-eastern Europe — still of in- dent occurrence — and the extremes from north and south. The fact that no :kbirds were recovered in Spain or Portugal tends to rule out cold weather as ' reason for the unprecedented series of recoveries in Iberia reported since 195 5. 567 BRITISH BIRDS Table R — Countries and months of recoveries of Blackbirds Country of recovery Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Great Britain 0-2 miles (1,119) 164 121 121 121 ”7 I48 106 78 31 4* 2S 3-100 miles (118) 40 21 IO 8 II 7 6 3 2 3 4 100+ miles (45) 18 11 7 3 1 - - 2 - 1 2 Ireland (51) 35 10 4 - I - - - - - - France (20) 9 8 - - - - - - - - - Belgium (4) 2 - - I - - - - - I - Netherlands (5) I - I 2 - I - - - - - Germany (17) 2 - 4 6 - 1 1 - - - 3 Denmark (16) 2 - 3 5 I 2 - - - - I Norway (38) - I 5 9 I I I 2 1 9 8 Sweden (19*) - - 2 5 1 I 5 I 2 1 ~ Baltic States (3) I - - - - - 2 - - - - Finland (4) - - - - - 2 I - - 1 - U.S.S.R. (1) - - - I - - - - - At sea (2) - I 1 ~ ♦Total includes one reported as ‘February/March’ See footnote to table A V9382I istW. 42,W. (Fife) JH Thies: i4°49'N. i6°52'W. Senegal 24 ad. 0 25.4.61 25.9.63 Seahouses: 55°35'N. i°39'W. (Northumberland) JCC Rosmaninhal: 39°44'N. 7°05,W. (Estremadura) Portugal 69147 istW. 4.9.61 0 24-4-63 Rathlin Island: 55°i8'N. 6°i2,W. (Antrim) TE Parentis: 43°58'N. o°3 i'W. (Landes) France '.01867 pull. + 21.6.63 14.10.63 Hamsterley: 54°4i'N. i°49/W. (Durham) ND&N Sanlucar: 36°46'N. 6°2i'W. (Cadiz) Spain '.04728 pull. X 15.6.62 25.4.63 Taxal: 53°2i'N. i559'W. (Derby) S&B Soues: 43°io'N. o°io'E. (Hautes-Pyrenees) France pull. X 9.6.63 (25.8.63) Chatsworth: 533i4'N. i°36'W. (Derby) SNHS Taunton (Somerset) 165m. SSW. 15307 istW. 4.9.63 v ix. 9.63 Gibraltar Point Dungencss 461 istW. $ 0 I2-9-59 0.9.63 Dungeness Miranda: 42°4i'N. 2°57'W. (Burgos) Spain 05832 istW. $ 0 1.8.63 (22.9.63) Puncknowle: 5o’42'N. 2°39'W. (Dorset) JC Puerto Real: 36°32'N. 6’n'W. (Cddiz) Spain 90246 istW. $ 0 15.9.63 20.10.63 Portland Bill Banos: 38°io/N. 3°46'W. (Jaen) Spain 12618 f.g. $ V 17.4.63 23.4.63 Slapton: 50°i7'N. 3a39'W. (Devon) S1BO Lundy 75 m. NW. e recovery in Senegal is the most southerly one so far reported for this species. Robin (Erithacus rubecula) (237 ; 100 miles; 5 years) *LD WEATHER. The number of Robins recovered in January was nearly ible that in any other month, but only one in eight appears to have moved re than three miles from the place where it was ringed. ^292 ad. 31.3.63 Fair Isle x 30.11.63 San Ascensio: 42°3o'N. 2,145/W. (Logrono) Spain 569 BRITISH BIRDS H 8 8627 ad. 25.4.63 Fair Isle V 4.5.63 Ottenby: 56°i2'N. i6°24'E. (Gland) Sweden AC 1 9 7 22 ad. 24.8.61 Calf of Man X 14.1.63 Fermoy (Cork) 195m. SW. H4239- ad. 7.4.62 Calf of Man V 20.1.63 Goodwick, Fishguard (Pembroke) 140m. S. AK81483 juv. 21.7.63 Buckley: 53°09'N. 3°o5'W. (Flint) MRG 0 27.9.63 Tarnos: 43°3;'N. i°27'\V. (Landes) France AC66017 f-g. 3.4.62 Banning: 5i°i7'N. o°3o'E. Maidstone (Kent) MKRG X 17.2.63 Shebbear, Holsworthv (Devon) 210m. W. ] 6777 4 istW. 5.10.59 Dungeness + 27.11.63 Las Navas: 37°56'N. 5°28'W. (Sevilla) Spain N07128 istW. 3.10.62 Dungeness X 22.3.63 Fohr: 54°43'N. 8°3o'E. North Frisian Islands, Germany Grasshopper Warbler ( Locustella naevia ) (1 ; 1 year) AC97922 f-g- 3.5.62 Hilbre: 53°23'N. 3°i4'W. (Cheshire) HBO X 1.5.63 Edinburgh (Midlothian) 175m. N. Reed Warbler ( Acrocephalus scirpacens) (24; 10 miles ; 4 years) 1166)2} pull. 16.6.62 Cley + 17-9.63 near Mealhada: 4o°2o'N. 8°26'W. (Beira-Litoral) Portugal AC96585 juv. 26.9.62 Walberswick: 52°i8'N. i04i'E. (Suffolk) DBC + 30.9.63 Oporto: 40 09'N. 8°37'W. (Douro-Litoral) Portugal AC96826 juv. 20.7.63 Walberswick DBC 0 (27.9-63) Anadia: 40°26'N. 8°27'W. (Beira-Litoral) Portugal AH46890 juv. 7.9.63 Walbersv/ick DBC X (14.9.63) Nutley, Uckfield (Sussex) 110m. SSW. SC71 176 juv. 8.9.63 Weston Turville: 5 i°47'N. o°45/W. (Buckingham) DNM + 3.10.63 Coimbra: 40°i2/N. 8°25'W. (Beira-Litoral) Portugal AB02261 juv. 5.7.61 Broxbourne: 5i°45,N. o°oi'W. (Hertford) BSN + 25.8.63 Tomar: 39^6'N. 8°25'W. (Ribatcjo) Portugal H63010 ad. 22.7.61 Cliffe: 5 i°28'N. o^o'W. (Kent) NKRG Almodovar: 37°3i'N. 8°03'W. (Baixo-Alentejo) Portugal X 20.9.63 N 498)3 istW. 7.9.63 Cliffe NKRG /?/ 25.10.63 Ereira: 40°09'N. 8°43'W'. (Beira-Litoral) Portugal N13634 juv. 28.8.63 near Maidstone: 5i0i8'N. o°28'E. (Kent) MKRG V 21.9.63 Thouars: 46°59'N. o°i3'W. (Deux-Sevres) France J 2685 6 istW. 16.8.59 Dungeness + 7.9.63 Baracaldo: 43°i7'N. 2°59'W. (Vizcaya) Spain AE86588 juv. 31.8.62 Slapton: 50°i7'N. 3°39'W. (Devon) S1BO V 2.7.63 St. Ouen: 49°i3'N. 2°i3'W. (Jersey) Channel Islands Sedge Warbler ( Acrocephalus scboenobaenus ) (19; 50 miles; 3 }£ years) AE95105 ad. 0 7.8.63 18.8.63 Marton Mere: 53°48'N. 3002'W. (Lancashire) Gcucho: 43°2i'N. 3°ot'W. (Vizcaya) Spain juv. X 27.7.63 5.8.63 Adwick-lc-Strcct: 53°34'N. i°ii'W. (York) Vange (Flsscx) 155m. SSE. RHW AI.S 5 7 0 AHi 3665 REPORT ON BIRD-RINGING FOR I 9 6 3 224)) juv. X 13.7.63 5.8.63 Abberton Gannat: 46°o6'N. 3°n'E. (Allier) France 22919 ad. X 25.8.63 31.8.63 Abberton Penhow, Newport (Monmouth) 165m. W. -47974 juv. V 21.7.63 12.8.63 Weston Turville: 5i°47'N. o°46/W. (Buckingham) DNM Chichester (Sussex) 65 m. S. 93285 juv. X 21.8.62 (23.5.63) Elm Park: 5i°33'N. o°i2'E. Romford (Essex) RRS Tweedmouth (Northumberland) 305m. N. 27195 juv. V 20.8.63 30.8.63 Dungeness near l’Aiguillon: 46°2i'N. i°i5'W. (Vendee) France 279 H istW. X 12.9.63 15.9.63 Dungeness Palaiseau: 48°43'N. 2°i4'E. (Seinc-et-Oise) France Blackcap ( Sylvia atricapilla ) (12; 50 miles; year) E694J6 f.g. ? 0 7.11.62 13.2.63 Isle of May Ecija: 37C33'N. 5°04'W. (Sevilla) Spain ,<.98577 istW. c? V 21.7.63 10.9.63 High Valleyrield: 56r>03'N. 3°36'W. (Fife) JH Fair Isle 250m. NNE. £03994 ad. cj + 17.6.62 3.2.63 Rocklcy: 5 3°32'N. i°28'W. (York) AA Trigueros: 37°24'N. 6 50'W. (Huelva) Spain <28383 juv. V(=8241 juv. 31.7.60 Much Marcle: 5i°59'N. 2°29'W. (Hereford) BJH Campbon: 47°26'N. t°59/W. (Loire-Atlantique) France X end 1.63 <28549 pull. 3.6.63 St. David’s: 5i°54'N. 5°i6'W. (Pembroke) HRH X 23.11.63 Cagny: 49°o8'N. o°i8'\V. (Calvados) France 1422 juv. 7.8.62 Abberton X c. 5.3.63 Cantanhedc: 4o°2i'N. 8°36'\V. (Beira-Litoral) Portugal 0 00 ►-» V4 juv. 23.6.63 Wolvercote: 5 i°47'N. i°i6'W. (Oxford) OOS V 5.11.63 Vila Fernando: 38^5 5'N. 7°i9'W. (Alto-Alentejo) Portugal <45295 juv. 17.8.63 Elm Park: 5i°33,N. o°i2'E. Romford (Essex) RRS V 24.10.63 Ciboure: 43°23'N. it>39'W. (Basses- Pyrenees) France 381045 istW. rj 29.8.62 Watermouth: 5 i°i4,N. 4°04'W. (Devon) MPT -h 8.12.62 near Abrantes: 39°27'N. 8°i9'W. (Ribatejo) Portugal C622I 2 f-g- 0 26.1.62 Ewhurst: 5 i°09'N. o°26'W. (Surrey) L&JW X 24.9.63 Blanknev (Lincoln) 132m. N. ' <09023 f.g. 25.9.62 Ewhurst L&JW Mirandela: 4i°29'N. 7°n'W. (Tras-os-Montes) Portugal 0 c. 7.2.63 88604 was identified as belonging to the race M. a. alba. Yellow Wagtail ssp. {Motacilla {lav a) (14; 10 miles; 2-L years) 035 ad. 29.7.61 Gouthwaitc: 54°05'N. i°45'W. (York) SS&W 0 0.9.63 Cantanhede: 40°2o'N. 8°36'W. (Beira-Litoral) Portugal 575 BRITISH BIRDS N20462 juv. + 31.7.63 12.10.63 Attenborough: 52°54'N. i°i4'W. (Nottingham) JASB Trevino: 42°44'N. 2°4j/W. (Burgos) Spain AE3927I juv. 0 7.8.63 1.10.63 Wolvercote: 5i048'N. i°i9'W. (Oxford) OOS Setubal: 38°3i/N. 8°54'W. (Estremadura) Portugal AK639I3 istW. + <3 12.9.63 (10.11.63) Hoddesdon: 5i°47'N. o°oo' (Hertford) RMRG Cambeia: 40°38'N. 8°43'W. (Beira-Litoral) Portugal AK64062 istW. X $ 21.9.63 13.10.63 Hoddesdon RMRG Lisbon: 38°44'N. 9°o8'W. Portugal AE879I8 juv. /?/ 11.9.62 (8.4.63) Coate: 5 i°34'N. i°47'W. Swindon (Wiltshire) GLW Santona: 43°27'N. 3°26'W. (Santander) Spain Starling (St urn us vulgaris) (1,467; 10^- years) COLD WEATHER. Recoveries in the first quarter were more numerous th usual, but not greatly so, and the heaviest mortality, as is normally the cay occurred in the breeding season. More recoveries were reported in February t t in March than in January, indicating that the effects of the cold were progressi. There was little evidence of long distance oriented movement, but more wander if than usual and many were recovered up to 50 miles from their places of ringifi: Table T — Countries and months of recoveries of Starlings Country of recovery Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov 4 France (6) 2 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ I _ _ Belgium (35) - - - - - 1 1 - I 17 11 Netherlands (31) 1* I 5 4 3 7 1 - I 3 2 Germany (64) - I 10 10 8 9 8 8 2 6 - Denmark (18) I - 1 2 2 3 3 1 - I 1 Norway (22) - - 11 7* 2 - - - I - Sweden (12) - - - 5 2 1 1 1 I 1 - Poland (10) - - 1 3 4 - - - - X - Lithuania (3) - - - 1 2 - - - - - - Latvia (9) - - - 1 - 4 - l - - I Estonia (4) - - - - 1 - 1* 1 I - - Finland (9) - - - 6 3 - - - - - - U.S.S.R. (19) I - 1 5 6 - - 2 3* - I ‘At sea’ 2 2 - - - ~ ♦Totals each include one bird recovered in this month in 1962 or earlier but reported in 196} See footnote to table A Published in full are a reverse movement from Fair Isle, two interesting doufc recoveries, extreme records from north, east and south and all foreign recover< of birds of probable British origin : CX14789 f.g.9 X 27.3.63 9.4.63 Fair Isle Blakeney Point (Norfolk) 460m. S. 2J137X f.g. 0 22.2.60 18.3.63 Belfast: 54°35'N. 5°55'W. JABC off Lofoten Islands: c. 68°oo'N. i2°oo'E. Norway V736J6 juv. X 15.7.58 early 6.63 St. Osyth: 5 i°49'N. i°o5'E. (Essex) RWA Dedesdorf: 53°27'N. 8°3i'E. (Niedersachsen) Germany W22105 fig- X 26.2.55 0.9.56 Chilton: 5i°34'N. i0i7'W. (Berkshire) OOS Nerekhta: 57°28'N. 4o°34'E. (Kostroma) U.S.S.R. R-7J7&3 juv. + 29.5.60 15.12.63 Beddington: 5 i°23'N. o°o8'W. (Surrey) LNHS Orphin: 48°35'N. x°46'E. (Seine-et-Oise) France 576 REPORT ON BIRD-RINGING FOR I 9 6 3 •7599 U* > — - 22.1.58 24.5.58 27.10.63 New Romney: 5 i°02'N. i°oo'E. (Kent) DBO Gorodishche: 53°i9'N. 26°oi'E. (Brest) U.S.S.R. Meulebeke: 5o°57'N. 3°i8/E. (West Flanders) Belgium •394S istW. X 4.10.61 early 9.63 Dungeness near Parisot: 44°i6'N. i°5i'E. (Tarn-et-Garonne) France ■299S juv. + 24.6.62 24.12.62 Dungeness Vaicyrac: 45°26'N. o°56'W. (Gironde) France 408S juv. /?/ 25.6.62 3.1.63 Dungeness Rue: 5o°i6'N. i°4o'E. (Somme) France j)oS juv. ? X 3.7.62 (17.7.63) Dungeness Bottrop: 5i°3i'N. 6°55'E. (Nordrhein-Westfalen) Germany 629X ad. V + 15.10.60 8.2.61 (30.6.63) St. Catherine’s Point: 50°34'N. i°i8'W. Isle of Wight JF Swansea: 5i°38'N. 3057'W. (Glamorgan) 130m. NW. Opeinde: 53°o8'N. 6 '03 'K. (Friesland) Netherlands Greenfinch ( Chloris chloris ) (492; 200 miles; 5-^- years) 1 DLD WEATHER. Ringing results indicate that this species was not seriously c 'ected by the severe weather. Recoveries were rather more numerous than usual January and there is evidence of a small cold weather movement, but few ivelled more than 100 miles. Only three were recovered abroad, compared with ven in the same period of 1962. boR ad. $ 19.5.62 V 2.1.63 \09813 istW. C? 29.7.62 0 7.2.63 7 iX f-g- 17.3.60 X (14.2.63) Foulness: 5i°36'N. o°55'E. (Essex) GD Frencq: 50°33'N. i°42'E. (Pas-de-Calais) France Stockbury: 5i°2o'N. o°4i'E. (Kent) MKRG Laneuville-Roy: 49°29'N. 2°3j/E. (Oise) France Eastbourne: 5o°46'N. o°i7'E. (Sussex) DDFI near Montreuil: 50°28'N. i°46'E. (Pas-de-Calais) France Goldfinch ( Carduelis carduelis) (31; 100 miles; 2 jV years) )LD WEATHER. The evidence is inconclusive. Two of the ones listed low were reported as being found during hard weather. On the other hand, per were recovered than in 1962 and few of the recoveries indicate movement. •87677 ad.? /?/ 15.9.63 6.10.63 Brancaster: 52°58'N. o°38'E. (Norfolk) WAC Tontelange: 49’43'N. 5°49'E. (Luxembourg) Belgium ( 3729 juv. 0 3.8.62 f. 5.1.63 near Sutton Bridge: 52°44'N. o°ii'E. (Lincoln) M&B Rouvray: 48°i7'N. i°57,E. (Eure-et-Loire) France 3 1*792} juv. X 4.7.62 19. II. 63 Oxford: 5 i°45'N. A^'W. EGI Algeciras: 36°o8'N. 5°27'W. (Cddiz) Spain ad. ^ 0 5.5.62 c. 20.1.63 Cliffe: 5i°28’N. o°3o'E. (Kent) NKRG Larccveau: 43'13'N. i°o6'W. (Basses-Pyrenees) France 1822 ad. 0 8.7.62 19.12.63 Northfleet: 5i°27'N. o°2o'E. (Kent) M&B Miranda: 42°4i'N. 2°57'W. (Burgos) Spain 96502 f-g- X 6.10.62 15.1.63 Hersham: 5i°22,N. o°24'W. (Surrey) DP Grand Quevilly: 49°26'N. i°03'E. (Seine-Maritime) France *4357 f-g. ? + 6.5.62 1.5.63 Christon: 5i°i8,N. 2°5 3'W. (Somerset) LPT Pasajes: 43°i9'N. i°55'W. (Guipuzcoa) Spain 62866 juv. X 16.8.62 7.11.63 Ewhurst: 5i°o9'N. o°26'W. (Surrey) L&JW near Leon: 43°5 3'N. i°i8'W. (Landes) France 577 BRITISH BIRDS H65040 juv. + 30.8.61 Shoreham-by-Sea : 50°5o'N. o°i6'W. (Sussex) JS 7.11.63 Ondres: 43°34'N. i°26'W. (Landes) France A49648 Siskin ( Carduelis spinus) (1 ; year) f.g. $ 3.3.62 Ilkley: 53°56'N. i049'W. (York) WNS x 28.1.63 St. Michielsgestel : 5i°38'N. 5°2i'E. (Noord-Brabant) Neth, lands Linnet ( Carduelis cannabina ) (118; 4 ^- years) COLD WEATHER. Table U indicates an increase in both the number of bii recovered and the amount of movement, chiefly during January. The me distant recoveries within Great Britain were to the south. The recoveries Ireland and Sardinia are unique, and are published in full. Table U — Countries and months of recoveries of Linnets Country of recovery Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Great Britain 0-2 miles (22) 6 1 3-50 miles (20) 9 4 51-100 miles (7) 5 1 100+ miles (4) 2 1 Ireland (1) - - Netherlands (2) - - Belgium (3) 1 - France (20) 1 1 Spain (10) - 1 Sardinia (1) 1 - x x 1 1 1 1 1 6 1 1 1 See footnote to table A Nov ■ 5 1 N10624 AKiujy juv. d 0 f-g- 3'N. 3°i4'W. (Cheshire) HBO x A 17-5-6} Hale, Altrincham (Cheshire) 3 8m. E. ad. $ 26.12.61 Wyke Regis: 5o°36,N. 2°29'W. (Dorset) RJC X 4.4.63 Wells (Somerset) 42m. N. Tree Sparrow ( Passer montanus ) (72; 30 miles; 4$ years) ■■ lASj/fO f-g- 7.10.60 Spurn Point X 3.1.63 Willaston, Wirral (Cheshire) 127m. W. AK2I428 f-g- 4.4.63 Peakirk: 52°38'N. o°i7'W. (Northampton) WAC X 27.10.63 Saffron Walden (Essex) 47m. SE. 1 B2IZJ } ad. 19.2.61 Bramley: 5i°i2'N. o'"34'W. Guildford (Surrey) L&JW X 2.7.63 Oakham (Rutland) 100m. N. 173417 f-g- 8.5.62 Dungeness /?/ 18.1.63 Gullegem: 50°5i'N. 3 1 2'E. (West Flanders) Belgium KEY TO RINGERS’ INITIALS IN LIST OF RECOVERIES DRA D. R. Anderson GHF G. FI. Forster HEA H. E. Axell GTF G. T. Flock RWA R. W. Arthur JF J. Field AB A. Belshaw JEF J. E. Flynn ARB A. R. Bushell MAFF Ministry of Agriculture, CJB C. J. Booth Fisheries and Food EB E. Balfour BEG Brathay Exploration Group EJB E. J. Byrne EAG the late AEss E. A. Garden JAB J. A. Benington MKRG Mid-Kent Ringing Group JASB J. A. S. Borrett MpRG Mendip Ringing Group PAB P. A. Banks MRG Merseyside Ringing Group RFIB R. H. Brown NJG Miss N. J. Gordon CC C. Carter NKRG North Kent Ringing Group DBC Dingle Bird Club PG P. Goodlad FC F. Colley RMRG Rye Meads Ringing Group FRC F. R. Clafton SWG Sheppey Wader Group JC J. Crudass TG T. Grant JAC J. A. Cowlin TRG Tolworth Ringing Group JABC T. A. Cantley WWG Wash Wader Group JCC J. C. Coulson AGH A. G. Plurrell PRC P. R. Catchpole BJH B. J. Huddart RC R. Chestney DDH D. D. Harber RGHC R. G. H. Cant EGH E. G. Plolt RJC R. J. Chainev HRH H. R. Hammacott WC Winchester College JH J. Hoy WAC W. A. Cook MPH M. P. Harris AD A. Darlington PH P. Hurt GD G. Downey EGI Edward Grey Institute HMD H. M. Dobinson TOJ T. O. James PGD P. G. Davis LK Miss L. Kennedy PMD P. M. Driver HL H. Lapworth RD R. Dean JML J. M. Langford AWE A. W. Evans NRL N. R. Lewis PRE P. R. Evans RRL R. R. Lovegrove TE T. Ennis DNM D. N. Makepeace GF G. Felstead 1HM J. H. Morgan }8l BRITISH BIRDS JMcM J. McMeeking SNHS Sorby Natural History PDM P. D. Mann Society PJM P. J. Mawby WNS Wharfedale Naturalists’ PPM P. P. Mackle Society BSN B. S. Nau HST H. S. Taylor RBN R. B. Napier LPT L. P. Tucker ABO A. B. Old MPT M. P. Taylor CBO Cley Bird Observatory SHT Steep Flolme Trust DBO Dungeness Bird Observatory TT T. Todd GHO Sir G. Hughes Onslow AU Aberdeen University HBO Hilbre Bird Observatory ABW A. B. Watson MHBO Monk’s House Bird Obser- AJW A. J. Waller vatory CW C. Winn SABO St. Agnes Bird Observatory DW D. R. Watson SBBO Sandwich Bay Bird Observa- DRW D. R. Wilson tory GLW G. L. Webber S1BO Slapton Bird Observatory JAW J. A. Wigzell DP D. Parr JGW J. G. Williams RFP R. F. Porter PW P. Wormell WMP W. M. Peet PSW P. S. Watson CMR C. M. Reynolds RDW R. D. Wilson JR J. Richardson RHW R. H. Wilson PR P. Rudge VSW V. S. Wiseman RLR R. L. Rolfe PY P. Yeoman RWR R. W. Robson TFR T. F. Richardson A&B Archer & Bower ALS Adwick-le-Street Ringing C&F Collier & Forster Station CL&G Clissold, Little & Galloway BHRS Beachy Head Ringing C&PM C. & P. Minton Station D&P Donovan & Pickess BrS Bryanston School D&Q Dickins & Quin CS C. Sharr F&P Fenn & Palmer CHRS Christchurch Harbour Ring- H&DL H. & D. Lees ing Station J&AP J. & A. Platt DS D. Shepherd L&JW L. & J. Weller DAS D. A. Stone M&B Mead & Boddy IFS I. F. Stewart M&S Mann & Syer JS J. Stafford ND&N Northumberland, Durham & LNHS London Natural History Newcastle NHS Society S&B Sorensen & Burgess oos Oxford Ornithological SS&W Sanderson, Summersgill & Society Walker PELS P. E. L. Simmonds WP&M Wilson, Ponting & McLean RRS Romford Ringing Station 582 Recoveries in Great Britain and Ireland of birds ringed abroad By fLobert Hudson Throughout the ‘Report on bird-ringing’ (pages 525-582) a recurrent theme has been the effects of the arctic weather of early 1963. To no less degree did these conditions affect the recoveries of foreign-ringed birds in the British Isles. The Swedish Bittern found moribund in the Isle of Wight; the Pintail, Shelduck, Ringed Plover and Redshank picked up dead and dying on frozen shores; the many thrushes, especially Song Thrushes and Redwings, recovered in south-west England and in Ireland; all these tell the same story. Inevitably, such events dominated the year, but 1963 was memorable in other respects, too. No fewer than five species were added to the list of foreign-ringed birds recovered in the British Isles: a Slavonian Grebe from Russia, two Mandarins from Norway, a Grey Plover from Denmark, a Short-eared Owl from Finland and a House Martin from Germany. As there had been no recoveries here of Swiss-ringed birds since 1929, records of Wigeon and Redwing from Switzerland were of particular interest. No less noteworthy were recoveries of Icelandic Whooper and Dutch Mute Swans, a Hen Harrier from Finland, an Icelandic Great Skua, another Little Gull from Latvia and a second Razorbill from the Barents Sea. The increased interest in the hirundines which is being shown in many countries resulted in a nice crop of recoveries; note particularly those ringed at Figuig in Morocco — by a British team ! Among the passerines special attention must be drawn to the Robin from Poland, the French Dunnock, the two Rock Pipits and the Finnish Waxwing. Those interested in longevity records should note the Black-headed Gull at 14! years and the Knot at 17 years, the latter being the oldest recorded age for a wild individual of this species. Selected list of recoveries reported ae symbols and terms are the same as those used in the ‘Report on bird-ringing’ :e pages 536-5 37), with the exception that the term ‘juv.’ cannot always be relied >on to signify a young bird able to fly freely; owing to lack of unanimity in the 1 rious ringing schemes, this term may sometimes mean a chick or pullus. bbreriations used for ringing stations Aranzadi, San Sebastian Brussels Copenhagen Gotcborg H. Heligoland Hki. Helsinki Jer. Socicte Jersiaise L. Leiden 583 BRITISH BIRDS M. O.S.V. p. Pg. P.V. R. Moscow RJs. Reykjavik Oslo Statensviltundersokelser Sem. Sempach (State Game Research) Slav. Stavanger Paris St. Stockholm Prague Polonia Varsovia Radolfzell S/.Orn. Stockholm ‘Omis’ (Sveriges Ornithologiska Forening) Slavonian Grebe ( Podiceps auritus ) M. (? age) 21.7.62 D567J59 v {oil) 7.4.63 P. f-g- 26.2.63 DN08104 x {oil) 16.3.63 Stav. pull. 8.7.62 20j 042 x A c. 7.4.63 C. pull. 25-5-59 292769 X 30.8.39 L. pull. 22.5.59 200}6$ + 1.10.63 L. pull. 11.4.61 }}I2}8 X 22.4.63 G. pull. 16.6.57 E2949 X 2.2.63 Lake Molotovskoye: 59°i3'N. 39°53'E. (Vologda) U.S.S.R. Hinderwell: 54°33'N. o°4j,W. (York) Gannet {Sul a bassana) Le Rozel: 49°28'N. i°54'W. (Manche) France Ringstead Bay: 5o°37'N. 2°24'W. (Dorset) Heron {Ardea cinerea ) near Egersund: 58°28'N. 6°io'E. (Rogaland) Norway Deerness: 58°57'N. 2°43'W. (Orkney) near Jejsing: 54°57'N. 8°5 8'E. (Jutland) Denmark Houghton Regis: 5i°5 5'N. o°3i'W. (Bedford) Callantsoog: 5 2°5o'N. 4°4i'E. (Noord Holland) Netherlarm Michaelchurch: 52°o9'N. 3°o6'W. (Radnor) Amsterdam: 52°2i'N. 4°56'E., Netherlands Belvoir Castle: 5 2°54'N. o°48'W. (Leicester) Bittern {Botaurus stellaris ) Soderf jarden : 59°23/N. i6°5o'E., Lake Malaren, Sweden Lake: 5o039'N. i°io'W. (Isle of Wight) Mallard ( Anas platjrhjncbos) Recoveries were received of birds ringed in the U.S.S.R. (three), Finland (threj Sweden (six), Denmark (six), Holland (four), Belgium (20) and France (onj The following two are those with most northerly origins: M. D}}002} M. D5 60442 juv. + 4.7.62 0.12.62 pull. + 11.7.63 21.12.63 Nenetsk Okrug: c. 67°oo'N. 54°oo'E. (Arkhangel) U.S.S.R. Compton Valence: 5o°44'N. 2°35'W. (Dorset) near Kandalaksha: 67°02'N. 32°35'E. (Murmansk) U.S.S.R. Cowdenbeath: 56°o6'N. 3°2i'W. (Fife) T eal {Anas crecca ) Recoveries notified during the year involved birds ringed in Iceland (one), U.S.S.R. (two), Finland (three), Norway (one), Denmark (1 5), Germany (onj Holland (ten), Belgium (13) and France (eight). The following were ringed ducklings: near Klepp: 58°45'N. 3°33'E. (Rogaland) Norway Athlone: 53°26'N. 7°36'W. (Westmeath) near Scgeberg: 5 3°54'N. io°o5'E. (Schleswig-Holstein) G many near Llandrindod Wells: 5 2°2i'N. 3°22'W. (Radnor) Stav. pull. 3.7.60 536234 + 19.1.62 H. pull, d 17.6.63 5095366 + 2.10.63 584 FOREIGN-RINGED RECOVERIES 02 pull. ? + c. 19.6.57 17.12.63 Brecht: 5i°2i'N. 4°38'E. (Antwerpen) Belgium Harty: 5i°23'N. o°53'E. (Kent) J21 pull, c? + 30.6.61 24.10.63 Rijkevorsel: 5i°2i'N. 4°46'E. (Antwerpen) Belgium Alloa: 56co7'N. 3°49'W. (Clackmannan) 94 6 pull. + 14.6.58 0.1.63 decide: 5i°24'N. 5°oo'E. (Antwerpen) Belgium Kilrush: 5 2°39,N. 9°29'W. (Clare) Wigeon ( Anas penelope ) >4 pull. + 9.8.61 22.1.63 Skipalon: 65°47'N. i8°i2'W., Iceland Murrough: 5 3°o8'N. 9°i7'W. (Clare) pull. + t. 12.8.62 15.10.63 Skipalon, Iceland near Kirkwall: 58°59'N. 2°58'W. (Orkney') U pull. + 3.8.63 26. 12. 63 Skipalon, Iceland near Kilcolgan: 5 3°i3'N. 8°52'W. (Galway) 796: juv. c? + 6.IO.57 29.I.63 Okski Reserve: 54°45'N. 40°5o'E. (Ryazan) U. S.S.R. near Pilning: 5 ic34'N. 2°39'W. (Gloucester) 170 fig- c? + 25.I.58 4.I.63 Sempach: 47°i3'N. 8°i2'E. (Luzern) Switzerland Nottage: 5i°3o/N. 3°42'W. (Glamorgan) iddition, there were twelve recoveries of birds ringed in autumn and winter in gium and the Netherlands. Pintail ( Anas acuta ) eleven recoveries reported concerned Pintail ringed in autumn and winter in Netherlands. Six of these were found dead during the very cold weather of nruarv-March 1963, the others being shot. Their distribution does not call for cial mention. Shoveler ( Spatula clypeata) pull. 5.6.63 Matsalu: 58°44'N. 23°46'E., Estonian S.S.R. 014 + 24.12.63 Thurles: 52°4i'N. 7 49'W. (Tipperary) iddition, five ringed in the Netherlands were recovered in England (two) and and (three) ; these do not alter the pattern previously established. Mandarin (A/x galericulatd) 0 have identical ringing and recovery details : 89 juv. 607 ad. <$ /?/ 25.1.60 0.2.63 Bunschoten, Netherlands Slimbridge: 5 i°44'N. 2°25'W. (Gloucester) 1663 ad. ? + 26.1.60 c. 12.1.63 Hoge Warren: 5 3°o6'N. 5°56'E. (Friesland) Netherlands St. Justinian: 5i°52'N. 5°i8'W. (Cornwall) 444 ad. cJ + 25.1.61 c. 10.1.63 near Nijkerk: 52°i5'N. 5°29'E. (Gelderland) Netherlands Week St. Mary: 50°45'N. 4°29'W. (Cornwall) 'S06 istW. + c? 24.1.62 10.2.63 Akmarijp: 5 3°oi'N. 5°49'E. (Friesland) Netherlands Bude: 5o°49'N. 4°33'W'. (Cornwall) 452 ad. <$ 24.2.62 (5.1.63) Akmarijp, Netherlands Drysllwyn: 5i°52'N. 4°o6'W. (Carmarthen) 1 994 iuv. $ + 29.1.62 5.1.63 Putten: 52°i5'N. 5°29'E. (Gelderland) Netherlands River Camel estuary: 5o°32'N. 4° 5 7 AX'. (Cornwall) Pink-footed Goose ( Anser bracbjrhjnchus) V pull. X M-7-54 (29.1.63) Reindalcn: 77°5o'N. i5°3o'E., Spitsbergen Braunton: 51 07'N. 4°09'W. (Devon) :re was again a small number of recoveries of birds ringed by the Wildfowl st during their two expeditions to central Iceland, five from that of 1951 and torn that of 1953; these do not call for special comment. 47 Brent Goose (fir ant a bernicla ) ad. 22.4.62 Jordsand: 5 5°oi'N. 8°32'E. (Jutland) Denmark x 23.1.63 Blakeney: 52°58'N. i°oi'E. (Norfolk) Barnacle Goose (firanta leucopsis) rly 700 adults were ringed at Hornsund, c. 77°oo'N. i433o'E., Spitsbergen, ulv 1962. Of these no less than 94 were controlled (retrapped and released) by /TYncf- of ^ oprlci v^rnrlr fOiimfrips^ on PpIa- 7 1963. The following V. 7 v 2.2.63 0 V. 17. 11. 63 9 X V. 10.11.63 I X (wires) c. 7.12.63 78 x c. 7.12.63 (j vires) Whooper Swan (Cjgnus cygnus) pull. 11.8.62 Ulfsvatn: 64°54'N. 2o035'\X'., Iceland x 20.1.63 Fallin: 3 6°o6'N. 3°5 5^’. (Stirling) (wires) 587 BRITISH BIRDS RJk. °45 pull. X 16.8.62 24.1.63 Ulfsvatn, Iceland Kilnaboy: 52°57'N. 9°o6'W. (Clare) Mute Swan ( Cjgnus olor ) L. 9500036 ad. V 20.5.61 6.2.63 Oost Flevoland : 52°3o'N. 5°5 i'E. (Ijsselmeer) Netherlam > Pagham Harbour: 50°46'N. o°45'W. (Sussex) Hen Harrier ( Circus cyaneus) Hki. H40493 pull. ? X 5.7.62 20.3.63 near Liminka: 64°5o'N. 25°25'E. (Oulu) Finland Mongeham: 5i°i3'N. i°23'E., Deal (Kent) It was subsequently shown that the corpse contained residues of organo-chlo i« pesticides. Merlin (Falco colutnbarius ) RJk. 613045 pull. X 8.7.63 1.12.63 near Stykkisholmur: 65°oo'N. 22°39'W., Iceland River Taw estuary: c. 5i°o6'N. 4°io'W. (Devon) Moorhen ( Gallinula chloropus ) L. 4009368 juv. X 24.9.61 20.1.63 Gameren: 5i°48'N. 5°ii'E. (Gelderland) Netherlands Ryton-on-Dunsmore: 52°22'N. i°27'W. (Warwick) L. 4011315 f-g- X 30.11.62 26.2.63 De Koog: 53°o6'N. 4°48'E., Texel, Netherlands Rise: 53J5CN. 0 “^'W. (York) B. 4H2384 juv. V 11. 12. 62 (9.4.63) Woumen: 50°59'N. 2°52'E. (West Flanders) Belgium Ramsgate: 5i°2o'N. i°25'E. (Kent) Coot (Fulica atra ) M. C11J928 pull. X 7.6.62 27.1.63 Engure Lake: 57°i7'N. 23°07/E., Latvian S.S.R. Pulborough: 5o°57'N. o°3i'W. (Sussex) L. 3U7I3 f-g- X 7.3.58 17.2.63 Ritthem: 5i°27'N. 3°38'E. (Zeeland) Netherlands Rye Harbour: 5o°56'N. o°46'E. (Sussex) Oystercatcher ( [Haen/aJopt/s ostralegus ) RJk. 55067 pull. V 22.6.58 5.9.63 Skipalon: 65°47/N. i8°I2'W., Iceland Whiteford Burrows: 5 i°38'N. 4°i5/W. (Glamorgan) C. 586901 pull. + 30.6.57 19.8.63 Mikladali: 62°2i,N. 6°46'W., Faeroe Islands near Carrickfergus : 54°43'N. 5°50/W. (Antrim) c. 480649 pull. V 12.7.60 18.9.63 Mykines: 62°o6Tsl. 7°38'W., Faeroe Islands Walney Island: 54°05'N. 3°i5,W. (Lancashire) B. E0357 ad. X 1.11.62 22.2.63 Biervliet: 5i°2o'N. 3°4i/E. (Zeeland) Netherlands Outer Gabbard Light Vessel: 5 2°oo'N. 2°03'E., North Sead' Lapwing ( Vanellus vane Hits) Stav. 604058 pull. + 1.6.52 24.12.62 Ogna: 5 8°32'N. 5°46'F,. (Rogaland) Norway Carrickmacross: 5 3°59'N. 6°43'W. (Monaghan) Stav. 6x3611 pull. + 18.5.55 7.1.62 Hoyland: 5805 i'N. 5°47'E. (Rogaland) Norway Delgany : 53°o8TS1. 6°o6'W. (Wicklow) Stav. 615068 pull. + 25.6.56 2.1.63 near Naerbo : 58°4o'N. 5°38'E. (Rogaland) Norway near Waterville: 5i°49'N. io°ii'W. (Kerry) 588 FOREIGN-RINGED RECOVERIES V. pull. 29- 5-57 Tjensvoll: 58°57'N. 5°42'E. (Rogaland) Norway 1)24 X 19.2.63 Cape Clear Island: 5i°26'N. 9°3o'W. (Cork) ad. 26.12.62 near St. Jean de Luz: 43°22'N. i°33'W. (Basses Pyrdn^es) France , 6214 X 17.9.63 Great Maplestead: 5i°58'N. o°39'E. (Essex) pull. 4.3.61 Cecelice: 5o°i8'N. i4°37'E. (Melnik) Czechoslovakia 3I09 X 29.1.63 Falmouth: 50°o8'N. 5 “04^. (Cornwall) Grey Plover ( Charadrius squatarola) juv. 3.10.39 Amager: 55°38/N. I2°34,E., Denmark . )252 j X 1.3.60 Harwich: 5i°57'N. i°i8/E. (Essex) Golden Plover ( Charadrius apricarius) ad. 24.6.60 Midnes: 64°04'N. 22°43'W., Iceland 1132 + 2.1.63 near Courtmacshcrry : 5it,34'N. 8°45'\V. (Cork) f-g- 11.3.61 Onderdendam: 53°2o'N. 6°35'E. (Groningen) Netherlands U4i4 + 22.12.63 The Midrips: 5o°56'N. o°5i'E. (Sussex) Ringed Plover ( Charadrius hiaticiila) pull. 20.5.61 Ottenby: 56°I2'N. i6°24'E. (Oland) Sw-eden )02I X 26.1.63 Yarmouth: 5o°42,N. ic,29'W. (Isle of Wight) V. f-g- 20.8.61 Revtangen: 58°45'N. 5°3o'E. (Rogaland) Norway •602 X 1.9.62 Chichester Harbour: 50°48'N. o°5o'W. (Sussex) juv. 16.7.57 Amager: 55°38'N. i2°34'E., Denmark 'J20 X 23.1.63 Shoreham-by-Sea : 5o°5o'N. o°i6'W. (Sussex) pull. 7.6.56 Heligoland: 54°ii'N. 7°55'E., Germany -'424H V 13.7.61 Heligoland xA i9-5-63 Scolt Head: 52°59'N. o°44'E. (Norfolk) pull. 25.6.54 Wangeroog: 53°47'N. 7°58'E., Frisian Islands, Germany *)J)7 V 18.7.58 Wangeroog V 1. 6. 61 Wangeroog X 29.1.63 Hurst Castle: 5o°43'N. i°34'W. (Hampshire) pull. 11.6.63 Norderoog: 54°32'N. 8°3i'E., Frisian Islands, Germany 23752 V 17.8.63 near Sutton Bridge: 5 2°44'N. o°n'E. (Lincoln) Turnstone ( Arenaria interpres) P. f-g. 26.8.62 Revtangen: 58°45'N. 5°3o'E. (Rogaland) Norway 752 V 3.9.63 Holbeach Marsh: 52°54'N. o°o5'E. (Lincoln) Snipe ( Gallitiago gallinago) f. f-g* 18.8.61 near Pori: 6i°32'N. 2i°35/E., Finland + 0.1.62 Galway: 5 3°i7'N. 9°03'W. f. ad. 8.8.60 near Pori, Finland .685 + 1.2.62 Totnes: 50°25'N. 4°o3'W. (Devon) ? juv. 1 1. 8. 61 near Pori, Finland 621 X 15.1.63 Birdham: 50°48,N. o°5o'W. (Sussex) juv. 28.7.62 Ledskar: 6o°3i'N. i7°43'E- (Uppland) Sweden 9361 0 20.1.63 Brosna: 52°i9'N. 9°i6'\V. (Kerry) pull. 17.5.63 near Hamburg: 5 3°28'N. 9°52'E., Germany 7761 + 12.10.63 Brookland : 5i°oo'N. o°5i'E., Romney Marsh (Kent) 589 BRITISH BIRDS B. f-g. 30.8.62 9D8930 x (cat) (26.1.63) B. f-g. 29.9.62 Z18207 + 13.1.63 M. juv. 19.5.61 P42jor + c. 1.1.62 Hki. ad. 19.5.61 C97713 + 1.2.62 C. ad. 18.10.60 541643 + 3.12.60 L. f-g- 7.11.61 1014110 x A 6.4.63 Knokke: 5i°2i'N. yJic/E. (West Flanders) Belgium Dalystown: 53°26'N. 7°22'W. (Westmeath) Waasmunster: 5i°07'N. 4°o5'E. (East Flanders) Belgium Limerick: 52°4o'N. 8°}8'W. Talsy: 57°i5'N. 22°34'E., Latvian S.S.R. Carrowkeel: 54°04'N. 8°2i'W. (Sligo) Signilskar: 6o°i2/N. i9°22'E. (Aland) Finland West Ardsley: 5 3 "40'N. i°29'W. (York) near Skallingen: 5 5°3o'N. 8°i7'E. (Jutland) Denmark near Huddersfield : 5 3°4o'N. i°47'W. (York) Rijsterbos: 52°52'N. 5°29'E. (Friesland) Netherlands Cromer: 52056'N. i°i9'E. (Norfolk) Curlew (Numenius arquata ) The usual small number of recoveries reported came from the same areas as tH) published in previous years: Finland (six), Sweden (one), Denmark (thi), Germany (one) and Belgium (one); none calls for special comment. Redshank (Tringa totanus ) Rk. ad. 27.6.60 Midnes: 64°04'N. 22°43'W., Iceland 612134 X 19.1.63 The Basin: 52°i5'N. 9°44'W. (Kerry) Rk. f-g- 15.8.62 Midnes, Iceland 612353 X (3 1 -3-63) Morpeth: 5 5°io'N. i°4i'W. (Northumberland) Knot ( Calidris canutus) Rk. ad. 29.5.46 Midnes: 64°04'N. 22°43,W., Iceland 84290 V 22.7.53 Midnes X winter 62/63 Potton Island: 5i°35'N. o°5o'E. (Essex) Rk. ad. 27.5.60 Midnes, Iceland 711117 X 17.2.63 Hunstanton: 52°57'N. o°3o'E. (Norfolk) Slav. f-g- 9.9.56 Revtangen: 58°45'N. 5°3o'E. (Rogaland) Norway Z2084 X 12.3.63 Dundee: 56°28'N. 2°58'W. (Angus) H. f-g- 3.9.62 Langenwerder: 54°o2'N. ii^o'E. (Mecklenburg) German; Skipper's Island: 5i°53'N. i°I3'E. (Essex) 7194671 xA 19.5.63 H. f-g- 2.9.62 Langenwerder, Germany Southport: 53°39'N. 3°oi'W. (Lancashire) 7990021 X 14.2.63 Note especially the dates for Rk. 84290; since it was ringed as an adult this * must have been at least 17 years of age and therefore by far the oldest Knot) which we have a record. Dunlin (Calidris alpina ) No fewer than 58 recoveries were notified during 1963, all involving birds rinjt as migrants: these came from Finland (five), Sweden (32), Norway (nine), Denmf (eight), Germany (two), Poland (one) and the Netherlands (one). The Poh bird (a multiple recovery) is given in full, as are three Scandinavian ones select for their longevity interest. 590 FOREIGN-RINGED RECOVERIES 3051044 & P.V. G241907 ad. 8.8.61 V 3.9.62 V 16.11.63 1 ad. 19.8.49 OA9I41 V 23.2.63 'ar. f-g- 27.9.52 2)60 X 27.1.63 juv. 18.10.52 15281 V 5.9.63 Ottenby: 56 12'N. i6°24'E. (Oland) Sweden mar Sobicszewo: 54°2i'N. i8°48'E. (Gdansk) Poland Benington: 53°oo'N. o°o5'E. (Lincoln) Ottenby, Sweden East Tilbury: 5i°28'N. o°26'E. (Essex) Revtangen: 58°45'N. 5°30,E. (Rogaland) Norway St. Osyth: ji°49'N. i°05'E. (Essex) Amagcr: 55°38/N. I2°34'E., Denmark Tcrrington Marsh: 52°47,N. o°i7'E. (Norfolk) 0773- Curlew Sandpiper ( Calidris testacea) juv. 20.9.63 Ottenby: 5 6° 12'N. 1 6°24'E. (Oland) Sweden v 2.11.63 Oawlish Warren: 50 35'N. 3°27'W. (Devon) li\o Sanderling ( Crocetbia alba) f.g. 17-9-59 Revtangen: 5 8°45'N. 5 °3o'E. (Rogaland) Norway X 19-9-63 Cleethorpcs: 5 3°34'N. o°o2'W. (Lincoln) 0882 Great Skua ( Catbaracta skua) pull. 27.7.63 Oraefi: 63°5 3'N. i6°39'W., Iceland v {net) 23.9.63 Lough Corrib: 53°27'N. 9°i6'W. (Galway) 3S 4599 '8674! Great Black-backed Gull ( Larus marinus) pull. 8.6.60 Great Ainov Island : 69°5o'N. 3i°35'E. (Murmansk)^U.S.S.R. x 20.2.63 Woolverstone: j2°oo'N. i°i i'E. (Suffolk) pull. 24.6.62 Great Ainov Island, U.S.S.R. x 11.2.63 Widnes: 5 3°22,N. 2°4j'W. (Lancashire) pull. 27.6.60 Kharlov Island: 68°49'N. 37°2o'E. (Murmansk) U.S.S.R. '02S10 x 1.1.63 Mablethorpe: 53°2i'N. o°i5'E. (Lincoln) addition, there were seven recoveries of birds ringed in south-west Norway ogaland and Sogn og Fjordane) and one from Denmark (Kattegat). Herring Gull (Larus argentaius) pull. 1.6.59 4178 X 0.2.63 V. pull. 24.7.61 ’072 + 12.2.62 pull. 3.8.58 .528 + 25.6.60 Great Ainov Island: 69°5o'N. 3i°35'E. (Murmansk) U.S.S.R. South Ockendon: 5i°32'N. o°i8'E. (Essex) Mokster: 6o°o4'N. 5°o2'E. (Hordaland) Norway Seaton Sluice: 5 5°o5'N. i°29'W. (Northumberland) Mikladali: 62°2i'N. 6°46'W., Faeroe Islands Preston: 53°46'N. 2°43'W. (Lancashire) Common Gull ( "Larus canus) ie pattern of recoveries was much the same as in previous years: a total of 57 rolved birds from Finland (15), Estonian S.S.R. (eight), Sweden (twelve), >rway (ten), Denmark (seven) and Germany (six). The oldest reported, Slav. <>7j2, was 9 J years of age (22.6.52 to 27.1.62, ringed as pullus). BRITISH BIRDS Little Gull (Icarus minulus ) M. juv. 24.6.63 Engure Lake: J7°I7,N. 23°07'E., Latvian S.S.R. P64402 x 0.7.63 West Wittering: 5o°42'N. o°54'W. (Sussex) Black-headed Gull ( Larus ridibundus ) A total of 220 recoveries included birds from Finland (64), the Soviet Baltic St is (39), Sweden (24), Norway (17), Denmark (29), Germany (14), Poland (ni)[ Czechoslovakia (five), the Netherlands (nine), Belgium (nine) and Iceland (o). The last is given in full, as is one interesting longevity record of 14-J- years. Rk. 613630 pull. X 20.6.62 6.2.63 Skipalon: 65°47'N. i8°i2'W., Iceland Cushendun: 5 5°07'N. 6°o3'W. (Antrim) Stav. J196) pull. X 19.7.48 7.11.62 Klepp: 58°45'N. 5°33'E. (Rogaland) Norway South Shields: 5 5°oo'N. i°3o'W. (Durham) Kittiwake ( Rissa tridactjld) M. E611712 pull. + t. 3.7.60 21.4.61 Kharlov Island: 68°49'N. 37°2o'E. (Murmansk) U. S.S.R. Blyth: 55°o8'N. i°3o'W. (Northumberland) Stav. 632498 pull. X 13.7.60 18.3.62 Heroy: 62°25'N. 5°38'E. (Sunnmore) Norway Birchington: 5i°23/N. i°i9'E. (Kent) c. 545679 pull. V 26.6.62 7.7.63 Hirsholmene: 57°29'N. io°38,E., Kattegat, Denmark Dungeness: 50°5 5'N. o°59,E. (Kent) c. 584261 pull. X 20.6.56 6.5.60 Hirsholmene, Denmark Easington: 53°39/N. o°o7'E. fk'ork) c. 587040 pull. 0 25.6.59 10.9.59 Hirsholmene, Denmark war Montrose: 56°42/N. 2°28rW. (Angus) Razorbill (A lea torda ) M. Ej99i]i pull. X 20.7.60 28.3.63 Kandalaksha: 67°02'N. 32°35'E. (Murmansk) U. S.S.R. North Berwick: 56°o3'N. 2°42'W. (East Lothian) Guillemot (JJria aalge) Slav. 417017 pull. V V 11.7.60 11.5.62 13.5.62 Heroy: 62°25'N. 5°38'E. (Sunnmore) Norway Buchan Ness: 57°3o'N. i°5o'W. (Aberdeen) Girdleness: 57°i2'N. 2°05'W. (Aberdeen) H. 337818 pull. x (oil) 1.7.61 20.10.63 Heligoland: 54°ii'N. 7°55'E., Germany Flamborough: 54°o7'N. o°05'W. (York) H. 9019914 pull. X 7.7.62 15.1.63 Heligoland, Germany Scolt Head: 5 2°59'N. o°4i'E. (Norfolk) H. 3019938 pull. x (oil) 7.7.62 17.2.63 Heligoland, Germany Brixham: 5o°23'N. 3°3o'W. (Devon) Short-eared Owl (Asio flammeus) Hki. H94J99 pull. X 21.6.61 9.6.62 near Tjock: 62°i9'N. 2i°35'E. (Vaasa) Finland Loch Watcnan: 58°2i'N. 3°ii'W. (Caithness) FOREIGN-RINGED RECOVERIES Skylark ( Alauda arvensis) *JJ4 pull. X 12.6.62 2.1.63 Moorslede: 5o°53'N. 3°o4'E. (West Flanders) Belgium Fitield : 3i°3o'N. oV'W. (Berkshire) Swallow ( Hirnndo rustica ) 245 ad. c? X 14.4.63 22.7.63 Figuig: 32°io'N. i°I5'W., Morocco Hursley: 5i°o2'N. i°24'W. (Hampshire) 444 ad.? X 14.4.63 16.7.63 Figuig, Morocco Pooley Bridge: 54°37'N. 2049'W. (Westmorland) *54 ad.? X 10.5.63 29.5.63 St. Clement: 49°io'N. 2°05'W. (Jersey) Channel Islands Carrick-on-Shannon: 53°56'N. 8°o8'\V. (Leitrim) 6719 ad. X 14.5.62 c. 10.6.63 Brasschaat: 5i°i7'N. 4°3o'E. (Antwerpen) Belgium Brandsby: 54°o8'N. i°o6'W. (York) }44i6 ad. /?/ 14.5.63 r. 20.5.63 Woumen: 5o°59'N. 2°52'E. (West Flanders) Belgium Swardeston: 52°34'N. i°i6'E. (Norfolk) 7177 ad. V 11.5.63 1.6.63 Woumen, Belgium Tattershall: 53°o6'N. o°i2'W. (Lincoln) 1 192 ad. X 20.5.63 1.9.63 East Vlieland: 53°i8'N. 5°o4'E., Frisian Isles, Netherlands near Mcxborough: 53°29'N. i°i6'W. (York) House Martin (Delichon urbica ) '4° 91 f-g. X 13.5.62 20.6.63 Wiesbaden: 50°05'N. 8°i5'E. (Hessen) Germany Hilborough: 52°34'N. o°4i'E. (Norfolk) Sand Martin (Rip aria riparia ) ‘54 ad. V V V 5.4.63 7.6.63 28.6.63 12.6.64 Figuig: 32°io'N. i°i5,W., Morocco Sevenoaks: 5i°i6'N. o°i2'E. (Kent) Sevenoaks Sevenoaks 90 ad. V 1.5.63 10.8.63 Figuig, Morocco Dunwich: 52°i7'N. i°4o'E. (Suffolk) '•37 f-g- V 7.8.62 19.8.63 La Chapel le sur Erdre: 47°i8'N. i°32'W. (Loire Atlantique) France Ashford: 5i°26'N. o°27'W. (Middlesex) '10 juv. V 22.8.62 29.6.63 near Palaiseau: 48°44'N. 2°ii'E. (Seine et Oise) France near Kirkby Lonsdale: 54°M'N. 2°36'W. (Westmorland) 96 ad. V 7.5.62 27.8.63 St. Ouen: 49°i3'N. 2°i3'W. (Jersey) Channel Islands Chichester: 50°49'N. o°46'W. (Sussex) S952 ad. V 11.5.63 5.6.63 Woumen: 50°59'N. 2°52'E. (West Flanders) Belgium Wrotham: 5i°i9'N. o°i9'E. (Kent) 349 ad. V V V 11.5.63 29.5.63 25.6.64 27.7.64 Hoophuizen: 52°22'N. 5°42/E. (Gelderland) Netherlands St. Ives: 52°i9'N. o°o4'W. (Huntingdon) St. Ives St. Ives e that Paris 2 5 o 1 5 4 and Leiden R 5 5 849 were each recaptured at the same breeding >ny in both 1963 and 1964. 593 BRITISH BIRDS Fieldfare ( T Urdus pilaris) Hki. Ai 79280 pull. X 6.6.62 0.1.63 near Oulujoki: 64°57'N. 25°38'E. (Oulu) Finland near Rathdrum: 52°56'N. 6°i4'W. (Wicklow) St. JOHJ98 juv. X 30.6.62 9.2.63 Bergsjo: 6i°59'N. i7°io'E. (Halsingland) Sweden Pemberton: 5 3°3 2'N. 2°4i'W. (Lancashire) St. Orn. 707941 pull. xA 26.5.60 24.3.63 Ed: 58°55'N. ii°55'E. (Dalsland) Sweden Gladhouse Reservoir: 5 5°46'N. 3°o8'W. (Midlothian) Slav. 741272 pull. X 19.6.56 15.3.62 Sokndal: 58°i9'N. 6°i7'E. (Rogaland) Norway Burnley: 5 3°47'N. 2°i7'W. (Lancashire) Slav. 74^9} pull. X 29.5.58 17.2.62 Fardal: 58°26'N. 6°oo'E. (Rogaland) Norway Doncaster: 5 3°38'N. o°58'W. (York) Slav. 772649 pull. X 21.5.61 5.1.62 Time: 58°4i'N. 5°43'E. (Rogaland) Norway Herne Bay: 5i°2o'N. i°o8'E. (Kent) H. 7391419 ad. S X 20.2.62 26.1.63 Heligoland: 54°ii'N. 7°55'E., Germany Hawick: 55°25'N. 2°46'W. (Roxburgh) Song Thrush (' Tardus philomelos ) Stav. 831681 pull. X 28.5.55 7.1.63 Sandar: 59°o9'N. io°i4'E. (Vestfold) Norway Selsey: 5o°44'N. o°48'W. (Sussex) H. 7392079 f-g- x (cat) 15.6.62 17.1.63 Heligoland: 54°ii'N. 7°5 5'E., Germany Desford: 52°37'N. i°i7'W. (Leicester) In addition, eleven Belgian-ringed birds were found in the British Isles durindw cold weather of January 1963 ; seven of these had been ringed during the bree i season (four as pulli), three in autumn and one in mid-winter. Redwing ( Turdus iliacus ) Hki. A124746 pull. X 1.6.60 29.1.63 Stromfors: 6o°32'N. 26°28'E. (Uusimaa) Finland Cape Clear Island: 5i026'N. 903o'W. (Cork) Hki. A156372 pull, x (cat) 3 1.5.62 12.1.63 Leppavirta: 62°29'N. 27°49,E. (Kuopio) Finland Southgate: 5i°4o'N. o°oo' (Middlesex) Hki. A158591 pull. X 4.6.62 22.1.63 Heinola: 6i°io'N. 26°i5'E. (Mikkeli) Finland Mawnan Smith: 5o°o7'N. 5°o7'W. (Cornwall) Hki. A164698 pull. X 13.6.62 13.1.63 Ylojarvi: 6i°32'N. 23°4o'E. (Hame) Finland Wembury: 5o°i9/N. 4°o4'W. (Devon) Hki. A194694 pull. X 3.6.62 10.1.63 Alavus: 62°35'N. 23°35'E. (\raasa) Finland Middlesbrough: 54°35'N. i0i4'W. (York) St. 4002361 pull. X 20.5.61 20.4.63 Kumla: 59°5i'N. i6°4o'E. (Narke) Sweden Cockington: 5o°27'N. 3°3i'W. (Devon) Stav. 750983 pull. X 3I-5-58 (4.1.62) Sola: 5 8°5 5'N. 5°4i'E. (Rogaland) Norway Tralee: 52°i7'N. 9°42'W. (Kerr)') Rk. 713382 pull. X 26.5.62 0.1.63 Akureyri: 65°4i'N. i8°05/W., Iceland Bantry: 5i°4i'N. 9°27'W. (Cork) Rk. 818300 pull. X 1.6.62 9.1.63 Akureyri, Iceland Portgower: 58°o6'N. 3°4i'W. (Sutherland) Rk. 817124 V adult (breeding) X 17.9.61 12.5.62 17.2.63 Reykjavik: 64°o8'N. 2i°56'W., Iceland Reykjavik Upper Ballinderry: 54°32'N. 6°i3'W. (Antrim) 594 FOREIGN-RINGED RECOVERIES juv. 26.7.61 Myvatn: 65°36'N. i7°oo'W., Iceland jjo x 0.2.63 Tuam: 5 3°3i'N. 8°5i'W. (Galway) e arctic weather of January-February 1963 caused heavy mortality among ashes in general and Redwings in particular; 30 recoveries were reported in all l for the first time there are too many to quote in full. Those above had all :n ringed on their known breeding grounds. In addition, there were recoveries birds ringed outside the breeding season in Iceland (eight), Finland (two), omark (two), Belgium (five), Germany (one) and Switzerland (one). The last, en below, was the first Swiss-ringed passerine to be recovered in this country. f-g. 26.3.60 Ascona: 46°09'N. 8°47'E. (Ticino) Switzerland 341 V (17.1.63) Kingsbridge: 50T7TT 3°46'W. (Devon) Blackbird ( Turdns merula) • pull. 23.6.60 Kaarina: 6on24'N. 22°i7'E. (Turku ja Pori) Finland 1620 X c. 10.1.62 Huntly: 57°3o'N. 2°44'W. (Aberdeen) ad. 1.9.62 Stromfors: 6o°32'N. 26°28'E. (Uusimaa) Finland X 4.2.63 Plucklcy: 5i°n/N. o°46'E. (Kent) juv. 8.10.62 Valkcakoski: 6i°i7'N. 24°o3'E. (Hamc) Finland Gimingham: 52°5 3'N. i°25'E. (Norfolk) f 90JI X 27.1.63 pull. 12.6.61 Helsinki: 6o°o9'N. 25°o3'E., Finland 7686 X 16.12.61 Letchworth: 5i°58/N. o°io'W. (Hertford) ad. 16.3.61 Helsinki, Finland X 12.2.62 Stoke-on-Trent: 5 3°oo'N. 2°io'W. (Stafford) ad. 29.7.61 Barnarp: 57°43'N. i4°io/E. (Smaland) Sw-eden 217 X 18.2.63 Cindertord: 5i°49'N. 2°3i'W. (Gloucester) , pull. 1.6.58 PIolc: 58°54'N. 5°5 5'E. (Rogaland) Norway 166 + 15.2.62 Scariff: 5 2°54'N. S^o'W. (Clare) pull. 2.6.62 Gjemnes: 62°56'N. 7°43'E. (More og Romsdal) Norway '[ 98 X 5.12.62 Belmullet : 54°i4'N. 9°59'W. (Mayo) pull. 12.7.61 Bakkum: 5 2°34'N. 4°4o'E. (Noord Holland) Netherlands I9S} X 16.3.63 Warkworth: 5 5°2i'N. i°36'W. (Northumberland) ier recoveries concerned birds ringed on passage or in winter in Sweden (0 :way (two), Denmark (four), Germany (two) and Belgium (one). Robin ( Erithacus rubecula) . ad. 27.9.62 Wapnica: 5 3°52'N. i4°28'E. (Szczecin) Poland 3942 X 1.3.63 Ringmer: 50°54'N. o°04'E. (Sussex) Dunnock (Prunella r nodularis ) ad. 6. n. 61 Armentieres: 50°4i'N. 2°53'E. (Nord) France 3 X 10.1.63 Port St. Mary: 54°o4'N. 4°44'W., Isle of Man Rock Pipit ( Anthus spinoletta) 77. (? age) (? date) Falsterbo: 55°23'N. i2°5o'E. (Malmohus) Sw-eden Barnstaple: 5i°o5'N. 4°o3'W. (Devon) 10 X 13.1.63 f-g. 29.12.61 Ushant: 48°28'N. 5°05'W. (Finistcrc) France Start Point: 50ci3'N. 3°38'W. (Devon) 91 X 4.11.63 595 BRITISH BIRDS Jer. juv. 3.9.61 K5791 V 18.7.63 Hki. f-g- 1 11. 10.63 A211411 X 6.12.63 P. fig- 18. 1.60 CE6867 V 22.1.63 This was the first French-r Yellow Wagtail (Motacilla flava flavissima ) St. Ouen: 49°i3'N. 2°i3'W. (Jersey) Channel Islands Christchurch Harbour: 50°44'N. i°44'W. (Hampshire) Wax wing (Bombjcilla gar r ulus) near Oulujoki: 65°oo'N. 25°32'E. (Ou near Otley: 53°59'N. i°42'W. (York) Starling ( Sturms vulgaris) near Lannoy: 50°4o'N. 3°i3'E. (Nord) Franc Colchester: 5i°52'N. o°52'E. (Essex) A t of 124 others with the usual origins of the Soviet Union, Fenno-Scandia andic Baltic and North Sea countries were reported. Very few are now being ringejr Sweden and Germany and this is of course reflected in the pattern. The follovug record is included for its longevity value (though the body had decompoa feathers were still attached to the remains) : L. D4694 j pull. xA 20.5.44 NovjDec 56 Hekendorp: 52°oi'N. 4°5o'E. (Zuid Holland) Netherland Galleywood: 5i°43'N. o°28'E. (Essex) Greenfinch {Chloris chloris) P. ad. $ 20.2.62 Douvrin: 50°3o'N. 2°45'E. (Pas de Calais) France 182606 v 3.3.63 Sanderstead: 5 i°2i,N. o°04'W. (Surrey) Goldfinch ( Carduelis carduelis ) P. fig- 1.5.63 226282 X 23.5.63 P. fig- 29.4.63 *39 14J x {car) 18.7.63 P. ad. d 18.10.62 JU8706 X 2.6.63 Ar. ad. $ 21.4.63 A33246 V 6.7.63 near Roubaix: 50°42'N. 3°io'E. (Nord) France near Stalham: 52°47'N. i°33'E. (Norfolk) Carolles: 48°45'N. i°34'W. (Manche) France Holbeton: 50°2o'N. 3°56'W. (Devon) Linnet ( Carduelis cannabina) Aincile: 43°09'N. i°i2'W. (Basses Pyrenees) France Ingoldmells: 53°i2'N. o°2i'E. (Lincoln) Renteria: 43°2o'N. i°53'W. (Guipuzcoa) Spain Gosforth: 55°02'N. i°37'W. (Northumberland) Chaffinch ( Fringilla coelebs ) All 26 recoveries notified involved birds from the North Sea countries (Dennifc to north France) and all had been ringed in autumn or winter. Brambling ( Fringilla montifringilla ) f.g. 27.2.60 Uccle: 50°48'N. 4°i9'E. (Bruxelles) Belgium v (1 3.3.63) Boston: 52°58'N. o°oi'W. (Lincoln) 596 B. 28B2882 Short index of English names of birds This simplified index is confined to the numbers of the first pages of papers, notes and letters on the species concerned, together with significant references in con- tributions of a more general nature. Casual references to other species within the text arc not included, however, nor are birds mentioned in reviews or in the ‘Recent reports’ and ‘News and comment’. Such lists as the ‘Report on rare birds in Great Britain in 1962’ are completely indexed, but the Ringing Supplement has again had to be left to the comprehensive index Albatross, Black-browed, 179 Auks, 436 Avocet, 3, plate 50a Bee-eater, 9, 272 Bittern, 391, 412 , American, 278 , Little, 264 Blackbird, 102, 114, 175, 204, 227, 236, 238, 302, 393, 417, 424, 436 Blackcap, 3, 1x2 Bluethroat, 9 Brambling, 228, 236, 239, 393, 427 Bullfinch, 393 Bunting, Black-headed, 277 ■ , Cirl, 229, 302 , Corn, 229, 393 , Little, 10, 278 , Ortolan, 10 , Red-headed, 10 , Reed, 228, 393, 427 , Rustic, 278 , Snow, 428 , Yellow-breasted, 10, 278 Bustard, Great, 181, 267 , Houbara, 247 Buzzard, 2, 317, 391, 414, plate 27a Chaffinch, 112, 176, 177, 184, 228, 236, 238, 302, 331, 393, 471, plate 23b Chiffchaff, 3 Chough, 393, 421 Coot, 32, 224, 234, 237, 391, 415 Cormorant, 317, 391 Crane, 8, 266, 502 Crossbill, 6, 228, 427, 477 , Parrot, 118, 477, 518, plates 13-16 , Two-barred, 277 Crow, Carrion, 176, 328, 392, 421 , Hooded, 182, 421 Curlew, 33, 225, 235, 392, 418, 467, plate 70b , Stone, 8 Dipper, 435, plates 48 and 72b Diver, Black-throated, 391, plates 5 b and 47b , Great Northern, 391 , Red-throated, 1, 228, 234, 237, 391 , White-billed, 263 Dotterel, plate 7b Dove, Collared, 2, 170, plates 18-21 , Rock, 302, 392 , Stock, 226, 392, 419 , Turtle, 2 Dowitcher, Long-billed, 8, 267, 279 , Short-billed, 8, 267, 279 Duck, Black, 7 , Ferruginous, 7, 265, 278 — — , Ring-necked, 7, 265 , Tufted, 3, 391, 413 Dunlin, 235, 392, 419 Dunnock, 112, 176, 236, 238, 302, 393, 4i7. 425. 470 Eagle, Golden, 89, 341, 414, plates 1-4 and 51 — — , Imperial, 317, plates 62-68 , White-tailed, 438 Egret, Cattle, 264 , Little, 7, 264 Eider, 1, 391 Falcon, Red-footed, 266 Fieldfare, 227, 393, 423, plate 60b Firecrest, 9 Flycatcher, Collared, 275 , Pied, 5, plate 74 — — , Red-breasted, 9 , Spotted, 1 1 2, plate 75a Fulmar, 31, 76, 391 597 BRITISH Gannet, i, 77, 301, 391, plate 45b Godwit, Bar-tailed, 229, 392 , Black-tailed, 3, 189, 225, 229, 235, 237, 392, plates 24b, 49 and 70a Goldcrest, 227, 236, 238, 425 Goldeneye, 3, 224, 391, 413 Goldfinch, 176, 228, 236, 239, 302, 393, 426, plate 22b Goosander, 224, 234, 237, 391, 413 Goose, Bean, 391 , Brent, 3, 391, 413 , Canada, 8, 211, 391, 413, plate 59b , Grey Lag, 317, 391 , Lesser White-fronted, 266, 279 , Pink-footed, 391 , Red-breasted, 266 , Snow, 7 , White-fronted, 224, 391, 413 Goshawk, plate 46 Grebe, Black-necked, 391 , Great Crested, 223, 234, 237, 391, 412 , Little, 234, 237, 391, 412, plate 72b , Red-necked, 391, plate 73a , Slavonian, 391, plate 47a Greenfinch, 176, 227, 236, 239, 393, 417, 426 Greenshank, 392, plate 6b Grosbeak, Rose-breasted, 10 , Scarlet, 277 Grouse, Red, 137, 391, 414, plate 17 Guillemot, 392 Gull, Black-headed, 76, 177, 235, 319, 392, 419 , Bonaparte’s, 270 , Common, 76, 177, 226, 235, 319, 392 , Glaucous, 392 , Great Black-backed, 7, 75, 318, 392 .Herring, 80, 233, 318, 324, 392, plate 41 , Lesser Black-backed, 318, 326, 516, plate 41 , Little, 5 , Mediterranean Black-headed, 250, 279, plates 39-40 , Sabine’s, 8 , Slender-billed, 81, 242, 270, plates 34-38 Harrier, Hen, 2 , Marsh, 8 BIRDS Hawfinch, 393, 426 Heron, 112, 223, 391, 412 , Night, 7, 264 , Purple, 263 Jackdaw, 176, 392, 421 Jay, 229, 421 Junco, Slate-coloured, 177 Kestrel, 391, 414, 514, plate 27b Kingfisher, 392, 420 Kite, Black, 317 Kittiwake, 76, 392 Knot, 392 Lapwing, 224, 233, 237, 318, 323, 391, 415, plate 24a Lark, Crested, 327 , Short-toed, 9, 272 Linnet, 6, 82, 228, 302, 393, 427 Magpie, 392, 421, plate 72a Mallard, 112, 133, 202, 234, 237, 317, 391, 412 Martin, House, 34, 82, 203 , Sand, 3, 468 Merganser, Red-breasted, 181, 391 Merlin, 414 Moorhen, 112, 123, 228, 234, 364, 391,?. 4H Nightingale, 9 Nutcracker, 272 Nuthatch, 422, plate 69 Oriole, Baltimore, 277 , Golden, 9 Osprey, 8 Ouzel, Ring, 128, plate 52a Owl, Barn, 226, 235, 237, 392, 420 , Little, 392, 420 , Long-eared, 420 , Short-eared, 392, 420, 468, plate !' 52b , Snowy, 271, 278 , Tawny, 202, 203, 229, 392, 420, plate 25 Oystercatcher, 64, 79, 189, 228, 235, J 237. 3 9 1 > 4H. Platcs 9-12 Partridge, 112, 176, 224, 391, 414 , Red-legged, 176 Peregrine, 1 12, 466 Petrel, Leach’s, 309 SHORT INDEX Petrel, Storm, 309, plate 26b Pheasant, 176, 228, 234, 237 Phalarope, Red-necked, 2 , Wilson’s, 8, 270 Pigeon, Domestic, 319 , Feral, 317 Pintail, 391 Pipit, Meadow, 112, 227, 302, 330, 393, 425 , Red-throated, 10, 276 • , Richard’s, 213, 216, 273 , Rock, 10, 302, 393 , Tawny, 10, 213, 216, 273 , Tree, 3 Plover, Golden, 223, 235, 237, 392, 418 , Grey, 228, 392 , Kentish, 8, plate 50b , Little Ringed, 191 , Ringed, 223, 392, 418 , Sociable, 267 , Spur-winged, 513 Pochard, 1, 234, 237, 391, 413 , Red-crested, 7 Ptarmigan, plates 3 a and 28 Puffin, 392, plate 7a Quail, 3 Rail, Water, 228, 391, 414 Raven, 302, 392, 421 Razorbill, 392, plate 7a Redpoll, 427, plate 32b , Arctic, 277, 279 Redstart, 2, 112, 363 Redshank, 189, 223, 235, 237, 392, 419 ■ , Iceland, 232, 235, 237 , Spotted, 3, 225 Redwing, 227, 236, 238, 393, 417, 424, plates 60a and 61a Robin, 1 12, 173, 227, 229, 236, 238, 302, 393, 423, 469 Roller, 272 Rook, 177, 182, 226, 235, 238, 329, 360, 392, 421 Ruff, 3, 189 Sanderling, 392 Sandpiper, Baird’s, 8, 269 , Broad-billed, 270 , Buff-breasted, 8, 269 , Green, 229, 392 , Least, 124 , Marsh, 268 Sandpiper, Pectoral, 8 , Purple, 392 , Sharp-tailed, 269 , Solitary, 268, plate 44a ', Stilt, 123, 126, 270 , Terek, 269 , Western, 8 , White-rumped, 8, 269, plate 44b , Wood, 3 Scaup, 224, 391 Scoter, Common, 224, 237, 391 , Surf, 265 , Velvet, 224, 391 Serin, 279 Shag, 391 Shearwater, Balearic, 7 , Cory’s, 7, 200, 263 , Great, 391 , Manx, 4, 77, 1 1 2, 177, 466 , Sooty, 4, 76 Shelduck, 31, 78, 181, 224, 391, 413, plate 26a , Ruddy, 265 Shoveler, 234, 237, 391 Shrike, Great Grey, 227 , Lesser, 10 , Red-backed, 10, 469 , Woodchat, 10, 276, 279 Skua, Arctic, 3, 76 , Great, 4, 209, 392 , Long-tailed, 250, 434 , Pomarine, 77 Skylark, 226, 233, 237, 321, 392, 416, 420 Smew, 391 Snipe, 189, 225, 392, 418, plate 71 , Great, 268 , Jack, 223, 392 Sparrow, Fox, 10 , House, 82, 85, 133, 327, 393, 428, plate 31b Sparrow, Tree, 2, 229, 428 Spoonbill, 3 Starling, 173, 176, 229, 302, 321, 393, 417, 426, 469, plates 22a and 60a , Rose-coloured, 10, 276 Stilt, Black-winged, 270 Stint, Temminck’s, 8 Stonechat, 227, 302, 393, 424 Swallow, 3, 321 Swan, Bewick’s, 391, 414 , Mute, 391, 414, plate 45a , Whooper, 26, 391, 224, 414, plate 6a 599 BRITISH BIRDS Swift, 320, 324, 344, 356 -, Alpine, 271 Teal, 234, 237, 391, 412 , Blue-winged, 7 , Green-winged, 7, 264 Tern, Arctic, 76 , Black, 5, 76 , Common, 76 -, Gull-billed, 271 , Roseate, 2 , Whiskered, 9, 271 , White- winged Black, 9, 271 Thrush, Mistle, 6, 226, 236, 238, 393, 423 , Rock, 272 , Song, 102, 1 14, 176, 204, 226, 236, 238, 253, 327, 393, 417, 423, plates 58 and 61b , White’s, 183 Tit, Bearded, 176, 422 , Blue, 6, no, 175, 302, 392, 421 , Coal, 422, plate 31a , Great, no, 176, 229, 392, 421 , Long-tailed, 226, 422 — — , Marsh, 229, 422 , Willow, 422 Treecreeper, 229, 422, plate 29 Turnstone, 229, 250, 392 Twite, 393 Vulture, Griffon, 317 Wagtail, Grey, 10, 393, 426, 471, plate 32a , Pied, 176, 227, 302, 329, 393, 426 , White, 302 , Yellow, 2, 37, 302 Warbler, Aquatic, 9, 272 , Arctic, 9 , Barred, 9 , Bonelli’s, 9, 274, 279 , Booted, 282, plate 42 Warbler, Cetti’s, 357, 363, 366, 517, plates 54-37 , Dartford, 227, 425, plate 53a , Garden, 4 , Great Reed, 273 , Greenish, 9, 274 , Icterine, 9, 282, plates 42 and 43b , Marsh, 9 , Melodious, 9, 279, 282, plates 42 and 43a -, Olivaceous, 282, plate 42 , Olive-tree, 282, plate 42 , Pallas’s, 274, 508 , Reed, 3, 128, 233 , Rufous, 273 , Sedge, 1 77 , Subalpine, 9, 273 , Upcher’s, 282, plate 42 , Wood, 9, plate 53b , Yellow-browed, 9 Wheatear, plate 75b Whinchat, plate 30 Whitethroat, 176, 204 , Lesser, 5 Wigeon, 391, 413 , American, 265 Woodcock, 182, 223, 235, 237, 392, 4x8 Woodlark, 9 Woodpecker, Great Spotted, 6, 392, 420. 435, P^te 76 , Green, 226, 233, 237, 392, 416, 420 , Lesser Spotted, 392 Woodpigeon, in, 176, 226, 235, 237, 3t9, 392> 4i6, 4i9> 467, plate 23a Wren, 6, 112, 226, 235, 238, 302, 392, 416, 423 , St. Kilda, 49, plate 8 Wryneck, 5 Yellowhammer, 34, 229, 393, 427 Yellowlegs, Greater, 8 , Lesser, 8, 268 600 Bird observatories in Great Britain and Ireland iis list is arranged alphabetically and is designed to give (i) the name of the warden or director lere there is one; (ii) the address from which particulars may be obtained; and (iii) an indication accommodation charges and travel routes (charges are, of course, liable to alteration). Stamped )ly envelopes should be sent with applications for particulars. irdsey Bird and Field Observatory, Caernarvonshire. Warden: George Evans. Enquiries: rs. G. F. Walton, 5 1 Mount Road, St. Asaph, Flintshire. Accommodation: 1 is. per day (including ening meal); 8 gns. per week (full board) some weeks in June and July. Travel: train to vllhcli; boat from Aberdaron (10s. return, plus island landing charge of 15s.). •adwell Bird Observatory, Essex. Enquiries: A. B. Old, Bata Hotel, East Tilbury, Essex. tcommodation: 3s. 6d. to 5s. per night. Travel : train to Southminster; bus to Bradwell-on-Sea. ipe Clear Bird Observatory, Co. Cork. Enquiries: R. D. Jackson, 28 Bartholomew Road, iwley, Oxford. Accommodation: 5 s. per night or 30s. per week ; accommodation for parties only second house £q 10s. per week. Travel: bus or hired car Cork to Baltimore; boat from Balti- are four days a week (8s. return). ilf of Man Bird Observatory, Isle of Man. Enquiries: Secretary, The Manx Museum and uional Trust, Douglas, Isle of Man. Accommodation: 4s. per night. Travel: boat {£2 17s. 2nd iss return from Liverpool, and also summer sailings from other ports) or plane to Isle of Man; s to Port St. Mary ; small boat to Calf of Man. ey Bird Observatory, Norfolk. Now closed. jpeland Bird Observatory, Co. Down. Enquiries: C. W. Bailey, 17 Hillside Drive, Belfast 9, jrthern Ireland. Accommodation: 2s. 6d. per day (maintenance charge to non-members). ■avel: bus and boat from Belfast (12s. return). ingeness Bird Observatory, Kent. Warden: R. E. Scott. Enquiries: H. A. R. Cawkell, Canute Road, Hastings, Sussex. Accommodation: 5 s. per night. Travel: train to Lydd-on-Sea. lir Isle Bird Observatory, Shetland. Warden: Roy H. Dennis, Fair Isle Bird Observatory, by :r\vick, Shetland. Enquiries: to warden. Accommodation: 18s. to 25s. per day (full board). avel: train to Aberdeen; steamer from Aberdeen to Lerwick or B.E.A. plane from Aberdeen to mburgh; boat from Sumburgh to Fair Isle (21s. 6d. return). braltar Point Bird Observatory and Field Research Station, Lincolnshire. Enquiries: E. Smith, Pyewipes, Willoughby, Alford, Lincolnshire (bookings) and R. B. Wilkinson, 3 :ean Avenue, Skegness, Lincolnshire (research). Accommodation: 7s. 6d. per night. Travel: tin to Skegness. eat Saltee Bird Observatory, Co. Wexford. Now closed. e of May Bird Observatory and Field Station, Fife. Enquiries: A. Macdonald, Hadley Court, legate, Haddington, East Lothian (bookings) or Miss N. J. Gordon, 12 Hope Terrace, Edin- rgh 9 (general). Accommodation: 5s. per night. Travel: boat from Pittenweem (15s. return); 1 particulars on application. tsey Bird Observatory, Channel Islands. Enquiries: A. Le Sueur, Les Hativieaux, Yal de la ire, St. Ouen, Jersey. Travel: boat from Weymouth or by air. indy Field Station and Observatory, off North Devon coast. Warden: Jonathan Sparrow. '(paries: J. Dyke, 8 Rock Avenue, Barnstaple, Devon. Accommodation: 5s. per night. Travel: in to Bideford; M.V. Lundy Gannet from Bideford Quay (50s. return) or Campbell Steamer from tacombe Pier (45s. return). ew Grounds, Slimbridge, Gloucestershire (Headquarters of the Wildfowl Trust). Hon. rector: Peter Scott. Assistant Director {Research): Dr. G. V. T. Matthews. Enquiries: Bookings tretary, Wildfowl Trust, Slimbridge, Gloucestershire. rtland Bird Observatory and Field Centre, Dorset. Warden: Frank Clafton, Portland Bird wervatory. Old Lower Light, Portland, Dorset. Enquiries: to warden. Accommodation: 10s. f night including evening meal, 6s. per night when meal not supplied. 1 ravel: train to VC cy- >uth; bus to Portland Bill. Agnes Bird Observatory, Isles of Scilly. Enquiries: J. L. F. Parslow, c/o The Edward Grey •titute, Botanic Garden, Oxford. Accommodation: 4s. 6d. per night. Travel: R.M.Y. Scillonian >rn Penzance to St. Mary’s {£2 return), or by air from London (Gatwick), Plymouth or Penzance St. Mary’s; launch from St. Mary’s to St. Agnes (4s.). ndwich Bay Bird Observatory, Kent. Address: No. 1 Bungalow, Old Downs Farm, Sand- ch Bay, Kent. Enquiries : J. N. Hollyer, 1 Woodland Way, Woodnesborough, Sandwich, Kent, f ommodation : 5s. per night. Travel: train to Sandwich; i£ miles to observatory, okholm Bird Observatory, Pembrokeshire. II arden: M. P. Harris. Enquiries: The \\ arden, le Fort Field Centre, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire. Accommodation: £8 10s. per week (full ard) ; amateurs £8. Travel: train to Haverfordwest; car and boat to island (20s. return), urn Bird Observatory, Yorkshire. Warden: Barry R. Spence, Spurn Observatory, Kilnsae, • Patrington, Hull, East Yorkshire. Enquiries: to warden. Accommodation (tor 17): 5s. per ,'ht (4s. to Y.N.U. members). Travel: train to Hull or Patrington; bus or taxi to Kilnsea. (continued ottrlaf) British Birds AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY JOURNAL Editors Stanley Cramp, I. J. Ferguson-Lees, P. A. D. Hollom, E. M. Nicholso Photographic Editor Eric Hosking Editorial Address 30 St. Leonard’s Avenue, Bedford ‘News and Comment’ Raymond Cordero Rohan Lodge, Wadhurst Park Wadhurst, Sussex ‘The Country Sings’ REVIEWED ON PAGE 42 BY JEFFERY BOSWALL An attractive and original approach to the songs of sixteen British birds. A 7-inch E.P. record 45 r.p.m. or 3-inch pre-recorded tape 1\ i.p.s. or 3f i.p.s. Beauti- fully presented in colour with details of time and place of recordings 12s. ( plus packing and postage Is.) Lawrence C. Shove Copplestone, Dunsford Exeter Rarities Committee D. D. Harber 59 Eridge Road Eastbourne, Sussex Witherby’s Sound Guide to British Birds WITHERBY’S SOUND GUIDE TO BRITISH BIRDS by Myles North and Eric Simms is at present out of print. A new edition, with 45 r.p.m. records : (instead of 78 r.p.m.), is now in preparation and will be published next year. Details will be available early in 1965 from the publishers, H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Watling Street, London, E.C.4. Annual subscription £2 6s. (including postage and despatch) payable to H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Watling Street, London, E.C.4 British Birds Vol. 57 1964 Special Supplement A discography of Palearctic bird sound recordings By Jeffery Boswall B.B.C. Natural History Unit ‘All biological science has begun its career with collecting. . . . It is not only legitimate, but absolutely necessary, that the study of animals or plants should begin with simply and modestly collecting knowledge of “all there is” before proceeding to the more ambitious task of causal analysis’ (Lorenz 1951) CONTENTS [ Introduction 2 Scope 3 Notes on the discography • • • • 4 Notes on the cross-index of species 7 The discography: part A .... 9 The discography: part B .. .. 45 The discography: part C .. .. 45 Index of ‘authors’ 46 Cross-index of species 47 Species list of unpublished record- ings 53 Acknowledgements 57 References 5 8 Appendix of relevant recordings made outside the Palearctic . . 60 DEDICATION On the occasion of his 83rd birthday this paper is dedicated to Ludwig Koch, M.B.E., who in 1889 made the first bird sound recording known still to exist, who during the period 19 06-09 , made the earliest attempts to build up a collection of wild bi/ds voices, and who in about 1910 published the very first gramophone record of bird songs from nature BRITISH BIRDS INTRODUCTION Data about birds may be collected in a number of ways : by observation and note-taking, by sketching, by egg and skin collecting, by still and cine photography, and— more recent than any of these — by making recordings of the sounds that they produce. The earliest recording of a bird’s voice known still to exist is that of the song of a caged Common or White-rumped Shama Copyschus malabaricus made on a wax cylinder by Ludwig Koch at Frankfurt in Germany in 1889 (Koch 195 5). It is preserved in the B.B.C.’s Sound Archive. The first reference in the ornithological literature to the reproduction of a bird sound is in the account of the 1 6th Congress of the American Ornithologists’ Union in 1898, which mentions the playing of a ‘graphophone demonstration of a Brown Thrasher’s (Toxostoma rufum) song’ by Sylvester D. Judd (Anon 1899). The writer of the report goes on to describe the demonstration as a new and unique feature of the Congress and adds ‘Dr. Judd’s experiments were made with a cage bird, but the results obtained were enough to show that great possi- bilities may be looked for in the future’. These possibilities have been realised to the remarkable extent that more than a quarter of the known 8,600 species of living birds have been recorded on wax cylinder, wire, sound film, disc or tape during the three- quarters of a century since Koch’s pioneering act in 1889. The first recordings ever made of wild birds were, so far as I can ascertain, those of Kearton (1938), who in 1900 captured on a wax cylinder in Surrey, England, a few notes of a Song Thrush and the song of a Nightingale*. The first bird recordings from nature in the Nearctic were almost certainly those of Song Sparrow Melospisp melodia, Rose-breasted Grosbeak Phene ficus ludovicianus and blouse Wren Troglodytes aedon made on optical sound film (with synchronised action film) early on 18th May 1929 in Ithaca, New York (Kellogg 1962). Both O. Heinroth (Heinroth and Koch 1935, p. 13) and E. A. Armstrong (Anon 1949) attended a recital of bird songs off gramophone records in London in 1909, but unfortunately no details can be traced (Kellogg 1938). The earliest Neotropical recordings of birds were probably those made on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, during World War II (Wyring, Allen and Kellogg 1945, Kellogg and Allen 1950, Asch et al. 1952). The first Ethiopian region recordings, so far as I can ascertain, were of Superb Glossy Starling Spreo superbus and Cape Turtle Dove Streptopelia capicola by Ludwig Koch in Tanganyika in 1929 (Heck and Koch 1933, Anon 1961). I believe the Lyre Bird Menura superba was the first ^Scientific names of all Palcarctic species mentioned in the text are given in the CROSS-INDEX OF SPECIES Oil pages 47-5 } . 2 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS Australasian species to sing into a microphone (Littlejohns 1931, 1933); this was on 27th June 1931 (Brand 1938). In the Oriental region bird sound recording is still fragmentary, but the first recording was probably that of a hornbill ( Tockus sp. ?) by the Coolidge-Carpenter expedition of 1937 (Carpenter 1940). The Second Antarctic Byrd Expedition brought back what were doubtless the first bird sound reproductions from that continent. They were of penguins (Sphenis- cidae), recorded on aluminium discs at the Bay of Whales on 3rd December 1934 (Siple and Lindsay 1937, P. P. Kellogg in lit/.). As table 1 shows, approximately 2,392 species’ sounds have now been recorded and, of these, about 1,214 are available on commercially published gramophone records. The information in the table about discs is based on Boswall 1961a, 1962 and 1964a and that about un- published recordings mainly on personal communications from ornithologists and others in sixty-five different countries (see also Boswall 1961b, 1963a and 1964b). Table 1. Number of species in each zoogeographical region which have at least one call or song recorded Figures in italics are approximate Available Total on discs recorded Palearctic 360 472 Nea retie S43 600 Australasian 78 no Neotropical IJT 870 Ethiopian So )00 Oriental 2 10 Antarctic — }0 1,214 2,192 SCOPE The ideal scope for a paper on the availability of sound-recordings of Palearctic bird species would be to list all such recordings, made any- where in the world, of captive as well as wild individuals, published on gramophone records and held in the sound libraries of bodies or pri\ ate individuals. Such a task would, however, ha\e taken longer than the time I can devote to it and I have therefore had to restrict the scope of the paper. The considerations which governed me in deciding how it might most reasonably be kept within bounds tall under three main headings : . (a) The student of Palearctic bird sounds will be primarily interested in recordings of wild individuals of any of the 1,200 or so nesting 3 BRITISH BIRDS species within the region (plus any vagrants, such as the Nearctic Song Sparrow in Scotland). He may also wish to hear recordings of any Palearctic individuals outside the region while on migration or in winter quarters (for example, Swallows in South Africa). Thirdly, he may want to compare recordings of the descendants of introduced Palearctic stock in countries outside the region (for example, Skylarks on Vancouver Island, Canada, or Blackbirds in New Zealand). Lastly, in the case of the many species naturally common to the Pale- arctic and one or more other zoogeographical regions he may also want to make comparisons or to hear additional recordings for other reasons; in particular, he may need to know of all the recordings of any Hol- arctic species (for example. White-crowned Sparrows on either side of the Pacific or Wrens on either side of the Atlantic or Pacific). (b) Recordings of wild individuals are preferable for most studies, but one of a captive bird is often of more use than none at all and is therefore worth knowing about. (c) Recordings published on gramophone records are much more accessible than those held in sound libraries, and in any case quite a significant percentage of the total material recorded has been processed on commercial discs. Therefore, gramophone records are worth treating in greater detail than recordings of which probably only one or two copies exist. Applying these three general considerations, the scope of the paper, in practical terms, becomes (i) a detailed discography divided into three parts, part A listing gramophone records known to include recordings of wild or captive Palearctic species made within the region, part B listing records known to include recordings of wild Palearctic indivi- duals recorded outside the region on migration or in winter quarters, and part C listing records which include recordings made in countries outside the region of the descendants of introduced Palearctic stock ; (ii) a systematic species cross-index to the discography; (iii) a systematic list of unpublished recordings of species additional to those in the cross-index to the discography; and (iv), as an appendix, a skeleton discography of all gramophone records known to present recordings made in any region outside the Palearctic of species common to one or more regions and the Palearctic. This then is the scope and plan of this paper. It is the first of six discographies, one for each geographical region, which will be pub- lished in various parts of the world. For a condensed global disco- graphy of commercially issued bird sound-recordings the reader should see Boswall 1961a, 1962 and 1964a. NOTES ON THE DISCOGRAPHY To qualify for inclusion in the discography a gramophone record needs 4 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS Table 2. Countries of issue of discs which include the voices of Palearctic species recorded within the region References in Wild Captive Total discography Belgium I — I 24 Britain 2 l6 3. 6, 8, 15, 18, 21, 22, 23, 25» 33» 4o» 47» 56> 59. 64. 69 Denmark 3 - 3 13, 20, 39 Finland I - I 29 France D 1 16 28, 30, 36, 37, 42, 43, 45, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 60, 68 Germany IO 8 18 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, II, 12, 14, 17, 19, 31, 32, 44, 61, 65, 66 Holland 3 - 3 55. 57. 67 Japan 2 - 2 26, 38 Sweden 5 - 5 16, 34, 41, 62, 63 Switzerland 2 - 2 27. 35 U.S.A. I - I 58 U.S.S.R. I - I 46 Totals 58 11 69 to have been issued commercially, to conform to standard technical specifications* and to reproduce sound by at least one Palearctic bird species either in captivity or in the wild state. So far as can be ascer- tained, sixty-nine discs (or sets of discs) which come within this definition were issued during the period from 1908 to early 1964. I have visited eight countries, including the Soviet Union, in search of discs and have corresponded with at least one ornithologist in each of thirty different Palearctic countries ; it is unlikely, therefore, that more than a few important discs have escaped my notice, except possibly in China, the only large country from which I have no information. Almost all the discs have been produced by companies in the coun- tries in which at least the majority of the recordings in each case were made. The only exceptions in the discography are 57 and 67 (British recordings published in Holland) and 58 (an American album which includes some Palearctic recordings). As stated, Palearctic species recorded in captivity within the region are included. Table 2 shows that eleven of the sixty-nine discs or sets refer entirely to captive birds, mainly Nightingales and Canaries. ♦The set of six discs prepared by Eric Simms in 1955 for the Royal National Institute for the Blind, under the title The Songs and Calls of British Birds, has had to be excluded because of its non-standard speed of 24 r.p.m. 5 BRITISH BIRDS The remaining fifty-eight are devoted almost entirely, so far as I can ascertain, to recordings of wild individuals ; the only exceptions I know of are specifically mentioned in the reviews. Table 2 also shows the countries of issue of the gramophone records. It is surprising that no gramophone records devoted to vocal or instrumental mimicry by humans of bird sounds have been marketed in Europe or Asia as they have been in North America (e.g. Miller about i960), South America (Coelho about i960) and Australia (Walker 1957). However, Tmito’, an Australian who mimicked bird sounds, included House Sparrow and Skylark on one disc of imitations (Phillips about 1925) and Blackbird and Canary on another (Phillips 1932). In the discography the discs are fisted chronologically by year of issue and not alphabetically by recordists’ surnames. The serial numbers and prefixes ‘B’ and ‘C’ are those used in the species cross- index. Whenever possible the ‘authorship’ of the disc is attributed to the person (usually referred to as the ‘recordist’) who actually made the recordings. In certain cases, however, this is not appropriate. One instance is where the work of several recordists is sometimes brought together and ‘arranged’ for the disc (for example, Zweeres selected recordings from five individual libraries for the Naardermeer discs 55). Another case is where the gramophone record is published as part of a book: the recordist’s name may then be included with that of the writer (e.g. Nicholson and Koch 15) or may not (e.g. Bondesen 39), depending on the strength of his role. In examples of the latter, the recordist’s name is usually given later, along with other details specific to the disc. The year of first issue is given in brackets. Often this can be ascertained only approximately since gramophone companies, unlike book publishers, seldom indicate the year of issue on their products. Details about the discs themselves include the number involved (usually only one, but up to sixty-four in the case of Lekander and Palmer 16), the diameter in inches and the number of revolutions per minute at which the record must be played. Up to about 195 5 all discs were 78 r.p.m. and were usually ten or twelve, but occasionally five or seven, inches in diameter. Since that year ‘long-playing’ records (usually known as L.P.s) seven, ten or twelve inches across have been issued; the seven-inch ones usually play at 45 r.p.m. and the others at 33.3 r.p.m. If the record is either single-sided or stereophonic then specific attention is drawn to this. Finally, the maker’s catalogue number and prefix or suffix is given, where such a number exists, and it is important to quote this in ordering a disc. To help those who wish to purchase any of the records likely still to be available, the address as well as the name of the publisher (or in certain instances an alternative 6 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS source) is given. British readers may like to know that Discurio Ltd., 9 Shepherd Street, London, W.i, and Rare Records Ltd., 5-7 Barton Square, St. Ann’s Square, Manchester 2, specialise in importing discs of this type. In the reviews themselves the number of species to be found on each disc or set is given and in almost every instance the names are listed in full, specific attention being drawn to those which are to be found only on that disc or set. In the vast majoritv of cases the recordings are of the most frequently produced sound of the species (e.g. the song of passerines, the colony sounds of auks or terns). In the comparatively few cases where more rarely used utterances (e.g. alarm call, notes of young, contact notes) are available, specific attention is usually called to the fact (see particularly Palmer 34). Similarly, examples of mimicry on the part of the bird are given a special mention. For uniformity and convenience, the two sides of each disc are called ‘A’ and ‘B' in the discography, although the originals may be labelled V and ‘2’ or even have no distinction at all. I have not timed the extracts, except in the case of Palmer, who gave a very generous average allowance of about two minutes to each of 238 species. My impression is, however, that most of the extracts on all the other discs fall between twenty and fifty seconds each. Nor have I ventured more than occasionally to give any indications of quality. To do so fairly would be very difficult, since the quality which can be attained varies with the equipment used (of which little knowledge is available), the circumstances at the time of the recording and the behaviour of the individual bird : a near-perfect recording of a Storm Petrel churring in its burrow can be made quite easily, whereas a com- parable one of the contact notes of migrating waders is probably im- possible. On the more important question of distortion, one would need to know all the species very well in the field and to have a partic- ularly retentive aural memory to be able to make a comparison of an\ value. However, as a general rule it is true that the later recordings tend to be of better quality than the earlier ones and it is parth for this reason that the discs are arranged chronologically and not alphabeti- cally. NOTES ON THE CROSS-INDEX OF SPECIES In all, as the systematic cross-index shows, the voices of 360 species (excluding the few mentioned in the appendix on pages 00-00) are available out of an approximate total of 1,300 on the Palearctic list. To hear at least one reproduction of at least one utterance of each ot these 360 birds it would be necessary to have only the following eighteen discs or sets: 16, 26, 31, 33, 34> 35> 3^> 37> 3^> 4L 4^> 4&> 54> 57> 5^> 69, Bi and C7. 7 BRITISH BIRDS As is evident from table 2 and the list of unpublished recordings, the ) vast majority of Palearctic recordings have been made in Europe. It is instructive, therefore, to compare the total of species known to nest regularly in Europe with the number from which at least one utterance has been recorded in Europe, published or unpublished : taking Europe as the area covered by the Field Guide (Peterson et al. 1954 and in press), the respective figures are 404 and 342. The remaining 60 species, of which no European recording is known to exist, are: Black-necked Grebe Podiceps nigricollis Pygmy Cormorant Phalacrocorax pygmaeus White Pelican Pelecanus onocrotalus Dalmatian Pelican Pelecanus crispus Great White Heron Egretla alba Squacco Pleron Ardeola ralloides Cattle Egret Ardeola ibis Marbled Duck Anas angustirostris Ferruginous Duck Aythya nyroca Common Scoter Melanitta nigra Harlequin Histrionicus histrionicus White-headed Duck Oxyura leucocephala Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnopterus Black Vulture Aegypius monachus Lammergeier Gypaetus barbatus Spotted Eagle Aquila clanga Lesser Spotted Eagle Aquila pomarina Bonelli’s Eagle Hieraetus fasciatus Long-legged Buzzard Buteo rufinus Levant Sparrowhawk Accipi/cr brevipes Kite Milvus milvus Black-winged Kite Planus cacruleus Pallid Harrier Circus macrourus Lanner Fa/co biarmicus Eleanora’s Falcon Falco eleanorae Red-footed Falcon Falco vesperlinus Chukar Alectoris chukar Rock Partridge Alectoris graeca Barbary Partridge Alectoris barbara Andalusian Hemipode Turnix sylvatica Purple Gallinule Porphyrio porphyrio Crested Coot Fulica cristata Great Bustard Otis tarda Purple Sandpiper Calidris maritima Grey Phalarope Phalaropus fulicarius Black-winged Pratincole Glareola nordmanni Glaucous Gull Farus hyperboreus Audouin’s Gull Farus audouinii Slender-billed Gull Farm genei White-winged Black Tern Chlidonias leucopterus Briinnich’s Guillemot Uria lomvia Black-bellied Sandgrouse Pterocles orientals Pin-tailed Sandgrouse Pterocles alchata Pallid Swift Apits pallidm White-backed Woodpecker Dendrocopos leucotos Lesser Short-toed Lark Calandrella rufescens Red-rumped Swallow Hirundo daurica Pied Wheatear Oenanthe leucomela Red-flanked Bluetail Tarsiger cyanurus Marmora’s Warbler Sylvia sarda Alpine Accentor Prunella collaris Lesser Grey Shrike Fanius minor Masked Shrike Fanius nubicus Rose-coloured Starling Sturnus rose us Arctic Redpoll Carduelis bornemanni Citril Finch Carduelis citrinella Two-barred Crossbill Foxia leucoptera Cinereous Bunting Emberiza cincracea Little Bunting Emberiza pusilla Snow Finch Montifringilla nivalis There are over 2,000 disc references in the species cross-index, an average of rather under five per bird. Sixty-six species appear only once, and at the other end of the scale there are twenty-five or more recordings of the following fourteen: Blackbird (39), Nightingale (36), Song Thrush (34), Skylark (33), Chaffinch (32), Cuckoo (29), Blackcap (29), Garden Warbler (28), Whitethroat (27), Robin (27), Great Tit 8 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS (27), Chiffchaff (26), Wren (26) and Willow Warbler (25). A worker interested in the geographical variation of, for example, the Wren will find recordings from France, Britain, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, the Soviet Union and Japan. It must be emphasised that sometimes precisely the same piece of original sound may be reproduced in more than one disc or set. For example, North and Simms 33 included a few of the Swedish recordings by Palmer 34 of species which had not at that time been recorded in Britain. Flowever, the only major sources of overlap are between two earlier 78 r.p.m. editions, by Lekander and Palmer 16 and Traber 27, and their respective revised editions, 34 and 35. In cases like this, the opportunity has been taken to add new species for the second edition, to replace others with better recordings of the same species, and occasionally to omit altogether certain first edition species which no longer come up to improved technical standards; the rest are carried directly forward and therefore cause the overlap. The discography : part A Gramophone records which include recordings of wild and captive Palearctic species made within the Palearctic region. 1. reich, carl (1908): Unique Bird Record: Made by a Captive 'Nightin- gale. One 10-inch, 78 r.p.m. disc, no. GC.9439. H.M.V., London. Almost certainly originally issued in Germany. As the H.M.V. catalogue says: ‘For the first time in the history of the Talking Machine industry, a genuine record has been obtained of a bird (see Boswall 1963b). So far as I am aware, no copy of the record exists. It is probably this recording that O. Heinroth (Heinroth and Koch 1935) played at the 5 th International Ornithological Congress in Berlin in 1910 (see also Anon 1911). ia. koch, ludwig (about 1910): Vogel. One 12-inch, 78 r.p.m. disc. Beka Gramophone Co., Berlin. About five hundred pressings of this record — the first in the world to present wild birds’ voices — were manufactured, but, so far as can be traced, none exists today. Dr. Koch tells me that the recordings, of about ten species, were made with a horn and wax disc equipment in the Taunus district near Frankfurt, Germany. No firm information as to the species which may be heard on the disc is available; it has therefore the serial number ia (see also Koch 1 9 5 7> P- 44?)- 9 BRITISH BIRDS 2. reich, carl (before 1923): Actual Record Made by Captive Thrush and Captive blackbird. One 10-inch, 78 r.p.m. disc, no. B.392. London. Garstang(i92 3, p. 37) said of this record that the caged Song Thrush ‘sings a typical Blackbird song’. The B.B.C. Natural History Unit has an acetate dubbing of the disc. 3. Harrison, Beatrice (1927): Nightingales and Dawn in an Old World Garden. One io-inch, 78 r.p.m. disc, no. B.2469. H.M.V., London. These bird voices were ‘actually recorded in Beatrice Harrison’s garden, Oxted, Surrey’. It was the first gramophone record of this kind to be published in Britain and was probably prompted by a five broadcast on 19th May 1924, when Miss Harrison played the ’cello in Oxted Woods and coaxed a Nightingale into song (Simms 1955 b). Kellogg (1938) described this recording as being of a ‘semi-domestica- ted’ Nightingale, but there is no reason, in fact, to suppose that it was not wild. 4. reich, carl (about 1 927): Actual Bird Record of Captive Nightin- gales. One 10-inch, 78 r.p.m. disc, no. B.390. H.M.V., London. This disc, doubtless like 1 originally issued in Germany, gives the voices of two Nightingales, ‘the property of Herr Carl Reich of Bremen, Berlin’. Not heard. 5. anon (about 1927): Nightingale, Blackcap, Garden Warbler and Canaries. One 10-inch, 78 r.p.m. disc, no. EG. 5 76. H.M.V., London. One side offers songs from captive birds described as Fringilla canaria , and the other some rather mixed output from the three species on the label, doubtless also captive in Carl Reich’s aviary. Not heard. 6. anon (about 1928): Canary Bird Song. One 10-inch, 78 r.p.m. disc, no. PO.5003. Decca, London. ‘Made by captive singers of F. Blanch’s breed; cocks and hens bred 1928.’ Not heard. 7. anon (1928) : Gesang der Kanarienvogel de Internationalen Siegerstammes 1928. One 10-inch, 78 r.p.m. disc, no. O-11856. Odeon, Germany. International Canary championships, 1928. Not heard. 8. harrison, Beatrice (1928): Nightingales. One 10-inch, 78 r.p.m. disc, no. B.2853. H.M.V., London. One side is called ‘A Summer Night Idyll’, on which we hear a Nightingale and church bells; on the other, the Nightingale is accom- 10 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS panied on the ’cello by Miss Harrison playing ‘Songs My Mother Taught Me’. q. reich, carl (1928): Canaries in Song. One 10-inch, 78 r.p.m. disc, no. B.2947. H.M.V., London. A Canary duet on one side, a trio on the other. Recorded in the Reich aviary. 10. HECK, LUTZ, and KOCH, ludwig (i 934) : Der Wald ErscbaUt. One 10-inch, 78 r.p.m. disc, and book (40 pages). Verlag Knorr and Hirth, Munich. One side of this German record by Ludwig Koch, which accom- panies Lutz Heck’s book, is devoted to the vocabulary of the Red Deer; the other to a montage — a ‘sound-picture’ — of about thirteen birds. Two are outstanding: the Blackcock lek at Dessau near Leipzig and the Golden Oriole recorded just outside Berlin. The other dominant voices are Nightingale, Eagle Owl, Cuckoo, Wood- pigeon and Song Thrush. 11. anon (about 1934): Wood Birds ’ Morning Greeting. One io-inch, 78 r.p.m. disc, no. B.3958. H.M.V., London. Only one side is relevant. It gives a mixture of songs, including Blackbird and Chaffinch, from birds said to have been ‘trained by Carl Reich’. 12. anon (1934): Gesang Ed/er Kanarienvogel, Deutscber Zuchtrneister- schaft 1934. One 10-inch, 78 r.p.m. disc, no. 10200. Polydor, Germany. Canary song, German championships, 1934. Not heard. 13. weismann, carl (1934-35): No title. Six 12-inch, single-sided, 78 r.p.m. discs, nos. 256-260 and 358. C. Weismann, Lyngby, Denmark. These six records, involving eight species, are of historical interest in that the first five, published in December 1934, were the first set of discs to be issued simultaneously anywhere in Europe. It v, ill be noticed that up to this time records had been marketed onh indi\ i- dually. No. 358 came out in the autumn of 1935* Cffifi hundred pressings were made of each and sold mainly to schools. Not heard. 256: Yellowhammer, Whitethroat 259 : Cuckoo, Thrush Nightingale 257: Marsh Warbler 260 : Rced Warbler 258: Thrush Nightingale 358: Wren, Blackbird 14. heinroth, o., and koch, ludwig ( 1 9 3 5 ) : Gefiedeite Meister- sdnger. Three io-inch, 78 r.p.m. discs, and book (96 pages). Hugo BRITISH BIRDS Behrmuhler Verlag, Berlin. A second edition with three 7-inch, 45 r.p.m. discs was published in 1951 by Briihlscher Verlag, Giessen, Germany. This neat little publication (neater still in the 1951 edition) was the first in Europe concerned only with birds (cf 10) to combine records with a book. The foreword is by Hermann Goering. After two introductory accounts, one by Koch and one by Heinroth, the latter author devotes one chapter to each of the twenty-five species, mostly passerines, whose voices can be heard on the records. There is also a coloured painting appropriate to each, depicting the egg, the adult bird and, in most cases, sex and age variations in plumage, including young nestlings. There are twenty-four pages of photographs at the back of the book. The recordings, of wild birds, were made by engineers of the Carl Lindstrom Company supervised by Ludwig Koch. Scientific names are given as well as the German. A second volume was published in 1937 (see 17). RECORD X A: Blackbird, Song Thrush, Starling B : Chaffinch, Icterine Warbler, Blackcap record 2 A : Great Tit, Serin, Redstart, Bullfinch, Golden Oriole B : Swallow, Skylark, Woodlark, Barred Warbler, Yellow- hammer record 3 A : Great Reed Warbler, Reed Bunting, Goldfinch, Siskin, Crossbill B : Garden Warbler, Chiffchaff, Cuckoo, Nightin- gale 15. Nicholson, e. m., and koch, ludwig ( 1 9 3 6) : Songs of Wild Birds. Two 10-inch, 78 r.p.m. discs, nos. 1 and 2, and book (126 pages). H. F. & G. Witherby, London. The first recordist to embark on a serious collection of the voices of British birds was the indefatigable Ludwig Koch. He arrived in this country as a refugee from Nazi Germany on 17th February 1936; by March he had enlisted the support of the H.M.V. Company and recor- ded his first bird, a Song Thrush at Green Street Green in Kent; that season he successfully captured the utterances of fifteen species on wax disc, operating in Kent, Surrey and London, and by the autumn he had two discs on the market accompanied by E. M. Nicholson’s book (Koch 1955). Very full programme notes are given at the back of the book. A second volume was published in the following year (see 18). RECORD I RECORD 2 A: Nightingale, Cuckoo B: Black- A: Robin, Wren, Dunnock, Turtle bird. Song Thrush, Great Spotted Dove, Woodpigcon B : Chaffinch, Woodpecker, Green Woodpecker Wren, Whitethroat, Great Tit 16. lekander, g., and palm&r, s. (1936-56): Fdglar. Sixty-four 10-inch, 78 r.p.m. discs, nos. 6-70. Radiotjanst, Stockholm. 1 2 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS In 1936 Radiotjanst (now Sveriges Radio) decided to start building up a library of the voices of all Swedish birds (Dahlbeck, Linnman and Palmer 1958). From the start, the discs— usually giving one species per side: a very generous allowance— were made available commer- cially. The work was carried out by Gunnar Lekander from 1936 to 1947, during which time forty-two were issued. Sture Palmer, who had worked with him since 1936, became responsible for the remaining twenty-two records published between 1948 and 1956. No less than 183 species’ voices appear on the sixty-four records, a total which at the time (1956) was unsurpassed by any other country in the world and which up to 1962 had been overtaken only by the U.S.A. (Kellogg and Allen D27 and Kellogg 58 and D40). It was a remark- able achievement for a small country with a limited avifauna. Each disc is accompanied by a single-page leaflet with a few paragraphs in Swedish about each species, a photograph and the birds’ Swedish, scientific, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish names. A complete list of the 183 species, with scientific, English, French, German and Swedish names, has since been published by Dahlbeck, Linnman and Palmer (1958, pp. 350-355). With the advent of the long-plat ing record, the opportunity was taken to revise, add to and re-issue the collection as thirty-five 7-inch, 45 r.p.m. discs (see 34 where a full review is given). It is necessary, therefore, to mention here only the recordings of species which have not yet, for reasons of quality, found their way into the later edition. They are those of the Gyr Falcon and White-tailed Eagle (disc 18) and Roller (disc 5 9). 17. heinroth, o., and heinroth, K. (i 93 7) : Gefiedcrte Meistersanger, II. Three io-inch, 78 r.p.m. discs, and book (86 pages). Hugo Behrmuhler Verlag, Berlin. A second edition with three 7-inch, 45 r.p.m. discs was published in 1951 by Briihlscher Verlag, Giessen, Germany. In this companion volume to 14, the Fleinroths offer us text, paint- ings, photographs and recordings of twenty-one common German passerines. The Carl Lindstrom engineers worked on these recordings under the direction of the late Oskar Heinroth. RECORD I RECORD J A: Robin, Whitethroat, Lesser White- A: Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Wood throat, Black Redstart B : Greenfinch, NX arblcr, Pied Flycatcher B : Tree Blue Tit, Corn Bunting, Ortolan Bunt- Pipit, Thrush Nightingale ing, Reed Bunting record 2 A : Sedge Warbler, Marsh Warbler B: Reed Warbler, Wren, Linnet, Wry- neck BRITISH BIRDS 18. nicholson, e. m., and koch, ludwig (1937): More Songs of Wild Birds. Three io-inch, 78 r.p.m. discs, nos. 3-5, and book (104 pages). H. F. Sc G. Witherby, London. This work is the companion to the authors’ earlier volume (15). It gives the results of the following season’s held work: the voices of twenty-one species, including a beautiful Woodlark, the frequently- broadcast Curlew and the Richmond Park Herons. By a coincidence, the first sound-books of birds published on the other side of the Atlantic carried precisely the same titles (Brand D2 and D3) and appeared at almost exactly the same time. record 3 A : Skylark, Curlew B : Woodlark, Tree Pipit record 4 A: Redstart, Blue Tit, Willow Tit, Chiffchaff B : Mistle Thrush, Stock Dove, Heron, Nightjar record 5 A: Wood Warbler, Blackcap, Garden Warbler B : Little Owl, Carrion Crow, Jackdaw, Jay, Magpie, Rook 19. anon (about 1937): GesangEdler Kanarienvogel. One 10-inch, 78 r.p.m. disc, no. 21333. Grammophon, Germany. Roller Canary song. Not heard. 20. weismann, carl (1939-5 5): Voice Recordings of Danish Birds. Ten 12-inch, 78 r.p.m. discs, nos. 1-4, 6, 7, 13, 14, 16 and 17, and one 10- inch, 78 r.p.m. disc, no. 18. C. Weismann, Lyngby, Denmark. Obtainable from C. Weismann, Oxhult, pr. Hishult, Sweden. Sixty-six species’ voices are given on these eleven records, including White Stork, Black-tailed Godwit and Cormorant, all with young; also geographical variations in the songs of Yellowhammer and Chaffinch from the island of Bornholm. Disc 18 is of considerable economic importance: it gives the injury call of a Starling in the hand, which during the eight seasons 1955-62 was broadcast, by a special method, in the forty-acre cherry orchard of Peter F. Heering (makers of cherry brandy) in South Seeland, Denmark, where £i,ooo-worth of cherries were being eaten annually by this species. The method proved 90% effective in keeping the birds away (Carl Weismann in lift.). RECORD I (1939) Blackbird, Song Thrush, Golden Oriole, Icterine Warbler, Cuckoo, Reed Warb- ler, Marsh Frog liana ridibtmda record 2 (1939) Great Tit, Lapwing, Redshank, Chaf- finch, Garden Warbler, Willow Warbler, Blackcap record 3 (1946) Skylark, Starling, Thrush Nightingale, Marsh Warbler, Sedge Warbler, Reed Warbler record 4 (1947) Yellowhammer, Woodlark, Swallow, Whitcthroat, Chiffchaff, Lesser White- throat, Redstart, Robin DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS RECORD 6 (1948) Goldcrest, Treecreeper, Pied Flycatcher, Wren, Grasshopper Warbler, Wood Warbler, Great Reed Warbler record 7 (1949) Raven (with young), Hooded Crow, Rook, Jackdaw, Jay, Magpie record 13 (1950) Greenfinch, Linnet, Reed Bunting, Red-breasted Flycatcher, Tree Pipit, Yellowhammer (Bornholm), Chaffinch (Bornholm) record 14 (1950) Nightjar, Tawny Owl, Sparrowhawk, Corn Bunting, Dunnock, Wheatear, Whinchat record 16 (1952) White Stork (with young). Heron (with young). Bittern, Black-tailed Godwit (with young), Avocet, Oystercatcher, Snipe record 17 (1952) Cormorant (with young), Guillemot, Shclduck, Dunlin, Great Crested Grebe, Coot, Moorhen record 18 (1955) Blackbird (injury call). Starling (injury call) 21. British broadcasting corporation (1942): Nightingales and Bombers. One io-inch, 78 r.p.m. disc, no. BD.1016. London. Recorded on 19th May 1942, the night of the Mannheim Raid. Perhaps of more interest to the war-historian than the ornithologist. 22. anon (1948): Rookery (EXP. 96); Cuckoo (EXP. 99); Dawn Chorus, I (EXP. 98). Three 12-inch, 78 r.p.m. discs, single-sided, nos. above. E.M.I., London. These recordings and the 10-inch ones that follow (23) were made on Bucklebury Common, England, and issued as effects records for theatrical use. 23. anon (1948): Blackbird (EP 125); Owls (EP 126); Robin, Thrush (EP 132); Nightingale (EP 133); Skylark, White throat (EP 134); Wood Pigeon, Nightjar (EP 135); Pheasants, Magpies, Woodpecker (EP 136); Chiffchaff, Jackdaw, Chaffinch (EP 138); Dawn Chorus, II and III (EP 139). Nine 10-inch, 78 r.p.m. discs, single-sided, nos. above. E.M.I., London. See under 22. The ‘owls’ refers to a Tawny Owl, the ‘thrush’ is a Song Thrush and the ‘woodpecker a Green \\ oodpecker. 24. koch, ludwig ( 1 9 5 2.) : Oiseaux Chanteurs de Taeken. Four io- inch, 78 r.p.m. discs, nos. 6-9, and book (80 pages). De H. \\ ellens and W. Godenne, 45 rue de Roumanie, Brussels, Belgium. Ludwig Koch worked with Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mother of the Belgians, in the spring and summer of 193^ to 1Tia^e recordings of twenty-five species which form part of this publication. A full account is given in the book, of which there are both I rench and Flemish editions, and a briefer account in English in Koch 19^5. 1 5 BRITISH BIRDS Although it is possible to buy copies (about £9 in i960), the publica- tion was not commercially issued in the accepted sense, but was distributed free to some 20,000 schools in Belgium. record 6 A : Blackbird, Mistle Thrush, Song Thrush B: Nuthatch, Wren, Dun- nock, Robin record 7 A : Chiffchaff, Chaffinch, Willow Warb- ler, Greenfinch B: Great Tit, Marsh Tit, Willow Tit, Swallow record 8 A: Blackcap, Garden Warbler, White- throat B: Marsh Warbler, Icterine Warbler, Golden Oriole, Cuckoo record 9 A : Corn Bunting, Skylark B : Nightin- gale 25. koch, ludwig (i 9 5 3) : Songs of British Birds. Four io-inch, 78 r.p.m. discs, nos. 10473-76, and booklet. Re-issued in 1958 as two 7-inch, 45 r.p.m. discs, nos. 7 EG 8315 and 6. H.M.V., London. The twenty-seven species are grouped, six or seven at a time, by habitats: garden and parks, woodland, fields and hedgerows, riverside and marshland. The recordings are from the Koch collection and are published on these records with the collaboration of the B.B.C. Surprisingly, the Nightingale is excluded from this popular selection. 7EG 8315 A: Blackbird, Song Thrush, Robin, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Chaffinch, Green- finch B: Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Green Woodpecker, Blackcap, Garden Warbler, Great Spotted Woodpecker 7eg 8316 A: Skylark, Meadow Pipit, Goldfinch, Whitethroat, Woodlark, Dunnock, Corn Bunting B: Reed Warbler, Sedge Warbler, Marsh Warbler, Grasshopper Warbler, Reed Bunting, Moorhen, Coot 26. hoshino, kasuke, and kabaya, t. (1954): Japanese Bird Songs. Nine io-inch, 78 r.p.m. discs, nos. AE 133-135, 160-162, 201-203. Victor Company of Japan, 1-1, 4-chome, Nihonbashi, Honcyo, Chuo- ku, Tokyo, Japan. Particular interest attaches to this set since, along with its revised long-playing edition (see 38, where there is also a fuller discussion), it provides the only published collection of Palearctic bird-sounds recorded outside Europe. There is no list of species names, but Mr. Hoshino and Dr. Tomoo Royama provided me with one which I have revised, so far as possible, to conform with the nomenclature of Peterson et al. (1954) and Vaurie (1959). Three of the 39 species are not carried forward to the second edition: these are the Whooper Swan, Jay and Gray’s Grasshopper Warbler and the last is unique to this set. RECORD 133 RECORD 1 34 A: Bird chorus B: Bush Warbler, A: Grey Thrush, Jay, Wren B: Rufous Turtle Dove, Great Reed Cuckoo, Little Cuckoo, Oriental Cuckoo Warbler 16 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS RECORD 135 A: Coal Tit, Great Spotted Wood- pecker, Black-browed Reed Warbler B: Blue-and-white Flycatcher, Siberian Blue Robin record 160 A: Scops Owl B: Jungle Nightjar, White’s Thrush, Gray’s Grasshopper Warbler record 161 A: Siberian Thrush, Narcissus Fly- catcher, Grey-hooded Bunting B : Indian Tree Pipit, Masked Bunting, Latham’s Snipe record 162 A: Masked Hawfinch, Nuthatch, Red- bellied Thrush B : Nutcracker, Alpine Accentor, Arctic Warbler record 201 A: Narcissus Flycatcher B: Fugitive Hawk Cuckoo, Japanese Robin record 202 A: Black Japanese Flycatcher B: Japanese White-eye, Willow Tit, Crowned Willow Warbler RECORD 203 A: Bird chorus B: Whooper Swan, Japanese Pheasant, Stoncchat 27. traber, hans (1 9 5 4-5 5) : So Singe// Unsere Vogel. Eleven io-inch, 78 r.p.m. discs, nos. 1-8 and n-13, and small booklet. Swiss Society for Bird Protection, Zurich. Obtainable from Hans Traber, Froh- burgstrasse 46, Zurich 6, Switzerland. Disc 1 3 is unique among Palearctic records in that it is devoted to avian mimicry and objects of mimicry. On side A we hear first a Starling copying the cluck of domestic fowls and the mew of a Buzzard; next we have a real Golden Oriole and a Common Toad, both of whose sounds are then reproduced with remarkable faithfulness by a second Starling; and on the last two bands we have a real Greenfinch, and a Marsh Warbler mimicking a Greenfinch. On side B we hear the songs of a Pied Flycatcher and a Song Thrush, each of which is indivi- dually mimicked by a Blackcap. The remaining ten discs present vocalisations by forty-three species. It is worth paraphrasing certain short extracts from the very helpful ‘programme notes’ printed in French and German, which give, among other information, all the background singers. The Marsh \\ arbler (disc 4B) mimics among other sounds the call of the Chafiinch and the alarm cry of the Blue Tit. Disc 8B is concerned with vocal and instrumental sound-production by woodpeckers: the middle band gives the call and drumming of the rarely-recorded Grey-headed Woodpecker, whose erv can also be heard — conveniently for compari- son— between two calls of a Green W oodpecker on the first band; in band 3 on this side we can hear the long, vigorous drums of a Black Woodpecker and the faster tempo of a Great Spotted \\ oodpecker. Disc 1 1 A includes the calls, as well as the songs, of \ ellowhammer and Corn Bunting. The labels give German, French and scientific names. RECORD I RECORD 2 A: Blackbird, Mistle Thrush B: Song A: Willow Warbler, Wood Warbler Thrush, Nightingale ® • Chid chaff, Wren 17 BRITISH BIRDS RECORD 3 A : Garden Warbler, Blackcap B : Sky- lark, Woodlark record 4 A: Great Reed Warbler, Reed Warbler B : Marsh Warbler, Icterine Warbler record 5 A : Black Redstart, Redstart B : Whin- chat, Robin record 6 A : Linnet, Greenfinch B : Chaffinch (song, unusual song, call, unusual call) record 7 A: Great Tit, Marsh Tit, Coal Tit B: Tree Pipit, Whitethroat record 8 A: Woodpigeon and Jay, Turtle Dove B : Green Woodpecker, Grey-headed Woodpecker, Black and Great Spotted Woodpeckers RECORD II A: Yellowhammer, Corn Bunting B : Swallow, Sand Martin RECORD 12 A: Golden Oriole, Starling B: Pied Flycatcher, Red-backed Shrike record 13 A : Starling mimicking fowl and Buzzard, Golden Oriole, Common Toad Bufo vulgaris. Starling mimicking Golden Oriole and Common Toad, Greenfinch, Marsh Warbler mimicking Greenfinch B : Pied Flycatcher, Blackcap mimick- ing Pied Flycatcher, Song Thrush, Blackcap mimicking Song Thrush 28. albouze, georges (1 9 5 6-6 1) : La Foret Chanie and Ils Chantent pour Vous, I, II, IV and V. Five 7-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. discs, nos. LDY 9001 (later changed to 5001), 5000, 5002, 5004 and 5005. Le Chant du Monde, 32 Rue Beaujon, Paris 8e. Although, strictly speaking, La Foret Chante is not part of the I/s Chantent pour Vous set, I have included it here because the gramophone company renumbered it as LDY 5001 after the first disc (no. LDY 5000) in the latter series was published. The number LDY 5003 is given to a disc entitled Oiseaux de Che % Nous (see 53), which is by a different recordist, Dr. Flenri Ulrich, and has a different format, but is clearly regarded by the publishers as the third disc in the I/s Chantent pour Vous series, although this is unfortunately not evident from the sleeve. RECORD 9001 (5001) Two sides of Nightingale song RECORD 5000 A : Nightingales singing by day and the voice of the ‘Canarie Smet’, a cage bird which is illustrated in colour on the sleeve (this must be the ‘Orange Canary’ of Steinbacher 1959, p. 165, which is a cross between a hen Canary and a cock Red-hooded Siskin Carduelis cucullata of Venezuela) B : Nightingales singing at night and Blackbird song record 5002 Sub-titled ‘A Master of Song: the Flartz Canary’ and including different vocalisa- tions for which this breed has been line- bred and trained for centuries record 5004 A : Woodlark, Skylark, Stonechat, Great Tit B : Swallow, Sand Martin, Chaf- finch, White-rumpcd Seed-eater Serious leucopygius of Africa (doubtless captive) RECORD 3OO5 A: Melodious Warbler, Blackcap, Gar- den Warbler, W'hitcthroat B : Cuckoo, Bullfinch, Goldfinch, Linnet 29. paatela, j., and hytonen, o. (i 9 5 7-5 8). Lintujen Adnia. Two 7-inch, 45 r.p.m. discs, nos. RN.4074 and 4171. Rytmi Neliapila, Helsinki. Obtainable from Music Shop Fazer, Alexanderstreet 11, Plelsinki, Finland. 18 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS Commendably, the scientific names of the thirty species on these two discs are given on both the labels and the sleeves. The outstanding bird is Blyth’s Reed Warbler, which can be heard mimicking Redstart, Chaffinch and Thrush Nightingale. In the song of the Chaffinch a short, sharp note can be heard imme- diately following what is normally the terminal flourish of the phrase; this note is like the tchick of the Great Spotted Woodpecker and is one which confuses many visitors to Fenno-Scandia. RN.4074 RN.4171 A: Chaffinch, Willow Warbler, Skylark, A: Song Thrush, Blackbird, Fieldfare, Tree Pipit, Whitcthroat, Garden Warb- Robin, Redstart, Whinchat, Yellow- ler, Icterine Warbler B : Sedge Warb- hammer, Ortolan Bunting, Great Tit, ler, Blyth’s Reed Warbler, Marsh Grcenlinch B: Thrush Nightingale, Warbler, Nightjar, Corncrake, Spotted Reed Warbler, Scarlet Grosbeak, Pied Crake, Grasshopper Warbler Flycatcher, Swallow, Hooded Crow 30. anon (1958): O/sec/MX. One 7-inch, 45 r.p.m. disc, no. 7 F.MF 106. Pathe-Marconi, 3 Boulevard des Italiens, Paris 9c. I suspect that this is an effects cUsc produced for film-makers. Side A band 1 is a spring chorus at dawn complete with cockerels and a church clock striking to prove that the recordist got up that early; 2 is a band of ‘Birds in the Forest’; 3 is an aviary of Budgerigars Melopsit- tacus undulatus ; 4 is Herring Gulls backed by surf. Side B band 1 is introduced by an African Grey Parrot Psittacns erithacus saying ‘Bon- jour Coco!’; 2 and 3, described as ‘Rossignol’ (Nightingale) and ‘Chardonneret’ (Goldfinch) are both almost certainly Canaries; 4 is a single Budgerigar; 5 described as ‘Merle’ (Blackbird) is an interesting singer almost certainly not Tardus merula\ 6, described as ‘Fauvette’, might be one warbler or another. 31. fentzloff, c., and thielcke, g. (i 9 5 8-6 3) : Stimmen Einheimischer Vogel. Eleven 7-inch, 45 r.p.m. discs, nos. 75-0951.5 to 61.5. Kos- mos, Pfizerstrasse 5-7, 7 Stuttgart 1, Germany. Among these eleven records, disc 0956.5 is of particular importance to the field ornithologist, oflering as it does the only chance to hear the song of the Short-toed Treecreeper and the calls of the Middle Spotted Woodpecker, and to compare them with, respectively, the other European Treecreeper and no less than jive other woodpeckers. Another useful comparison, on 0958.5, is between the songs of Fire- crest and Goldcrest. Species’ names are given in German on the label, and alongside line drawings of each bird on the sleeve. There are no printed notes, but each bird is introduced by two or three sentences in German. There are ninety species in all. After 1963 the continuation of this series is by Erwin Tretzel (see 65). *9 BRITISH BIRDS 0951.5 A : Redstart, Blackbird, Cuckoo, Golden Oriole B : Chaffinch, Hoopoe, Garden Warbler, Wryneck 0952.5 A: Nightingale, Great Reed Warbler, Reed Warbler, Grasshopper Warbler B: Song Thrush, Wren, Greenfinch, Icterine Warbler °953-5 A: Skylark, Tree Pipit, Quail, Marsh Warbler B : Yellowhammer, Corn Bunting, Whinchat, Woodchat Shrike 0954.5 A : Coal Tit, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Wood Warbler B : Blackcap, Lesser Whitethroat, Whitethroat, Dunnock 0955-5 A : House Sparrow, I-Iouse Martin, Swallow, Black Redstart B: White Stork, Barn Owl, Tawny Owl, Little Owl 0956.5 A: Green Woodpecker, Grey-headed Woodpecker, Black Woodpecker, Middle Spotted Woodpecker, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker B : Short-toed Tree- creeper, Treecreeper, Mistle Thrush, Nuthatch 0957-5 A: Tengmalm’s Owl, Long-eared Owl, Eagle Owl, Nightjar B: Robin, Grey Wagtail, Red-breasted Flycatcher, Kes- trel 0958.5 A: Black Grouse, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow B: Serin, Goldfinch, Firecrest, Goldcrest 0959-5 A: Aquatic Warbler, Sedge Warbler, Bittern B: Avocet, Snipe, Redshank, Black-tailed Godwit 0960.5 A: Great Tit, Heron, Herring Gull B : Collared Dove, Turtle Dove, Pheasant, Bee-eater 0961.5 A : Buzzard, Coot, Reed Bunting, Black-headed Gull B : Bonelli’s Warb- ler, Stock Dove, Jay 32. niethammer, g., and abs, m. (1 9 5 8) : Vogelring. One 7-inch, 45 r.p.m. disc, no V.S.i. Hans Limberg Verlag und Lehrmittelanstalt, Aachen, Germany. This attractive little production gives the music of four outstanding songsters: Nightingale, Song Thrush, Blackbird and Blackcap. 33. north, m. e. \v., and simms, e. (1958): Witherby s Sound-Guide to British Birds. Thirteen io-inch 78 r.p.m. discs, nos. HFG 1-13, and two booklets (52 pages each). Id. F. & G. Witherby Ltd., 61/62 Wading Street, London, E.C.4. At the time of its publication in 1958, this work represented the entry of bird voice publication into a new phase of its history. It was the first attempt to bring together for simultaneous publication recordings of the majority of species in a sizeable region — the first effort towards a faunistic treatment.* *It is worth noting that to date only two further albums which compare directly with this one have appeared (Kellogg and Allen D27 and Kellogg 58 and D40), though in this connection attention must again be drawn to the series of sixty-four discs published by Sveriges Radio (Radiotjanst as it then was) over the period 1936-56 and totalling 183 species (Lekander and Palmer 16), and more particularly to the revised and enlarged edition of this set which includes the remarkable total of 238 species (Palmer 34). 20 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS At least one utterance from 195 species on the British and Irish List can be heard on the records. Four of the species of goose were recor- ded in captivity; in the case of all other species, at least one of the recordings is of wild birds. The majority of the recordings were made in Great Britain, but some are also included from eight other European countries and one African country (Belgium, Channel Islands, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, Spain, Sweden and Kenya). The Kenya recordings are of the African race of the Quail and of three northern waders on migra- tion: the Quail is not cross-indexed, therefore, and the waders appear in part B of the discography, being Palearctic birds in another region (Ethiopian). Most of the recordings came from the B.B.C. Sound Archive, to which Ludwig Koch and Eric Simms were the two outstanding con- tributors of original material. Of the 301 ‘cuts’ (individual pieces of continuous sound) of 195 species, 123 were made by Simms and 108 by Koch (for an account of Koch’s recording work see Koch 1955, and for that of Simms see Simms 1955a and b, 1957 and Simms and Wade 1953). The remainder are attributed as follows: Radiotjanst, 22; B.B.C. regions, 18; John Kirby, 13; C. Weismann, 7; M. E. W. North, 4; Tony Soper, 3; and H. E. Axell, I. J. Ferguson-Lees, L. J. Kinlen and D. I. M. Wallace, 1 each. A very full species-by-species review has already been published in this journal (Nicholson 1959) and a list of the birds on the discs is not therefore given here. One small correction, however: John Burton has pointed out to me that, while the ktrri-kirri calls on the band intro- duced as Common Tern are certainly those of that species, that the kaarr calls near the end of the band are those of the Black-headed Gull. 34. palmer, sture (1958-63): R adions Fdgel Skivor. Thirty-five 7-inch, 45 r.p.m. discs, nos. RFEP 201-255. Sveriges Radio, Box 95 5, Stockholm, Sweden. If I had a complete collection of the world’s bird-sound discs and had to discard all except one set, this is the one I would keep. In number of species (238) and average playing time devoted to each (about two minutes) it offers a coverage far superior to that of am other Palearctic publication, and from a global standpoint has only two competitors: Kellogg and Allen D27 on eastern and central North American birds and Kellogg 58 and D40 on western North American birds. However, although these are very strong in variety of species (305 and 515 respectively), they offer an average of only 15 seconds of each. R adions Fagel Skivor (‘Radio Bird Records’) is a modest title for a scientific sound document of such importance; it could justifiably have 21 BRITISH BIRDS been called a Sound-Guide to the Birds of Northern and Central Europe. The coverage is all the more remarkable because almost every recording was obtained by one man, Sture Palmer, and all except sixteen (to which attention is specifically drawn) were made in Sweden, not a large country and one with a limited avifauna. All are of wild individuals except the Snowy Owl, Pine Bunting, Crossbill, Ruddy Shelduck, one of the Waxwings and one of the Pine Grosbeaks. Twenty of the species are to be found on no other Palearctic discs: Red-necked Grebe, Pochard, Velvet Scoter, Honey Buzzard, Hazel Hen, Kentish Plover, Jack Snipe, Little Stint, Temminck’s Stint, Broad-billed Sandpiper, Little Gull, Hawk Owl, Shore Lark, Siberian Jay, Naumann’s Thrush, Great Grey Shrike, Pine Bunting, Yellow- breasted Bunting, Rustic Bunting and Lapland Bunting. As already stated, this long-playing set is a revised and much en- larged edition of an earlier series of sixty-four 78s (Lekander and Palmer 16), which included 183 species. Recordings of 154 are car- ried directly forward to this edition, 26 have been replaced by better recordings of the same species, and three (Gyr Falcon, White-tailed Eagle and Roller) which appear in the earlier set are not yet available in this one, presumably in anticipation of better quality recordings being made; additional species in this set thus number 58. The recordings were made during the period 1936-62 and include what are almost certainly the earliest made anywhere in the world on tape: Guillemot and Razorbill recorded on Gotland in 1946. Scientific names are given on the labels and a paragraph in Swedish about each species on the sleeve. Because of the importance of this set a full list of the species, the time devoted to each and the more important points in the notes are detailed below (it will be noticed that the numbering of the bands is inconsistent: on the first ten discs this continues from one side to the other, but from RFEP 21 1 onwards the two sides are numbered separately). RFEP 201 (1) Chaffinch (F35"): two types of call; song of cock; call of hen (at 50-65 seconds); song of second (typical) cock and third (atypical) cock (2) Blackbird (2/25"): song, including mimicry of Great Tit in first, third and nineteenth phrases (the notes also mention mimicry of Bullfinch, but I find this difficult to detect) (3) Song Thrush (}'oo"): song (4) Willow Warbler (C45"): song (5) Ortolan Bunting (F28"): song (6) Tree Pipit (1 '17"): song (7) Hoopoe (i'o8'): song RFEP 202 (1) Greenfinch (1 '00") : different songs by two cocks (2) Starling (2'44") : Jay- like warning notes; typical whistling; then ‘two Starlings each with his one- man band in open competition; they mimic among others: Water Rail, Moorhen, Blackbird, Buzzard, Tawny Owl, Swift, Willow Warbler, Green- finch, Common Gull, Caspian Tern, Blackbird and Curlew’ (3) Yellow- hammer (i'3o"): song (4) Lesser Whitcthroat (i'o5*): full spring song and shortened version later in the 22 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS season (5) Wren (2W'): song (6) Redstart (2'34"): song (7) Pied Fly- catcher (2'i3"): song RFEP 203 (1) Garden Warbler (3 '30"): song (2) Wryneck (i'o2"): song (3) Cuckoo (2'o9"): male and female (4) Sedge Warbler (i'4o"): song (5) Corncrake (C57"): the rarely-heard mewing note and familiar song (6) Grasshopper Warbler (1 '05"): song; Sedge Warbler in background (7) River Warbler (i'i6*): song rfep 204 (1) Water Rail (C32"): Coot and Moor- hen in background (2) Spotted Crake (i'i6"): Water Rail in background (3) Baillon’s Crake (V07"): Water Rail and Coot in background (4) Little Crake (1 '00") : Coot in background (5) Snipe (i'34"): calls and drumming (6) Black-tailed Godwit (2T2"): breed- ing-ground calls (7) Redshank flight-song and calls in nesting season rfep 205 (1) Green Woodpecker (0^5 7") : ‘song’ (2) Goldfinch (i'46"): song (3) Ictcrine Warbler (4T5"): song with mimicry, including Curlew (at o'o2"), Jackdaw (o'o8"), Common Tern (oTo'-o'ij'”), Blackbird (o'z^), Tawny Owl (o,26')> an uneasy Whinchat (o'3 5"), Fieldfare (o'45"). Common Gull (i'oo"), Thrush Nightingale (i'o5"), Blackbird alarm call (i'32'). Common Gull (i'5o"), Curlew (z'$o"). Starling {‘i'z.o”) and hen Black- bird (4T0") (4) Scarlet Grosbeak (2T1"): song (5) Thrush Nightingale (3 '45"): song (6) Golden Oriole (iT 1 ") : song rfep 206 (1) Wood Warbler ( 1 '42") : song (2) Greenish Warbler (z'oz’): song (3) ChiffchafF (1 '29") : song (4) Arctic Warbler (C40"): song (5) Marsh Warbler (2T2"): song with mimicry of Greenfinch, Chaffinch alarm call, Swal- low, Sedge Warbler and Robin; the bird’s own alarm call is woven in as well, for example at 1 '5 5 " (6) White-spotted Blucthroat (2'2o"): song recorded at the end of the song period; imitations of the Common Sandpiper and Great Tit can be heard (7) Blyth’s Reed Warbler (2T4') : recorded in Finland by Nils Linnman; ( the Blyth’s Reed Warbler has a simple song pattern which is repeated 6-10 times, and a more complex one repeated 3-5 times. Also, he sings rather slowly. In order to include as many song pat- terns as possible, only the first and last have been given their full length of time, eight and six repeats respectively. Several patterns in between have there- fore been shortened so that they are repeated only twice’); it is likely that some mimicry is included rfep 207 (1) Blackcap (2W): song (2) Red- wing (2T3'): song by two cocks: the first from mid-Sweden, ‘a type that has become quite common lately’, and die second (after o' 50") from Bcrgslagen (3) Fieldfare (2T3"): song (4) Robin (2'io"): song (5) Goldcrcst (2'o6"): song; Song Thrush in background (6) Coal Tit (i'j9'): song rfep 208 (1) Siskin (3 '14"): song; Black Grouse in background (2) Willow Tit (2T6'): song and calls (3) Redpoll (i'26"): different calls (4) Whitethroat (2'o2"): alarm and song (5) Whinchat (4'32'): song with mimicry of Robin (at o^o") and Woodlark (at 4'oo") (6) Red- backed Shrike (1 '25 ") : song, including alarm call (at o'zo") and imitations of Willow W’arbler (o'o8") and Song Thrush (o'25") rfep 209 (1) Eagle Owl (2'3 8") : first the usual double hoot of the male ; then at 1 T 5 ' the excited mating call; the female repeats a powerful fox-like bark; the male finally utters moaning notes and urgent hoots (2) Pygmy Owl (2'26"): calls of adult and cheeps of young (3) Tengmalm’s Owl (i'47"): adult calls; fireworks in background (4) Long-cared Owl (3' 40"): calls of male (‘if there are several Long-eared Owls within earshot of each other, they generally raise or lower the pitch a shade so that they can be detec- ted apart’); calls of young, and bill- snapping and warning note of female 23 BRITISH BIRDS (after 2^5 3") (5) Short-eared Owl (i'2o"): this band gives a delightful ‘sound-picture’: the cock flies round in lazy circles calling and ‘applauding’ with wing claps; the hen calls (after o'3o"); in the background are another Short-eared Owl and a Long-eared Owl, and the bark of a Fox Vulpes vulpes (6) Barn Owl (L41"): young birds at nest-site; the cock repeats a call (starting at o' 30") ; and the hen screeches (from i'25") rfep 210 (1) Common Gull (2/i6"): calls at nest- ing grounds (2) Black-headed Gull (2'oi"): adults and young in colony (3) Little Gull (2'x 1") : several breeding season calls (4) Guillemot ( x '4 8 ") : calls on breeding cliff (5) Black Guille- mot ( 1 ' 5 3 ") : ‘fine whining song and rather unfamiliar combat-call’ (6) Razorbill (L24"): calls at breeding time (7) Puffin (1 '29") : calls in nesting colony rfep 21 1 A(i) Great Tit (2'i4"): various song- types (2) Blue Tit (2'o6"): alarm call; then ‘an uneasy whirring which may give warning of an approaching Spar- rowhawk’; lastly the song (3) Nut- hatch (i'5 8") : two different songs during first 50 seconds; alarm call at o'^"; another call at i'45" B(i) Tree Spar- row (2'oi"): calls and song (2) House Sparrow (2T3"): calls (3) Jackdaw (2'i4"): birds leaving roost in the morning, and uttering more explosive calls (after i'2o") as they return in the evening rfep 212 A(i) Skylark (i'^6"): spring calls and song (2) Lapwing (2' 17"): flight song and alarm call (3) Curlew (2'i9"): calls and song B(i) Barnacle Goose (i'o2"): calls of flock (2) Canada Goose (o'49"): calls of flock (3) Grey Lag Goose (i'5i"): calls of flock (4) Bean Goose (2'o6"): calls of flock rfep 213 A(i) Black Woodpecker (o'5 3"): drum- ming and calls (2) Nutcracker (2' 27"): calls; thin piping note while feeding (o'5 j’-i'io") and alarm call (3) Jay (i'io"): usual alarm cry; also Buzzard- like mewing (4) Goshawk (2'oo") : for 30 seconds at the beginning and end of the band the calls used while mating can be heard; other calls in between B(i) Mistle Thrush (z'x 5") : song (2) Dunnock (i'o6"): song (3) Tree- creeper (i'o4"): song (4) Nightjar (2ri6"): call and ‘jarring’ rfep 214 A(x) Meadow Pipit (i'48"): song (2) Red-throated Diver (2'o8"): calls (3) Crane (2'53"): a chorus of birds rising from their roost on migration B(i) Osprey (1 '49") : calls (2) Golden Plover (x'49") : calls and song flight (3) Wood Sandpiper (2' 3 5"): alarm call, then call from flock taking wing; the song from the ground occurs at o'47", i'io" and i'i 7"; the different, aerial song can best be heard at 2'o5" rfep 215 A(i) Common Sandpiper (z'07"): song; ‘In the background a bellowing roe buck and a gambolling shoal of fish!" (2) Woodcock (2'23"): familiar ‘roding’, and call on being flushed (at i'4o") (3) Black-throated Diver (i'43"): song B(i) Garganey (o'24")r call (2) Teal (i'i 9") : call (3) Shoveler (o'54"): call (4) Mallard (3 '5 5 ") : calls of drake and duck, and a montage of lake sounds rfep 216 A(i) Marsh Tit (1 '5 5 ") : alarm call and song (2) Bullfinch (i'43"): song (3) Tawny Owl (3'io"): first, monosyllabic calls of two males engaged in a vocal territorial fight, female joining in with food call (at o'o8"); then follow the ocarina-like trill (at i'4o"), the female’s ke-vitt hunting call (at x'50"), the typical hooting song (beginning at 2'o5") and the hunger cry of young birds (H. N. Southern has confirmed and expanded the interpretation of these recordings) B(i) Swift (i'o2"): calls (2) Swallow (2'36") : call, alarm call and song (3) House Martin (o'57"): song (4) Sand Martin (2'o3") : song and alarm call rfep 217 A(i) Quail (o'39"): song (2) Corn Bunting ( 1 '4 5 ") : song (3) Crested Lark (3'36"): song B(i) Pheasant (o' 30") : calls (2) Linnet (2'x 5'): song (3) Bar- red Warbler (3'; 5"): song 24 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS RFEP 218 A(i) Red-breasted Flycatcher (2' 43"): song by two cocks, the first from Oland, the second (after i'45") from Stockholm (2) Collared Flycatcher (2'42"): song (3) Spotted Flycatcher (i^o"): calls and song B(i) Stock Dove (2'i6"): song (2) Collared Dove (i'26"): song (3) Woodpigeon (3 '07"): song and (after i '30") display notes as cock displays before hen rfep 219 A(i) Reed Bunting (2' 27"): song by three cocks from different parts of Sweden (the second and third at o' 40" and 1T5" respectively) (2) Reed Warb- ler (2'2o"): song, which may include mimicry of Swallow (3) Great Reed Warbler (i'ji"): song B(i) W hooper Swan (z'o8") : ‘a choir of many thousands as they rise from Lake Tysslingen in Narke’ (2) Mute Swan (2'o4*) : cries from a flock ; wing noises ; hissing of cob and cheeps of cygnets (3) Bittern (2'37*): usual booming song, but also the goose-like call uttered on evenings in September and October rfep 220 A(i) Avocct (i'2i"): breeding ground calls (2) Dunlin (r'26"): breeding ground calls (3) Oystercatcher (2'46") : different calls; Redshank and Ringed Plover in background (4) Shelduck (o'59"): calls of duck and drake B(i) Heron (i^i"): different calls (2) Little Ringed Plover (2 '4 3") : three different calls and flight-song (3) Ringed Plover (2'32"): call and flight-song rfep 221 A: Capercaillie (6^5 5 ") : spring ‘song’, first by one cock and then by several which fly in; other sounds include the rattling croaks which accompany bow- ing (first heard at 2'5o’), a fight between two cocks (starting at 5/25"), a clucking female attracting the attention of the males (at 5 '2 5") and, as a Great Tit begins to sing, the flurry of wings when a cock springs into the air several times B : Black Grouse {j'oo") : Blackcocks at lek, with an occasional cackle from a Greyhen (e.g. at i'23") rfep 222 A(r) Black-bellied Dipper (i'2i"): call and song (2) Black Stork (o^'): ‘song’ (3) Pine Bunting (i'oz"): an individual of this Asiatic species was trapped in Upland, central Sweden, on 18th January 1959 and recorded in captivity (4) Woodlark (3 '21'): an impeccable recording of this magnificent singer B(i) Great Grey Shrike (3'o9'): song, including alarm call (the latter particularly clear at 2 ’40") (2) Brambl- ing ten seconds of flight song; ten seconds of alarm call; then normal song (3) Ural Owl (1 '47") : calls by male and female rfep 223 A(i) Grey-headed Wagtail (1 '5 7") : recorded in northern Sweden, the song of this race (/ hmbergi ) is indistinguish- able from that of the nominate form (2) Lapland Bunting (3T3"): song (3) Rough-legged Buzzard (1 ' 1 3") : adult’s warning cries to cheeping young B(i) Little Stint ( 1 ' 3 5 ") : calls; autumn song of young Wood Sandpiper and calling flock of Dunlin in background (2) Tcmminck’s Stint (o'49'): breeding- season song (3) Broad-billed Sand- piper (o'5o"): calls on breeding-ground (4) Spotted Redshank (i'4o'): calls on breeding-ground (5) Grey Plover (1' 06'): calls RFEP 224 A(i) Great Snipe (2'o7'): vocal and instrumental sounds (2) Jack Snipe (i,32"): breeding season calls (3) Whimbrcl (3'o3'): alarm call of male, followed (at o'oS') by higher-pitched female utterance; then ‘song’ B(i) Wigeon (o'43'): calls of duck and drake (2) Pochard (o'47"): calls of duck and drake (3) Goldeneye (1T9'): noises from birds in flight; drake’s courting croaks and Garganev-like noises, answered (at 1T2") by female calls; Mallard and Wigeon in background (4) Bewick’s Swan (i'27'): calls of adults and birds of the year in autumn in Denmark (5) Pink-footed Goose (1' 33"): calls of flock of nearly a thousand in Denmark 25 BRITISH BIRDS RFEP 225 A(i) Turnstone (i'oo"): calls; Arctic Tern in background (2) Black Tern (o'5i"): calls (3) Caspian Tern (1 '3 5") : two types of call (4) Herring Gull (o'48"): calls (5) Lesser Black-backed Gull (o'4i"): calls B(i) Cormorant (x '43") : calls by birds of the nominate race in Norway (2) Southern Cor- morant (i'o7"): calls by birds of the southern race {sinensis) (3) Eider (3^5 3") ; calls of ducks and drakes RFEP 226 A(i) Moorhen (o' 5 7") : calls (2) Tufted Duck (2T8"): calls by ducks and drakes, and by birds in flight (3) Coot (2T6"): variety of calls B(i) Little Grebe (o' 5 3") : breeding season trill (2) Great Crested Grebe (o'58"): calls in March and April (3) Red-necked Grebe (3T2") : nesting-place calls; Curlew in back- ground at start and Spotted Crake later rfep 227 A(i) Red-breasted Merganser (1Y7") : female calling in flight; drake’s calls (after o'4o") (2) Goosander (i'28"): beautiful ringing calls from drake and repeated notes of harsher quality in reply from female (3) Velvet Scoter (o'3o"): calls of female from the air (4) Long-tailed Duck (3T0"): a swim- ming flock of 400; the calls are mainly those of drakes, but the shrill calls of the females break through (at 1T2" and 1 '18"); at the end the flock takes off (after 2'3o") B(i) Rustic Bunting (2'24"): song by this very pleasing species (2) Yellow-breasted Bunting (2'o7"): song in Finland (3) Bar-tailed Godwit {z'07") : calls of male and female in Norway (the female can best be heard at o'55" and the male at 1 '3 5 ") rfep 228 A : Red-spotted Blucthroat (6'i 5") : song from a skilful imitator which repro- duces, among others, the calls or songs of Mallard, Golden Plover, Willow Tit, Great Grey Shrike, Blackbird, Broad- billed Sandpiper, Common Sandpiper and Redpoll; Reindeer R angifer tarandus bells can be heard in the background and this charming little bird also gives a remarkably faithful reproduction of their sound (at x'30") B(i) Raven (1 '1 8") : usual croaks (2) Hooded Crow (o'5o"): calls (3) Carrion Crow (o'43")r calls in Holland (4) Rook (i'oj"): calls (5) Magpie (1T4"): a variety of calls rfep 229 A(i) Partridge (i'25"): calls of male and female, and alarm (2) Ptarmigan (o'2o"): calls in Norway (3) Willow Grouse (2'2o"): notes of male (4) White-fronted Goose (1T2"): calls of flock on ground and in flight (5) Brent Goose (1 '20") : calls of flock B(i) Long- tailed Skua (o'57"): shrill cries of male, and occasional calls of female (e.g. at o'35"), in nesting territory in Norway (2) Wheatear (2T5"): song and alarm call (3) Naumann’s Thrush (o'57"): song of this Asiatic vagrant near Kir- kenas (4) Snowy Owl (o'4o"): calls from each of a captive pair rfep 230 A(i) Common Tern (2'oo"): calls in colony (2) Arctic Tern (2'oo"): calls in colony (3) Sandwich Tern ( x ' 5 5 ") : calls in colony B(i) Buzzard (o'3i"): calls (2) Hybrid Black Grouse male X Caper- caillie female (2' 1 7") (3) Great Grey Owl (2'38"): spring ‘song’ of male for first 40 seconds, then recordings made seven weeks later when young are about to fledge: the female begs food from the male and then (starting at i'io") makes a variety of grunting, chirping, snap- ping and cooing noises, being interrup- ted by two calls from the male; the hungry owlets call (after x'50') and the male utters a loud double note Details of the last five discs, which I have not yet been able to hear, have kindly been supplied by Sture Palmer. rfep 231 A(i) White Wagtail (o'44"): song and calls (2) Rock Pipit (1 '45"') : song (3) Red-throated Pipit (i'4o"): calls and song in Norway (4) Tawny Pipit (i'oo"): song and call notes B(r) Kes- trel (1Y3" and 1 To"): alarm note and different calls (2) Hobby (o'47*): 26 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS alarm near nest (3) Kingfisher (C30"): call and song (4) Hawfinch (i'io"): song and call rfep 232 A(i) Turtle Dove (C05"): song in England (2) Black Redstart (i'37'O : two variations of song (3) Stoncchat (Too"): alarm call in England (4) Nightingale (C50"): song at daybreak in Germany B(i) Honey Buzzard (o' 50") : conversational and flight calls (2) Cres- ted Tit (o'4o"): song (3) Hazel Hen (o'36"): song (4) Crossbill (C47"): recorded in captivity; individual calls (to o'25"), followed by song (to C25") and flight calls (to end) (5) Parrot Crossbill (C40"): individual calls (to o'3o"), followed by song (to C05") and flock calls (to end) rfep 233 A(i) White Stork (Coo"): instrumental ‘song’ (2) Spoonbill (C35"): calls of young and conversational call in Holland (3) Stone Curlew (1T3"): calls of young (to o' 25") and flight calls (to end) in England (4) Little Owl (2T8"): song and cheeps of young in Denmark B(i) Little Tern (2'oo") various conversational call notes (2) Arctic Skua (i^o"): anxiety calls (3) Kentish Plover (C30"): call (4) Ruddy Shelduck (o'35"): calls of captive bird (5) Little Bittern (1T5"): song in Germany rfep 234 A(i) Dotterel (o'55"): flight call of female in Norway (2) Lesser White- fronted Goose (o'jo"): individual and flock calls (3) Snow Bunting (2^5") : alarm, song and contact call in Norway (4) Shore Lark (2'oo"): song in Norway B(i) Greenshank flight calls and alarm (2) Red-necked Phalarope (o' 53"): conversational calls (3) Pectoral Sandpiper (o'4o"): flight call (4) Green Sandpiper (2T0"): various calls of male and female rfep 235 A(i) Waxwing (C30'): calls (to o'3o*), followed by song of captive individual (2) Pine Grosbeak (i'io*): song (to 1 '00") and call of one which was in captivity for three weeks and then freed (3) Siberian Jay (2'oo"): conversational calls, imitations and alarm (4) Hawk Owl (T05"): calls of adult and cheeps of young B(i) Great Spotted Wood- pecker (T30"): drumming (to o'25"), followed by alarm (to 105") and calls of young (to end) (2) Middle Spotted Woodpecker (T40"): calls (to i'oo"), followed by calls of young (3) Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (T40"): drum- ming, vocal calls, alarm and calls of young (4) Three-toed Woodpecker C1 '3 5") : drumming, vocal call and hunger cries of young 35. traber, hans (1958-61): So Sitigen Unsere Vogel. Nine 7-inch, 33.3 r.p.rn. discs, nos. 14-21 and 23. Swiss Society for Bird Protec- tion, Zurich. Obtainable from Plans Traber, Frohburgstrasse 46, Zurich 6, Switzerland. I have not been able to hear any of these nine records under the original label, but I have been able to play through nos. 15 and 17-21, re-issued under the label of the European Phono Club of Amsterdam and sold, with English and Dutch notes and scientific names, by the bird protection societies of Britain and Holland, under the title Lis/en ... the Birds. In all, sixty-five species of birds can be heard. record 14 A: Nightingale, Wren, Grey-headed Woodpecker, Skylark B : Field Cricket, Starling, Common Toad, Reed W arbler, Red Deer record 15 A: Blackbird, Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, Golden Oriole B: Robin, Cuckoo, Nuthatch, Woodpigeon, Jay 27 BRITISH BIRDS RECORD I 6 A: Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Chaffinch B: Linnet, Ortolan Bunting, Yellow- hammer, Corn Bunting record 17 A: Garden Warbler, Blackcap, Wren, Wood Warbler, Chiffchaff B: Fire- crest, Goldcrest, Coal Tit, Marsh Tit, Great Tit record 18 A : Nightingale, Willow Warbler, White- throat, Icterine Warbler B : Great Reed Warbler, Reed Warbler, Marsh Warbler, Grasshopper Warbler record 19 A : Tawny Owl, Little Owl, Scops Owl, Barn Owl B : Wryneck, Green Wood- pecker, Grey-headed Woodpecker, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Black Woodpecker record 20 A: Skylark, Woodlark, Tree Pipit, Lloopoe B: Redstart, Black Redstart, Swallow, Sand Martin RECORD 21 A : Starling, Pied Flycatcher, Serin, Red-backed Shrike B : Whinchat, Reed Bunting, Turtle Dove, Nightjar record 23 A: Ring Ouzel, Bonelli’s Warbler, Lesser Whitethroat B : Black Grouse, Dunnock, Three-toed Woodpecker 36. roche, jean-claude ( 1 9 5 9) : Oiseaux en Camargue. One io-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc, no. LDP B.250 Med. Pacific, 20 bis, rue Louis Philippe, Neuilly (Seine), France. Distributed in Britain by Rare Records Ltd., 5-7 Barton Square, Manchester. The voices of thirty-nine birds and two amphibians are given on this disc, which includes four birds — Little Egret, Night Heron, Flamingo and Spectacled Warbler — not found on any other. The alphabetical list of some of the species given on the reverse of the first printing of the sleeve is incomplete and inaccurate, and should be ignored; also, the recorded announcements in French con- tain one misidentification (see below). The printing and sound mixing were done in Monsieur Roche’s absence, but he has kindly confirmed the accuracy of the revised list given below. This conforms with that given on the second printing of the cover (French and scientific names), except that the scientific name of the Nightingale is there wrongly given as Luscinia luscinia. Among the more pleasing recordings are the Melodious Warbler which mimics Swallow, House Sparrow and Nightingale; the answer- ing Tawny Owls; the Spectacled Warbler; and the lower-pitched Mediterranean race of the Herring Gull. The Long-eared Owl is uttering what must be one of the rarer calls of the species. A: Herring Gull and Black-headed Gull, Black-winged Stilt and Avocet, Flamingo, Common Tern, Mallard, Shclduck, Little Egret and Night Heron, Spectacled Warbler, Great Reed Warb- ler, Purple Heron and Bearded Tit, Bittern, Moustached Warbler, Savi’s Warbler, Cuckoo, European Tree Frog Hyla arborea. Natterjack Toad Bufo calamita. Scops Owl, Nightingale B: Skylark, Redstart and Magpie, Corn Bunting, Great Tit, Chaffinch, Green- finch, Melodious Warbler, Long-eared Owl, Turtle Dove and Golden Oriole, Chiffchaff, Serin, Whitethroat, Robin and Blackbird, Wren, Blackcap, Tawny Owl (the announcement on the disc of the ‘Mcsange noire’, or Coal Tit, should be ignored: all the Pams calls arc those of the ‘Mcsange cbarbonnierc’, or Great Tit) 28 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS 37. roche, jean-claude (about 1 95 9): Chants des Canaries. One 7-inch, 45 r.p.m. disc, no. 9I-375'B-Med. Pacific, 20 bis, rue Louis Philippe, Neuilly (Seine), France. Distributed in Britain by Rare Records Ltd., 5-7 Barton Square, Manchester. The output of domestic Canaries is of no interest to the field orni- thologist, but may well be of scientific value to workers in other branches of the science (see Poulsen 1959 and Marler 1959). In any case, few would deny the beauty of the songs on this or the other discs devoted to aviary-bred Canaries (5, 6, 7, 9, 12 and 19). Each side of this record is devoted to a particular ‘breed’: the first to the ‘Hartz Mountains’ Canary and the second to the ‘Paris Nightingale’ Canary. In each case, the different utterances which the birds are trained and line-bred to sing are verbally identified and are then followed bv a ‘concert’. 38. hoshino, kasuke, and kabaya, t. (i 9 5 9) : Japanese Bird Songs. Two 10-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. discs, nos. LV 519 and LV 520. Victor Company of Japan, 1-1, 4 chome, Nihonbashi-Honcyo, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan. For this long-playing edition of the earlier set of ‘78s’ (26), three species have been dropped (Whooper Swan, Jay and Gray’s Grass- hopper Warbler) and eleven added, of which eight (asterisked in the list below) are exclusive. One of these, Sturnus phi/ippensis, is des- cribed as the Red-cheeked Starlet, which could be construed as sup- porting the company’s claim on the sleeve that ‘The World’s Greatest Artists are on Victor Records’! The total number of species in this edition is forty-seven. Taking into account the earlier set, fifteen species (ten passerines and five non-passerines) offer an interesting opportunity for comparison with vocalisations of the same species (but different races) from Europe, seven thousand miles to the west. These are the Skylark, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Wren, Great Reed Warbler, Stonechat, Arctic W arbler, Willow Tit, Nuthatch and Jay, and the Cuckoo, Great Spotted W ood- pecker, Ural Owl, Scops Owl and Whooper Swan. To me, the Skylark, Great Tit and Coal Tit, for example, sound very similar indeed. The Wren’s song has the same character but can last much longer (up to ten seconds). On the other hand, the Stonechat and the Arctic Warbler could sound confusingly different from their western Palearctic counterparts. The Red-flanked Bluetail and Alpine Accentor, given here, have not yet been recorded in Europe. A song of unusual timbre is that of the Japanese Robin, about which the notes say, ‘Lifting its head when it sings, its song and action remind one of a horse’! A very pleasing song and surprising!} so for a 29 BRITISH BIRDS bunting— is that of the Japanese Yellow Bunting, which sings pure notes in considerable variety. On first hearing, the combined mechanical and vocal effort of Latham’s Snipe is little less than terrify- ing. Perhaps the most beautiful singer is the Blue and White Fly- catcher. Names and short notes in Japanese and English are provided, and also scientific trinomials. As with the earlier set, the nomenclature in the following list has been brought up to date for ease of reference. All forty-seven species are illustrated in colour on the sleeves. lv 519 A: Dawn chorus, Bush Warbler, Cuckoo, Little Cuckoo, Skylark, Japan- ese Pheasant, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Black Japanese Flycatcher, Siberian Meadow Bunting*, Grey- hooded Bunting, Japan- ese Yellow Bunting* B: Japanese Robin, Siberian Blue Robin, Blue-and- white Flycatcher, Narcissus Flycatcher, Fugitive Hawk Cuckoo, Wren, Rufous Turtle Dove, Masked Bunting, Red- cheeked Starling*, Great Reed Warbler, Black-browed Reed Warbler, Great Spotted Woodpecker LV 520 A : Chorus with Grey Thrush, Grey Thrush, Red-bellied Thrush, Siberian Thrush, Oriental Cuckoo, Stonechat, Japanese White-eye, White’s Thrush, Ruddy Crake*, Jungle Nightjar, Ural Owl, Scops Owl B : Arctic Warbler, Masked Hawfinch, Alpine Accentor, Indian Tree Pipit, Latham’s Snipe, Red- flanked Bluetail*, Crowned Willow Warbler, Willow Tit, Nuthatch, Grey Bunting, Oriental Greenfinch*, Brown Dipper*, Ruddy Kingfisher* *These species are not found on any other recordings yet published. 39. bondesen, poul (i960): Fugle-Sangen. One io-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc of recordings by Carl Weismann, and book (84 pages). Rhodos, Weideweltsgade 5 5 , Copenhagen, Denmark. The recordings of 37 species on the long-player accompanying this book were copied directly from the 78 r.p.m. discs issued earlier (20) (Carl Weismann in lift.). They are introduced and interpreted on the record in some detail, in Danish, which is also the language of the text of the book. To judge from the drawings, diagrams, photographs and references and from the publisher’s English translation of the chapter headings and the key to certain of the songs, it is very much to be hoped that an English version may become available. The Danish and scientific names of the birds on the record appear only as an integral part of the alphabetic index to the whole publica- tion. A: Blackbird, Chaffinch (call), Carrion Crow, Jackdaw, Cuckoo, Golden Oriole, Starling (including mimicry), Starling, Linnet, Grasshopper Warbler, Grass- hopper Warbler (slowed down), Chiff- chaff, Chiffchaff (slowed down). Great Tit, Goldcrest, Willow Warbler, Dun- nock, Whitethroat, Garden Warbler, Yellowhammer, Ycllowhammcr (slowed down), Yellowhammer (geographical variant), Wood Warbler, Chaffinch (song), Chaffinch (geographical variant). Corn Bunting, Reed Bunting B: Pied Flycatcher, Robin, Redstart, Lesser 30 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat (slowed gale (slowed down). Song Thrush, down), Blackcap, Tree Pipit, Wren, Ictcrinc Warbler, Marsh Warbler Sky- Reed Warbler, Great Reed Warbler, lark. Greenfinch, Woodlark, Blackbird Sedge Warbler, Nightingale, Nightin- 40. koch, ludwig (i960): Bird Song. One 7-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc, no. 2/1351/26, and booklet (12 pages). Talking Book Co. Ltd., 37 Essex Street, Strand, London, W.C.2. This disc gives twenty-one vocalisations covering ten bird species, all of which are reasonably common and widespread in the British Isles. Most of the recordings are from Dr. Koch’s original collection and are now in the possession of the B.B.C., but they include four which were made on tape in his Middlesex garden in the summer of 1959. In addition to songs, there are the call-notes of a number of species, the begging cries of young Blackbirds and a very clear repro- duction of a Starling mimicking a Blackbird. The ‘talking book’ is intended primarily for children; however, it also has value for orni- thologists, though not all of them may agree with the biological interpretations in the commentary of the sounds heard. This record was reviewed earlier in this journal, on publication (Campbell i960). A: House Sparrow, Tree Sparrow, B: Starling, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Dunnock, Carrion Crow, Rook, Raven Mistle Thrush 41. lindblad, jan (1960-62): Den Sjitngande Fagelboken. Thirteen 7-inch, 45 r.p.m. discs, nos. Snurr-EP 301-3 10. Metronome, Dala- gatan 6, Stockholm C, Sweden. Although not ‘books’ as the title suggests, the covers for these records have been cleverly designed to include two pages of colour paintings of the species on each and two pages of Swedish text and monochrome photographs; a line colour photograph also appears on each cover. Scientific names of the sixty-five species are given only on a minority of the discs. J EP 30I A: Black Grouse, Skylark B: Caper- caillie, Chaffinch, Goldcrcst, Tree- creeper, Wren ep 302 A : Crane and Song Thrush B : Black- bird, Mistle Thrush, Fieldfare, Redwing ep 303 A: Cuckoo, Willow Warbler, Wood Warbler B : Garden Warbler, Lesser Whitethroat, Pied Flycatcher, Red- breasted Flycatcher, chorus ep 304 A : Thrush Nightingale, Ictcrine W arb- ler, Kingfisher B : Redstart, Tree Pipit, Green Woodpecker ep 305 A: Bittern, Spotted Crake, Moorhen, Slavonian Grebe B: Sedge Warbler, Reed Warbler, Reed Bunting, Heron ep 306 A: Yellow hammer, Ortolan Bunting, Linnet, Scarlet Grosbeak B: Whin- chat, Wheatear, Whitethroat EP 307 A: Whooper Swan, Tcngmalm’s Owl, Ural Owl B : Pygmy Owl, Willow Tit, Crossbill, Parrot Crossbill (in the illus- 3 1 BRITISH BIRDS tration captioned ‘Stor Korsnabb’, or Parrot Crossbill, a cock Two-barred Crossbill appears alongside a cock Parrot Crossbill) ep 308 A : Robin, Dunnock, Blackcap B : Greenfinch, Siskin, Spotted Flycatcher, Chiffchaff ep 309 A: Woodcock, Nightjar, Corncrake B: Grasshopper Warbler, River Warb- ler, Blyth’s Reed Warbler ep 310 A : Eagle Owl B : Short-eared Owl, Long-eared Owl, Tawny Owl, Ural Owl, Tengmalm’s Owl, Pygmy Owl ep 31 1 A : Goshawk, Sparrowhawk, Osprey, Peregrine B : Hobby, Merlin, Buzzard, Rough-legged Buzzard, Golden Eagle ep 312 A : Black-throated Diver, Red-throated Diver, Common Sandpiper B: Great Spotted Woodpecker, Three-toed Woodpecker, Black Woodpecker, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker ep 313 A : Great Tit, Coal Tit, Crested Tit, Blue Tit B : Starling, Wryneck, Nuthatch 42. roche, jean-claude (i960): Oiseaux en Bretagne. One io-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc, no. LDP-B 260 Med. Pacific, 20 bis, rue Louis Philippe, Neuilly (Seine), France. Distributed in Britain by Rare Records Ltd., 5-7 Barton Square, Manchester. Sound-production by thirty-nine birds and two amphibians are reproduced on this record. A full list with French and scientific names is given on the back of the cover, but there is one discrepancy: on the disc the Yellowhammer is the last, not the first, of the buntings to sing. The front of the sleeve is rendered very attractive by a colour photograph of Gannets ‘scissoring’ on Les Sept lies. Of particular interest are the songs of the Woodchat Shrike, Ortolan Bunting, White-spotted Bluethroat and Blue-headed Wagtail. A(i) Oystercatcher, Gannet, Puffin, Razorbill, Lesser Black-backed and Herring Gulls, Kittiwake (2) Edible Frog Rana esculenta. Redshank, Corn- crake, Reed Bunting, Blue-headed Wag- tail, Reed Warbler, Sedge Warbler (3) Whinchat, Stonechat, Wheatear, Linnet, White-spotted Bluethroat, Nightjar, Midwife Toad Alytcs obsletri- cans B(i) House Sparrow, Hoopoe, Swallow, Black Redstart, Goldfinch (2) Quail, Wryneck, Cirl Bunting, Ortolan Bunting, Yellowhammer, Woodchat Shrike, Woodlark (3) Rook, Garden Warbler, Tree Pipit, Pied Fly- catcher, Golden Oriole, Willow Warb- ler, Mistle Thrush, Song Thrush 43- roche, jean-claude (i960): Francis et les Oiseaux. One 7-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc, no. CLA.1002. Clartes, 6 rue des Capucines, Paris ze. A reconstruction in sound for children, written by G. Dobbelaere, in which a young boy, Francis, is taken for a country walk by a forester who identifies the voices of seventeen woodland birds. French and scientific names are given, but the Nightingale is wrongly referred to as JLuscina luscina (instead of Fuscinia mcgarhynchos). A: Jackdaw, Rook, Carrion Crow, ted W'oodpeckcr B: Wren, Blackcap, Chaffinch, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Nut- Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, Cuckoo, hatch, Green Woodpecker, Great Spot- Blackbird, Robin, Nightingale I «*' Plate i. Ludwig Koch, 1961; sec ia, 2, 10, 14, 15* iis 80th year, recording Swallows, Somerser iunc 24, 25, 33 and 40 in the discography (photo/K^.) Plate 2. The ‘authors’ of the two most extensive sets of Palearctic discs yet published. Above, Eric Simms recording Little Ringed Plovers, Essex, May 1951, with a parabolic reflector ; sec 33 {photo: Eric Hosking). Below, Sture Palmer, Sweden ; see 16 and 34, the latter a set of 35 discs featuring 238 species {photo: Goran Hansson ) i k \te 3 a. John Kirby fording a Rccd Bun- Yorkshire, about 3, with home-made :-recorder based on portable clockwork nophone; see 33, 57, 59 and 67 68 Roche, J.-C. and C., 54 Rodd, M., 47 Schalow, E., and Wendland, V., 44 Shove, L., 64 Tcsson, A., 45 Traber, H., 27, 35 Trctzel, E., 65, 66 Trumbull, V. and F., C4 Ulrich, H., 53, 60 Vcprintsev, B., 46 Wahlstrom, S., 62 Wahlstrom, S., and Abcrg, S., 63 Ward, J. and W., Ci W'eismann, C., 13, 20 Zwecrcs, K., 55 CROSS-INDEX OF SPECIES 360 species, sound-production by which can be heard on the gramo- phone records given in the discography, are listed below, and also two hybrids. The systematic order and the vernacular and scientific names generally follow' Peterson et al. 1954 or Vaurie 1959. The plain numbers refer to the records in Part A of the discography (recordings made within the Palearctic region); the numbers prefixed ‘B’ refer to records in Part B of the discography (Palearctic individuals recorded outside the region on migration or in winter quarters); and the numbers prefixed ‘C’ refer to Part C (recordings made in countries outside the Palearctic of descendants of introduced Palearctic stock). Only three species on the list were recorded only outside the region : the Chukar (C7), Peking Robin (Ci and C7) and Marsh Sandpiper (Br). Black-throated Diver Gavia arctica, 16, 33. 34. 41. 58> 62 Great Northern Diver Gavia immer, 33 Red-throated Diver Gavia stellata. 16, 33, 34. 4i Great Crested Grebe Podiceps cris/a/us, 16, 20, 33, 34, 55, 62 Red-necked Grebe Podiceps griseigetia, 34 Slavonian Grebe Podiceps auritus, 33, 41. 62 Little Grebe Podiceps ruficollis, 33, 34. 54. 62, 65 Leach’s Petrel Oceatiodroma leucorrboa, 33 Storm Petrel Hydrobates pelagicus, 33, 48 Manx Shearwater Proceltaria puffinus, 33, 58 Cory’s Shearwater Proceltaria diomedea, 48 Fulmar Pul mar us glacialis, 33, 58 Gannet Sul a bassana, 33, 42 Cormorant Pba/acrocorax carbo, 20, 33, 34. 55 Shag Pba/acrocorax aristoielis, 33 Heron Ardea cinerea, 16, 18, 20, 31. 33. 34. 4G 53. 54. 55. 62, 69 Purple Heron Ardea purpurea, 36, 55 Little Egret Egretta gargetta, 36 Night Heron Nycticorax nycticorax, 36 Little Bittern Ixobrycbus minutus, 34 Bittern Botaurus s/ellaris, 16, 20, 31, 33, 34. 36, 41. 5°. 55. 62, 67 47 BRITISH BIRDS White Stork Ciconia ciconia, 16, 20, 31, 34, 48, 62 Black Stork Ciconia nigra, 16, 34 Spoonbill Platalea leucorodia, 34, 55 Flamingo Phoenicopterus ruber, 36 Mallard Anas platyrbyncbos, 33, 34, 36, 55, 56, 62 Teal Anas crecca, 33, 34, 58, 62 Garganey ^4/wx querquedula, 33, 34 Gad wall Anas strepera, 33, 67 Wigeon vd/wx penelope, 33, 34, 56, 58, 59, 62 Shovcler Spatula clypeata, 33, 34 Mandarin M/V galericulata, 69 Tufted Duck Aythya fuligula, 34, 62 Pochard Aythya ferina, 34 Goldeneye Bucepbala clangula, 34, 62 Barrow’s Goldeneye Bucepbala islandica, 56 Long-tailed Duck Clangula byemalis, 16, 34, 56, 62 Velvet Scoter Melanitta fusca, 34 Eider Somateria mollissima, 33, 34, 56, 58, 62 Red-breasted Merganser Mergus senator, 34» 58 Goosander Mergus merganser, 33, 34, 62 Sbelduck Tadorna tadorna, 20, 33, 34, 36, 67 Ruddy Shelduck Casarca ferruginea, 34, 56 Grey Lag Goose Anser anser, 16, 33, 34, 62 White-fronted Goose Anser albifrons, 33, 34, 46, 56, 62 Lesser White-fronted Goose Anser erythropus, 16, 33, 34 Bean Goose Anser fabalis, 33, 34, 62 Pink-footed Goose Anser bracbyrhynchus , 33. 34 Brent Goose Branta bernicla, 33, 34, 58 Barnacle Goose Branta Ieucopsis, 16, 33, 34, 62 Canada Goose Branta canadensis, 33, 34, 56, 59, 62, 67, 69 Red-breasted Goose Branta ruficollis, 33 Mute Swan Cygnus olor, 33, 34, 62, 67 Whooper Swan Cygnus cygnus, 16, 26, 33, 34. 4r. 59. 62 Bewick’s Swan Cygnus bemckii, 33, 34, 56 Golden Eagle Aquila cbrysaetos, 33, 41, 58 Booted Eagle Hierae/us pennatus, 48 Buzzard Buteo buteo, 16, 31, 33, 34, 41, 53. 62, 64 Rough-legged Buzzard Buteo lagopus, 16, 34. 4i Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus, 20, 33, 41 Goshawk Accipiter gentilis, 34, 41 White- tailed Eagle Haliaetus albicilla, 16 Honey Buzzard Perm's apivorus, 34 Montagu’s Harrier Circus pygargus, 33 Osprey Pandion haliaetus, 16, 34, 41, 62 Hobby Falco subbuteo, 33, 34, 41 Peregrine Falco peregrinus, 33, 41, 58, 60 Gyr Falcon Falco rusticolus, 16 Merlin Falco columbarius, 16, 33, 41, 62 Lesser Kestrel Falco naumanni, 48 Kestrel Falco tinnunculus, 31, 33, 34, 45, 59 Willow Grouse Lagopus lagopus, 16, 34, 62 Red Grouse Lagopus scoticus, 33, 59 Ptarmigan Lagopus mutus, 33, 34, 58 Black Grouse Lyrurus tetrix, 10, 16, 31, 33. 34. 35. 41. 46» 62. 63 Black Grouse Lyrurus tetrix x Caper- caillie Tetrao urogallus, 34 Capercaillie Tetrao urogallus, 16, 33, 34, 41, 46, 62 Hazel Hen Tetrastes bonasia, 34 Chukar Alectoris chukar, C7 Red-legged Partridge Alectoris rufa, 33, 45 Partridge Perdix perdix, 16, 33, 34, 58, 65, 69 Quail Coturnix cotumix, 16, 31, 34, 42, 46, 69 Pheasant Pbasianus colchicus, 23, 31, 33, 34, 49, 69, C6, C7 Japanese Pheasant Pbasianus versicolor, 26, 38 Crane Megalornis grus, 16, 34, 41, 46, 62 Water Rail Rallies aquaticus, 16, 33, 34, 54. 62 Spotted Crake Por^ana porsyma, 16, 29, 33, 34, 41, 46, 62 Baillon’s Crake Porsyma pusilla, 16, 33, 34 Little Crake Por^ana parva, 16, 33, 34 Corncrake Crex crex, 16, 29, 33, 34, 41, 42, 45, 46, 50, 52, 59, 62 Ruddy Crake Por^a/ia fusca, 38 Moorhen Gallinula chloropus, 16, 20, 25, 33. 34. 4L 54. 67 Coot Fulica atra, 20, 25, 31, 33, 34, 42, 45. 54. 55. 62, 67 48 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS Oystercatcher Haematopus ostralegus, 16, 20> 33* 34* 42» 57. 59. 62, 63 Lapwing Vanellus vanellus, 16, 20, 33, 34, 46, 53. 57. 59. 62» 69 Ringed Plover Charadrius hiaticula, 33, 34 Little Ringed Plover Charadrius dubius, l6> 33. 34. 62 Kentish Plover Charadrius alexandrinus , 34 Grey Plover Charadrius squatarola, 33, b3 Golden Plover Charadrius apricarius, 33, 34. 57. 59. 62 Dotterel Charadrius morinellus, 33, 34 Turnstone Arenaria interpres, 16, 34, 62 Snipe Gallinago gallinago, 16, 20, 31, 33, 34. 46, 57. 59. 62 Great Snipe Gallinago media, 34, 46 Latham’s Snipe Gallinago hardmckii, 26, 38 Jack Snipe Tymnocryptes minimus, 34 Woodcock Scolopax rusticola, 16, 33, 34, 4*. 46> 57. 62 Curlew Numenius arqua/a, 16, 18, 33, 34, 5°. 53. 57. 59. 62 Whimbrel Numenius phaeopus, 16, 33, 34, b3 Black-tailed Godwit L iviosa limosa, 16, 20. 31. 33. 34. 46 Bar-tailed Godwit Umosa tapponica, 33, 34. 58 Green Sandpiper Tringa ochropus, 16, 34 Wood Sandpiper Tringa glareo/a, 16, 33, 46, Bi, B3 Common Sandpiper Tringa hypoleucos, 16, 33. 34. 41. 46> 57. 62 Redshank Tringa totanus, 16, 20, 31, 33, 34, 42, 50, 57, 59, 62, 67 Spotted Redshank Tringa erythropus, 33, 34 Grcenshank Tringa nebularia, 16, 33, 34 Marsh Sandpiper Tringa stagnafilis, Bi Terek Sandpiper Tringa terek, 46 Little Stint Catidris minuta, 34 Temminck’s Stint Calidris iemminckii, 34 Pectoral Sandpiper Calidris melanotos, 34 Dunlin Calidris alpina, 16, 20, 34, 62 Broad-billed Sandpiper Timicola falcinel- lus, 34 Avocct Recurvirostra avosetta, 16, 20, 31* 33. 34. 36 Black-winged Stilt Himantopus btman- topus, 33, 36 Red-necked Phalarope Pbalaropus lobatus, 16, 34 Stone Curlew Burhinus oedicnemus, 33, 34, 54 Pratincole Glareola prat incola, 48 Great Skua Cat bar act a skua, 33, 58 Arctic Skua Stercorarius parasiticus, 33, 34 Long-tailed Skua Stercorarius longicaudus, 34. 58 Great Black-backed Gull Tarns mar inns, 33. 57 Lesser Black-backed Gull Tarns fuscus, 33. 34. 42* 57 Herring Gull Tarns argentatus, 16, 30, 31, 33. 34. 36, 42. 57. 62, 63 Common Gull Tarns canns, 16, 33, 34, 57, 58, 62, 63 Little Gull Tarns minutus, 34 Black-headed Gull Tarns ridibundus, 16, 3«» 33. 34. 36, 46, 54. 57. 62, 63 Kittiwake Rissa tridactyla, 33, 42, 58 Black Tern Chlidonias niger, 16, 34, 55 Gull-billed Tern Ge/oche/idon nilotica, 48 Caspian Tern Hydroprogne caspia, 16, 34 Common Tern Sterna hirundo, 16, 33, 34, 36, 42, 54, 55, 57, 62, 63, 67 Arctic Tern Sterna macrura, 16, 33, 34, 62 Roseate Tern Sterna dougallii , 33 Little Tern Sterna albifrons, 16, 33, 34, 67 Sandwich Tern Sterna sandvicensis, 33, 34 Razorbill Alca torda, 16, 33, 34, 42 Guillemot Uria aalge, 16, 20, 33, 34, 62, 63 Puffin Fra/ercula arctica, 16, 33, 34, 42 Black Guillemot Ceppbus grylle, 34, 62 Stock Dove Columba oenas, 16, 18, 31, 33, 34, 46, 60 Woodpigeon Columba palumbus, to, 15, 16, 23, 27, 33, 34. 35. 59. 60, 62, 69 Turtle Dove Streptopclia turtur, 15, 27, 31. 33. 34. 35. 36, 45. 46, 69 Rufous Turtle Dove Streptopelja orienia- lis, 26, 38 Collared Dove Streptopelia decaocto, 31, 33. 34 Cuckoo Cuculus canorus, 10, 13, 14, 15, 10, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 31, 33, 34> 35* 36. 38. 39, 41, 43, 44. 45* 46. 47* 5°. 53. 55* 60, 62, 69 Fugitive 1 lawk Cuckoo Cuculus fugax , 26, 38 Oriental Cuckoo Cuculus saturatus, 26, 38 49 BRITISH BIRDS Little Cuckoo Cuculus poliocephalus, 26, 38 Great Spotted Cuckoo Clamator glan- darius, 48 Barn Owl Tylo alba, 16, 31, 33, 34, 35 Scops Owl Otus scops, 26, 35, 36, 38, 49, 52 Eagle Owl Bubo bubo, xo, 16, 31, 34, 41 Snowy Owl Nyctea scandiaca, 34, 58 Hawk Owl Surnia ulula, 34 Pygmy Owl Glaucidium passerinum, 16, 34» 4i Little Owl Athene noctua, 18, 31, 33, 34, 35, 42, 49, 54, 55 Tawny Owl Strix aluco, x6, 20, 23, 31, 33» 34. 35> 36, 4*. 44. 46. 47. 49. 52. 53. 59. 62, 69 Great Grey Owl Strix nebulosa, 34, 58 Ural Owl Strix uralensis, 16, 34, 38, 41 Long-eared Owl Asio otus, 16, 31, 34, 36, 4*. 44 Short-eared Owl Asio flammeus, 34, 41 Tengmalm’s Owl Aegolius funereus, 16, 31, 34, 41, 58, 62 Nightjar Caprimulgus europaeus, 16, 18, 20, 23. 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 41, 42, 45, 46, 48, 49. 59. 62, 67 Red-necked Nightjar Caprimulgus rufi- co/lis, 48 Jungle Nightjar Caprimulgus indicus, 26, 38 Swift Apus apus, 16, 33, 34, 51, 62 Alpine Swift Apus melba, 54 Kingfisher Alcedo atthis, 16, 33, 34, 41 Ruddy Kingfisher Halcyon coromanda, 38 Bee-eater Merops apiaster, 31, 33, 48 Roller Coracias garrulus , 16 Hoopoe Upupa epops, 16, 31, 33, 34, 35, 42, 44, 46, 51 Green Woodpecker Picus viridis, 15, 16, 23. 25, 27, 31, 33, 34, 35, 41, 43, 44, 54, 62, 64, 69 Grey-headed Woodpecker Picus canus, 27> 3t. 35 Great Spotted Woodpecker Dendrocopos major, 15, 25, 26, 27, 31, 33, 34, 35, 38, 41. 43. 44. 45. 47. 53. 54. 59. 60, 64, 69 Lesser Spotted Woodpecker Dendrocopos minor, 16, 31, 33, 34, 41, 53, 62 Middle Spotted Woodpecker Dendrocopos medius, 31, 34 Three-toed Woodpecker Picoides tridac- tylus, 34, 35, 41 Black Woodpecker Dryocopus martins, 16, 27> 3i. 34. 35. 4*. 46, 53. 62 Wryneck Jynx torquilla, 16, 17, 31, 33, 34. 35. 41. 42> 44. 45. 51. 62 Calandra Lark Melanocorypha calandra, 48, 68 Short-toed Lark Calandrella cinerea, 48, 68 Crested Lark Galerida cristala, 34, 54, 65, 68 Thekla Lark Galerida theklae, 48, 68 Woodlark Dullula arborea, 14, 16, 18, 20, 25, 27, 28, 33, 34, 35, 39, 42, 44, 49, 54, 62, 65, 66, 68, 69 Skylark Alauda arvensis, 14, 16, 18, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 52, 53, 59, 62, 66, 68, 69, Ci, C5, C7 Shore Lark Eremophila alpeslris, 34 Swallow Hirundo rustica, 14, 16, 20, 24, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 42, 44, 45, 47. 51. 62, 69 House Martin Delicbon urbica, 16, 31, 33, 34, 62, 69 Sand Martin Riparia riparia, 16, 27, 28, 33. 34. 35. 69 Golden Oriole Oriolus oriolus, 10, 14, 16, 20, 24, 27, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 42, 44, 46, 53, 55, 56, 62, 68 Raven Corvus corax, 16, 20, 33, 34, 40, 47, 62, 68 Carrion Crow Corvus corone, 16, 18, 31, 33. 34. 39. 4°. 43. 45. 54. 68, 69 Hooded Crow Corvus corone cornix, 16, 20, 29> 33. 34. 62 Rook Corvus frugilegus, 16, 18, 20, 22, 33, 34, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 62, 64, 68, 69 Jackdaw Corvus moncdula, 16, 18, 20, 23, 3U 33. 34. 39. 43. 44. 47. 51. 54. 59. 68 Magpie Pica pica, 16, 18, 20, 23, 33, 34, 36, 45, 47, 62, 68 Azure-winged Magpie Cyanopica cyanus, 48 Nutcracker Nucifraga caryocatactes, 16, 26, 34. 68 Jay Garrulus glandarius , 16, 18, 20, 26, 27, 31. 33. 34. 35. 45. 53. 54. 62, 68, 69 Siberian Jay Perisoreus infaustes, 34 Chough Pyrrhocorax pyrrbocorax, 33, 54, 68 Alpine Chough Pyrrhocorax graculus, 54, 68 50 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS Great Tit Paras major, 14, 15, 16, 20, 24, 25> 27» 28> 29» 31. 33» 34> 35> 36. 38. 39> 4G 43. 45» 46, 5G 53. 59> 60, 62, 64, 68 Blue Tit Pams caeruletts, 16, 17, 18, 25, 33> 34. 41. 43. 44> 45. 47. 59. 60, 62, 65, 68 Coal Tit Partis ater, 16, 26, 27, 31, 33, 34, 35. 33, 41. 54. 60, 68 Crested Tit Pants cristatus, 16, 33, 34, 41, 53. 65, 68 Marsh Tit Pants palustris, 16, 24, 27, 33, 34. 35. 45. 59. 65. 68 Willow Tit Partis motitanus, 16, 18, 24, 26. 33. 34. 38. 41. 65, 68 Long-tailed Tit Acgit halos caudatus, 16, 33. 65, 68 Pendulinc Tit Remt'z pendulinus, 68 Bearded 'i'it Panurus biarmicus, 33, 36, 67, 68 Nuthatch Sit/a europaea, 16, 24, 26, 31, 33. 34. 35. 38> 41. 43. 44. 46. 54> 59. 60, 64, 69 Rock Nuthatch Sitta netmtayer, 48 Treecreeper Certhia familiaris, 16, 20, 31, 33, 34, 41, 62 Short- toed Treecreeper Certhia braeby- dactyla, 31 Japanese White-eye Zosteropsjaponica, 26, 38, Ci, C7 Wren Troglodytes troglodytes, 13, 15, 16, 17, 20, 24, 26, 27, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36> 38, 39. 41. 43. 45. 46» 47. 51. 53. 59. 62, 64, 69 Dipper Cinclus cinclus, 16, 33, 34 Brown Dipper Cinclus pa/lasii, 38 Siberian Thrush Tttrdus sibirietts, 26, 38 Mistle Thrush Tttrdus viscivorus, 16, 18, 24, 27, 31, 33, 34, 35, 4°. 41. 42> 46. 49. 59. 60, 61, 62, 64, 68 Fieldfare Tttrdus pilaris, 16, 29, 33, 34, 41. 46, 48, 62, 68 Song Thrush Tttrdus pbilomelos, 2, 10, 14, 15, 16, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34. 35. 39. 4°. 41. 42. 44. 45. 46> 47> 49. 53. 55. 59. 61, 62, 64, 68, 69, C5 Redwing Tttrdus iliacus, 16, 33, 34. 4r> 4^> 48, 62, 68 Naumann’s Thrush Turdus naumanni, 34 Ring Ouzel Turdus torquatus, 16, 33, 35> 54. 68 Blackbird Turdus merula, 2, 11, 13, 14. 15» 16, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33. 34. 35. 36. 39. 4°. 41. 43> 44. 45. 46. 47. 51. 53. 54. 55> 59. 61, 62, 64, 68, 69, C5 Red-bellied Thrush Turdus chrysolatts, 26, 38 Grey Thrush Tttrdus cardis, 26, 38 White’s Thrush Turdus dattma, 26, 38 Rock Thrush Alonticota saxati/is, 54, 68 Blue Rock Thrush Monticola solitarius, 48, 68 Whcatcar Oenantbe oenantbe, 16, 20, 33, 34, 41, 42, 62, 65, 68 Black-cared Wheatear Oenantbe bispanica, 48, 68 Black Whcatcar Oenantbe leucura, 68 Stonechat Saxicola iorquata, 26, 28, 33, 34. 38. 42> 45. 65, 68 Whinchat Saxicola rubetra, 16, 20, 27, 29, 3*» 33. 34. 35. 41. 42» 44. 45> 46> 5°> 67» 68 Red-flanked Bluctail Tarsiger cyanttrus, 38 Redstart Phoeni citrus pboeniettrus, 14, 16, 18, 20, 27, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 41, 44, 45, 46, 51, 59, 60, 62, 67, 68, 69 Black Redstart Pboeniettrus oebruros, 16, 17, 27, 31, 33, 34, 35, 42, 44, 45, 51, 68 Nightingale L uscinia mcgarbynchos , 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 14, 15, 21, 23, 24, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 43, 44, 45, 47, 49, 52, 53, 54, 59, 61, 64, 67, 68, 69, B2 Thrush Nightingale Luscinia 1 uscinia, 13, 16, 17, 20, 29, 34, 41, 46, 62 Japanese Robin Luscinia akabige, 26, 38 Siberian Blue Robin Luscinia cyane, 26, 38 Bluethroat Cyanosylvia srecica, 16, 34, 42, 45, 62, 68 Robin Erilbacus rttbecula, 15, 16, 17, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35. 36, 39. 41, 43. 44. 45. 46, 47. 53. 59. 6l» 62> 68> 69 Peking Robin L eiotbrix lutea, Ci, C7 Cetti’s Warbler Cettia cetti, 45, 50, 54, 68 Bush Warbler Cettia diphone, 26, 38 Grasshopper Warbler Locustella naeria, 16, 20, 25, 29, 31, 33, 34. 35> 39» 41. 45» 46, 50, 52, 54, 67, 68 River Warbler Locustella fluviatilis, 16, 34, 41 Savi’s Warbler Locustella luscinioides, 33, 36, 45, 55. 68 , , r Gray’s Grasshopper W’arbler Locustella fasciolata, 26 Moustached Warbler Lusciniola melano- pogon, 33, 36. 68 51 BRITISH BIRDS Great Reed Warbler Acrocephalus arun- dinaceus, 14, 16, 20, 26, 27, 31, 33, 34, 35> 36> 38. 39» 44> 45. 5°. 55. 62, 68 Reed Warbler Acrocephalus scirpaceus, 13, 16, 17, 20, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 39, 41, 42, 50, 53, 55, 62, 67, 68 Marsh Warbler Acrocephalus palus/ris, 13, 16, 17, 20, 24, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 39, 46, 54, 55, 66, 68 Blyth’s Reed Warbler Acrocephalus dumetorum, 29, 34, 41, 46, 62 Sedge Warbler Acrocephalus schoenobaenus , 16, 17, 20, 25, 29, 31, 33, 34, 39, 41, 42, 44, 46, 50, 55, 59, 62, 67 Black-browed Reed Warbler Acrc- cephalus bistrigiceps, 26, 38 Aquatic Warbler Acrocephalus paludicola, 31 Melodious Warbler Hippolais polyglotta, 28, 36, 45, 68 Icterine Warbler Hippolais icterina, 14, 16, 20, 24, 27, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 39, 41, 44, 46, 55, 62, 66, 68 Olivaceous Warbler Hippolais pallida, 48 Blackcap Sylvia atricapilla, 5, 14, 16, 18, 2b, 24, 25, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 41. 43» 44. 46> 53» 59* 6o» 62> 64> 66, 67, 68, 69 Barred Warbler Sylvia nisoria, 14, 16, 34 Orphean Warbler Sylvia hortensis, 48, 68 Garden Warbler Sylvia borin, 5, 14, 16, 18, 20, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 39, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 53, 59, 62, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69 Whitethroat Sylvia communis, 13, 15, 16, 17, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35* 36* 39. 41. 44. 45> 46, 54. 59> 62, 67, 68, 69 Lesser Whitethroat Sylvia curruca, 16, 17, 20, 31. 33. 34. 35. 39. 41. 44. 62. 67. 68» 69 Riippell’s Warbler Sylvia riippelli , 48 Sardinian Warbler Sylvia melanocephala, 48, 68 Subalpine Warbler Sylvia cantillans, 48, 68 Spectacled Warbler Sylvia conspicillata, 36, 68 Dartford Warbler Sylvia undata, 33, 48, 68 Rufous Warbler Agrobales galactotes, 48 Fan-tailed Warbler Cisticola juncidis, 48, 68 Willow Warbler Pbylloscopus trochilus, 16, 17, 20, 24, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 53, 59, 62, 64, 67, 68, 69 Greenish Warbler Pbylloscopus trochi- loides, 16, 34 Chiffchaff Pbylloscopus collybita, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 60, 64, 67, 68, 69 Wood Warbler Pbylloscopus sibila/rix, 16, 17, 18, 20, 27, 31, 33, 34, 35, 39, 41, 44, 46» 53. 59. 68. 69 Bonelli’s Warbler Pbylloscopus bone Hi, 31, 35. 45. 54. 68 Arctic Warbler Pbylloscopus borealis, 16, 26, 34, 38 Crowned Willow Warbler Pbylloscopus coronatus, 26, 38 Goldcrest Regulus regulus, 16, 20, 31, 33, 34. 35. 39. 4i. 45. 4<5, 69 Firecrest Regulus ignicapillus, 31, 35 Black Paradise Flycatcher Terpsiphone atrocaudata, 26, 38 Spotted Flycatcher Muscicapa striata, 16, 33. 34. 41 Pied Flycatcher Muscicapa hypoleuca, 16, 17, 20, 27, 29, 33, 34, 35, 39, 41, 42, 44, 46, 59, 60, 62, 69 Collared Flycatcher Muscicapa albicollis, 16, 34 Narcissus Flycatcher Muscicapa narcis- sina, 26, 38 Red-breasted Flycatcher Muscicapa parva, 16, 20, 31, 34, 41 Blue-and-white Flycatcher Cyanoptila cyanomelana, 26, 38 Dunnock Prunella modularis, 15, 16, 20, 24. 25. 3H 33. 34. 35. 39. 4°. 4i. 47. 54. 57, 62, 68, 69, C5 Alpine Accentor Prunella collaris, 26, 38 Meadow Pipit Antbus pratensis, 16, 23, 33. 34. 57. 65. 69 Tawny Pipit Antbus campestris, 34, 54, 65 Tree Pipit Antbus trivialis, 16, 17, 18, 20, 27, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 39, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 60, 62, 64, 69 Indian Tree Pipit Antbus bodgsoni, 26, 38 Red-throated Pipit Antbus cervinus, 34 Rock Pipit Antbus spinolefta, 34, 57, 62 Picd/Whitc Wagtail Motaci/la alba, 16, 33. 34 Grey Wagtail Motacilla cinerea, 31, 33 52 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava, 1 6, 33, 34, 42, 45, 48 Wax wing Bo mby cilia garrulus, 16, 34 Great Grey Shrike Lanins excubitor, 34 Woodchat Shrike Lanins senator, 31, 42 Red-backed Shrike Lanins collurio, 16, 27, 33. 34. 35 Red-cheeked Starling Sturnns phillip- pensis, 38 Starling Sturnns vulgaris, 14, 16, 20, 27 , 33. 34. 35. 39. 4°, 4G 44. 45. 47. 59. 62j 6j) 6t)i C2, C3, C5, C6, G7 Spotless Starling Sturnns unicolor, 48 Hawfinch Coccothraustes coccothraustes, 34, 68 Greenfinch Chloris cbloris, 16, 17, 20, 24, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 41, 44. 45. 46. 51. 57. 62. 68. 69. c5 Oriental Greenfinch Chloris sinica, 38 Goldfinch Carduelis cardtielis, 14, 25, 28, 3°. 31* 33. 34. 35. 42> 51. 57> 68. c5 Siskin Carduelis spintts, 14, 16, 33, 34, 41 Linnet Carduelis cannabina, 16, 17, 20, 27, 2g. 33. 34. 35. 39. 41. 42> 45. 57. 6z> 68 Twite Carduelis Jlavirostris, 57 Redpoll Carduelis jlammea, 16, 33, 34, 57, C5 Serin Serinus serinus, 14, 31, 35, 36, 45, 5i Canary Serinus canarius, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 19, 37 ‘Orange Canary’ Carduelis cucullata x Serinus canarius, 28 Bullfinch Pyrrbula pyrrbula , 14, 16, 28, 33. 34. 62 Scarlet Grosbeak Carpodacus erythrmus, 16, 29, 34, 41, 46, 62 Pine Grosbeak Pinicola enudeator, 34 Crossbill Loxia curvirostra, 14, 16, 33, 34, 4i Parrot Crossbill Loxia pytyopsittacus, 34, 41 . Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs, n, 14. *5> r^> 20, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 34. 35. 36, 39, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 51,53, 57, 59, 60, 62, 68, 69, C5 Brambling Fringilla montifringilla, 16, 34, 62 Masked Hawfinch Eopbona personata, 26, 38 Yellowhammcr Emberi^a citrinella, 13, 14, 16, 20, 27, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 39, 41, 42. 44. 45. 46, 57. 59. 62, 68, 69, C5 Pine Bunting Emberi^a leucocepbala , 34 Corn Bunting Emberi\a calandra, 16, 17, 20, 24, 25, 27, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 45, 50, 57, 67, 68, 69 Yellow-breasted Bunting Emberi~a aureola, 34 Japanese Yellow Bunting Emberi%a sulphur at a, 38 Cirl Bunting Etnberiga cirlus, 33, 42, 45, 68 Ortolan Bunting Emberi^a hortulana, 16, 17, 29, 34, 35, 41, 42, 45, 46, 62, 65, 68 Crctzschmar’s Bunting Lmbcriya caesia, 48 Grey-hooded Bunting Emberi^a fucata, 26, 38 Rock Bunting Embcriga cia, 54, 68 Siberian Meadow Bunting Emberiza cioides, 38 Rustic Bunting Emberiza rustica, 34 Masked Bunting Emberiza spodocepbala, 26, 38 Grey Bunting Emberiza variabilis, 38 Reed Bunting Emberiza scboeniclus, 14, 16, 17, 20, 25, 31, 33, 34. 35. 39. 4r» 42, 45, 50, 55, 62, 67, 68, 69 Lapland Bunting Cakarius lappor.icus, 34 Snow Bunting Pteclropbenax nivalis, 16, 33» 34 , House Sparrow Passer domestuus, 16, 31, 33. 34. 4°. 42> 45. 47. 5r» 57. 68> C4> C5, C6, C7 Tree Sparrow Passer mont anus, 16, 33, 34. 4°. 47. 57. 68 Rock Sparrow Petronia petronia, 48, 68 SPECIES LIST OF UNPUBLISHED RECORDINGS [n addition to the material available on gramophone records, there is jf course more in the libraries of broadcasting organisations, universi :ies, film-making organisations, zoos, research institutes and private ndividuals. Except for Britain, my list of these libraries is lncomP e e * jut it is worth enumerating those I do know of which are additional to 53 BRITISH BIRDS the ones that have provided material for gramophone records. In Britain the following people have private collections: Edward Balfour, David Bradley, Miss Terry Gompertz (Gompertz 1961), Mrs. Joan Hall-Craggs (Hall-Craggs 1962), Oliver Hook, Sqn.-Ldr. N. W. Orr, Michael Robson, R. A. Richardson, Noble Rollin (Rollin 1956, 1958), P. J. Sellar, Magnus Sinclair and Miss Susan Taylor. The collection of E. D. H. Johnson of Jersey in the Channel Islands includes recordings made in Bulgaria, Spain and Morocco. The Hungarian Institute of Ornithology has a number of recordings (Peter Szoke in litt). In Norway, Svein Hafthorn has taped a number of birds. R. Nakatsubo of Nippon Hoso Kyokai (the Japan Broadcasting Corporation) kindly sent me a systematic list of all his recordings. Radio Finland also has some recordings (R. Soikkanen in litt.). T. Kabaya of Tokyo has a collection of over 200 species. Many record- ings, particularly of captive birds, have been made over more than ten years at the Madingley Ornithological Research Station near Cam- bridge; the results of this experimental and other work have been summarised by Thorpe 1961. To gain a detailed and up-to-date knowledge of the contents of these and other collections would be a considerable undertaking, beyond the scope of the present paper. However, it is worth listing known recordings made within the Palearctic region of wild and captive Palearctic species which are additional to those in the preceding index. Those recordings with the reference Anon 1961 are in the B.B.C.’s Natural History Recordings Library, duplicate copies of which have been deposited at the British Trust for Ornithology, Beech Grove, Tring, Hertfordshire; the Department of Zoology, Downing Street, Cambridge; and a part-set at the Laboratory of Ornithology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Black-footcd Albatross Diomedea nigripes : Japan, R. Nakatsubo Tristram’s Petrel Oceatwdroma tristrami : Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Madeiran Petrel Occanodroma castro: Japan, R. Nakatsubo Streaked Shearwater Procellaria leuco- melas-. Japan, T. Kabaya; Japan, R. Nakatsubo Temminck’s Cormorant Pbalacrocorax capillatus : Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Great White Heron Egret ta alba : Japan, T. Kabaya Intermediate Egret Egret la intermedia-. Japan, T. Kabaya Cattle Egret Ardeola ibis : Japan, T. Kabaya Japanese Night Heron Gorsacbius goisagi: Japan, T. Kabaya Green-backed Heron Butorides stria/ns: Eritrea, R. Stjemstedt Glossy Ibis Plegadis falcittellus: Rumania, J. Boswall Japanese Crested Ibis Nipponia ttippon: Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Pintail Anas acuta-. Britain, E. Simms (Anon 1961) Spotbill Anas poecilorbyncba: Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Red-crested Pochard Netta rufina : Britain (captive), D. S. McChcsney 54 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS Scaup Ay thy a marila: Sweden, S. Palmer Smew Mergus albellus: Sweden, S. Palmer Griffon Vulture Gyps fulvus: Spain, E. Simms (Anon 1961) Imperial Eagle Aqttila heliaca: Spain, E. R. Parrinder (Anon 1961) Hodgson’s Hawk Eagle Spi^aelus nipalensis : Japan, T. Kabaya Grey-faced Buzzard Eagle Butas/ur indicus : Japan, T. Kabaya Black Kite Milvus migrans : Spain, E. Simms (Anon 1961); Eritrea, R. Stjemstcdt Steller’s Sea Eagle Haliaetus pelagicus : Britain (captive), L. Koch (Anon 1961); Japan, R. Nakatsubo Marsh Harrier Circus aeruginosas : Britain, R. Perry (Anon 1961); Britain, E. Simms Hen Harrier Circus cyaneus : Germany, Nord Dcutschcr Rundfunk (Anon 1961); Britain, E. Balfour Short-toed Eagle Circaetus ga/licus: Spain, E. R. Parrinder (Anon 1961) Sakcr Falco cherrug: Britain (captive), Holmes Tolley (Anon 1961) Barbary Partridge Alecloris barhara : Morocco, E. D. H. Johnson Bamboo Partridge Bambusicola tboracica : Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Bustard Quail Turnix suscitator : Japan, T. Kabaya Hooded Crane Megalornis monacha : Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Japanese Crane Megalornis japonensis : Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya White-naped Crane Megalornis vipio: Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Siberian White Crane Megalornis leuco- geranus : Britain (captive), L. Koch (Anon 1961) Great Bustard Otis tarda: Germany, L. Koch (1957) (no longer in existence) Little Bustard Otis tetrax: France, E. Simms (Anon 1961) Painted Snipe Kos/ra/ula bengbalcnsis : Japan, T. Kabaya Spur-winged Plover Hop/op/crus spinosus : Greece, Miss Susan Taylor Grey-headed Lapwing V anellus cinereus: Japan, T. Kabaya Japanese Long-billed Ringed Plover Charadrius placidus: Japan, R. Nakat- subo Greater Sand Plover Charadrius lescbe- naultii : Eritrea, R. Stjemstcdt Lesser Golden Plover Charadrius domini- ons: Japan, T. Kabaya Ear Eastern Curlew Numenius madagas- cariensis: Japan, T. Kabaya; Australia, Peter Bruce (Anon 1961) Marsh Sandpiper Tringa s/agna/ilis: Greece, Miss Susan Taylor Wandering Tattler Tringa incana: Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Dowitchcr Limnodromus sp.: Britain, Magnus Sinclair Knot Calidris canutus: Sweden, S. Palmer White-rumped Sandpiper Calidris fusci- col/is: Britain, Miss Susan Taylor Curlew Sandpiper Calidris testacea: Britain, R. A. Richardson Red-necked Stint Calidris rnficoUis: Japan, T. Kabaya Ruff Philomacbus pugnax: Finland, J. Paatela Mediterranean Black-headed Gull Larus melanocepbalus: Britain, R. A. Richard- son; Greece, Miss Susan Taylor Slaty-backed Gull Larus schistisagus : Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Black-tailed Gull Larus crassirostris: Japan, R. Nakatsubo ; Japan, T . Kabaya Whiskered Tern Ch/idonias bybrida: Greece, Miss Susan Taylor Little Auk Plautus alle: Spitsbergen, Arvc Helling; Spitsbergen, O. Hook; Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Spectacled Guillemot Ceppbus carbo. Japan, R. Nakatsubo ; Japan, . Kabat a Rhinoceros Auklet Cerorbinca mono- cerata: Japan, R. Nakatsubo, Japan, T. Kabaya Pin-tailed Sandgrouse P {erodes alchata : Morocco, E. D. H. Johnson Japanese Voodpigeon Columba jantbma: Japan, T. Kabaya Rock Dove (Feral Pigeon) Columba Inna: 55 BRITISH BIRDS Britain, T. Gompertz (Anon 1961) Japanese Green Pigeon Sphenurus sieboldii: Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Screech Owl O/us asio : Japan, T. Kabaya Brown Hawk Owl Ninox scutulata-. Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya White-rumped Swift A pus pacificus: Japan, R. Nakatsubo Needle-tailed Swift Chaetura caudacuta-. Japan, T. Kabaya Greater Pied Kingfisher Ceryle lugubris : Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Broad-billed Roller Euryslomus orientalis : Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Japanese Green Woodpecker Picus amkera: Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Syrian Woodpecker Dendrocopos syriacus-. Hungary, G. R. Mountfort White-backed Woodpecker Dendrocopos leucotos : Japan, T. Kabaya Pygmy Woodpecker Dendrocopos kisytki : Japan, T. Kabaya Fairy Pitta Pitta bracbyura-. Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Red-rumped Swallow Hirundo daurica : Japan, T. Kabaya Crag Martin Ptyonoprogne rapes tr is: Spain, E. Simms (Anon 1961) Jungle Crow Corvus macrorbyncbos : Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Lidth’s Jay Garrulus lidtbi-. Japan, T. Kabaya Siberian Tit Pants cine tits : Lapland, P. J. Sellar Sombre Tit Par us lugubris-. Greece, Miss Susan Taylor Varied Tit Par us varius: Japan, Kasuke Hoshino; Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Green -backed Tit Pants monticolus : Ger- many (captive), H. Lohrl (Lohrl 1964) Corsican Nuthatch Sit la whitebeadi : Ger- many (captive), H. Lohrl (Lohrl 1960-61) Wallcrceper Ticbodroma tmtraria: Ger- many, E. Waldhoer (Waldhoer 1962) Pale Thrush Tttrdus pallidus: Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Seven Island Thrush Tttrdus celaenops : Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Isabelline Wheatear Oenanthe isabellina : Greece, Miss Susan Taylor Red-rumped Wheatear Oenanthe moesta : Morocco, E. D. H. Johnson Daurian Redstart Phoenicians auroreus. Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T Kabaya Moussier’s Redstart Pboenicurus mous- sieri: Morocco, C. J. F. Coombs Siberian Ruby throat Luscinia calliope-. Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Ryu Kyu Robin Luscinia komadori : Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Short-tailed Bush Warbler Cettia squamei- ceps : Japan, T. Kabaya Lanceolated Warbler Locus tella lanceolata : Japan, T. Kabaya Taczanowski’s Grasshopper Warbler Locus tella ocbotensis: Japan, R. Nakat- subo; Japan, T. Kabaya Olive-tree Warbler Hippolais olivetorum-. Bulgaria, E. D. H. Johnson (Anon 1961) Ijima’s Willow Warbler Pbylloscopus ijimae-. Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Pale-legged Willow Warbler Pbylloscopus tenellipes: Japan, T. Kabaya Temminck’s Crowned Willow Warbler Pbylloscopus occipitalis-. Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Brown Flycatcher Muscicapa latirostris: Japan, T. Kabaya Siberian Flycatcher Muscicapa sibirica: Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Japanese Accentor Prunella rubida : Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Japanese Wagtail Motacilla grandis : Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Ashy Mini vet Pericroco/us divarica/us : Japan, R. Nakatsubo Brown-cared Bulbul Microsce/is arnauro- tis : Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan Kabaya 56 discography of palearctic recordings Bull-headed Shrike Lanins bucephalus: Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Thick-billed Shrike Lanins tigrinus: Japan, T. Kabaya Brown Shrike Lanins cristatus: Japan, T. Kabaya Grey Starling Sturnus cineracens : Japan, R. Nakatsubo; Japan, T. Kabaya Pallas’s Rose Finch Carpodacus rosens: Japan, T. Kabaya Long- tailed Rose Finch Uragns sibiricus : Japan, T. Kabaya Two-barred Crossbill Loxia leucoptera: Japan, R. Nakatsubo Blue Chaffinch Eringilla teydea-. Canary Islands, P. Marler (Thorpe 1958) Song Sparrow Melospi^a melodia: Britain, David Bradley White-crowned Sparrow Zonofrichia leu- cophyrys-. Japan, T. Kabaya Chestnut Bunting Emberi^a rutila: Japan, T. Kabaya Black-headed Bunting Emberi^a mclano- cepbala : Bulgaria, E. D. H. Johnson (Anon 1961) Spanish Sparrow Passer hispaniolensis: Bulgaria, E. D. H. Johnson; Greece, Miss Susan Taylor Cinnamon Sparrow Passer rut Hans'. Japan, K. Hoshino; Japan, T. Kabaya ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The original work involved in compiling the discography was under- taken in the interests not of ornithology but of natural history broad- casting in sound and television. With Miss Valentine Britten as joint author, the discography in its earlier form gave an alphabetical cross- index to species and was privately distributed in October 1961. The B.B.C. has given permission for the original research to be used in this paper. 1 have had continuing encouragement from Desmond Hawkins, and I am grateful also to Professor Peter Paul Kellogg and his wife, Mrs. Byrl J. Kellogg, who allowed me to work in the Library of Natural Sounds, Cornell University, in September i960 and May 1963. I am no less beholden to Miss Valentine Britten, who, with her staff at the B.B.C. Gramophone Librarv, has relentlessly pursued copies or details of discs issued during the last half-century. James Fisher has been a colleague in broadcasting for five years and his remarkable capacity for bibliography has been an example and a stimulus. Professor Charles Hartshorne, H. N. Southern, Michael Kendall, John Burton, Dr. David Ragge, Joan HaU-Craggs and Dr. Erwin Tretzel have assisted with the identification or interpretation of certain sounds; Kenneth Williamson and Christopher and Mary Perrins helped me with the nomenclature. For translations I grate- fully thank the following: the Misses Phyllis and Nancy Briggs (Swedish), Miss Anne Deane (French and German), D. D. Harber (German and Russian), Mrs. J. E. Hinder (German), Mrs Sonia Kempster (Russian), Toomoo Royama (Japanese), Mrs. Joan V hittock (Spanish) and Mrs. J. Wilders (Danish). David Bradley, Oliver Hook, E. D. H. Johnson, R. Nakatsubo, P. j. Sellar, R. Stjemstedt, and E. Waldhoer-Haehunle provided additional information. 57 BRITISH BIRDS For information, negative and positive, about the gramophone records I am indebted to the following persons (the countries in respect of which the information was provided are given in brackets): Miss Valentine Britten (Germany and Britain), Dr. P. Bondesen (Denmark), John Burton (Poland), R.-G. Busnel (France), Dr. Bruce Campbell (Switzerland), Dr. James P. Chapin (Sudan), Barbara Craig (Iraq), Miss M. G. Davies (Britain), M. Gonzales Diez (Spain), C. de Lucca (Malta), Peter Duddridge (Britain), the Secretariat of Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mother of the Belgians (Belgium), A. Ghigi (Italy), Dr. F. Gudmunds- son (Iceland), Svein Hafthorn (Norway), Maxwell Flamilton (Sweden), Ralph Harvey (France), Dr. K. Heinroth (Germany), Holger Holger- son (Norway), Kasuke Hoshino (Japan), J. Ivangh (Holland), T. Kabaya (Japan), Mrs. Ada Cherry Kearton (Britain), Professor P. P. Kellogg (Germany), T. O. Kennedy (New Zealand), Dr. A. Keve (Hungary), John Kirby (Britain), Dr. K. Klemmer (France), Dr. Ludwig Koch (Germany, Belgium, Britain), A. E. Lambert (Tunisia), Jan Lindblad (Sweden), Nils Linnman (Sweden), V. I. Marcov (U.S.S.R.), R. Nakatsubo (Japan), Dr. G. Niethammer (Germany), Professor J. Paatela (Finland), Sture Palmer (Sweden), J. B. Panouse (Morocco), Dr. K. FI. Rechinger (Austria), J.-C. Roche (France), D. Rogge (Germany), J. G. Romer (Hong Kong), R. Rucner (Yugo- slavia), Toomoo Royama (Japan), P. J. Sellar (France), P. Strinati (France), Peter Szoke (Hungary), Dr. G. Thielcke (Germany), Dr. Erwin Tretzel (Germany), Hans Traber (Switzerland), Boris N. Veprintsev (LhS.S.R.), William Ward (Hawaii), Carl Weismann (Den- mark and Germany) and Mrs. M. L. Williams (Britain). For comments on an earlier draft I am grateful to the editors of British Birds, while the accuracy and presentation of the final paper are much the better for James Ferguson-Lees’s painstaking work and I am grateful to him for his considerable time and trouble. Mrs. Jean Alvey and Harry Neal assisted with the compilation of the cross-index which was finally re-checked by Donald Glanville. My greatest single debt of gratitude is to Anne Deane who has worked with me for three years; the paper has been immeasurably improved by her comments, grasp of detail and passion for accuracy. REFE.RENCES Anon (1899): ‘Report on the Sixteenth Congress of the American Ornithologists’ Union’. Auk, i6(NS): 52-53. Anon (1911): Verhandlungen V hit. Orn. Kongr., Berlin, 1910. p. 38. Anon (1949): Bull. Brit. Trust Orn., no. 32. pp. 1-5. Anon (1961): B.B.C. Natural History Recordings (catalogue). London. Ascii, M., et al. (1952): Sounds of a Tropical Rain Forest in America (brochure and 12-inch 33.3 r.p.m. disc, no. FPX 120). New York. Boswall, J. FI. R. (i960): Review of Voices of Wild Birds in Nature. Brit. Birds, 53: 452-453- 58 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALE A R PTir D ialjiarctIC RECORDINGS ornithology’. ' 95^496. °f h‘rd '°“:C "cordin«! and lh"' "scs i„ — (1962): ‘Amendments and additions to a wnru i records of bird voice’. Rio- Acoustics Bull. (Cornell Univc s nf" ° |ra™phonc ’*3«): :?irds off the — Notes, 30 22T23; (3 4): 25‘29' ! S' <, Ct?rdlnf ,thc voices of capt'vc birds’. Avic. Mag., 69:121-126 - (1964a) Further additions to a world catalogue of gramophone records of 4C): Tpress * ^ “borough^ii^lS^ " A ^ Dk,i0nary °fBirdS (cd‘ Sk Lands‘ BR^°; An R- (1938): Progress in recording voices of American birds’. C.R 0 me Congr. Orn. Intern., Rouen, 19)8. pp. 97-100. Campbell, \V. D. (i 960) : Review of Bird Song. Brit. Birds, 5 3 : 5 80-5 8 1 . '' A,fis!d StUd>' in Siam °f thc behaviour and social relations of thc Gibbon (. Hylobates lar)\ Cow par. Psychol. Monogr., 16-1-212 Coelho M (about i960): Hunting all through Brazil (in Portuguese) (10-inch 78 r.p.m. disc), Sao Paulo. DholmECK’ W’’ LlNNMAN’ W-’ a'ld Palm6r> S- (x958): Radians Fagelbok. Stock- Garstang, W. (1923): Songs of the Birds. London. Revised edition. Gompertz, T. (1961): ‘The vocabulary of the Great Tit’. Brit. Birds, 34: 369-394 and 409-418. 3 y Gunn, W. W. H. (1959): A Day at Flores Moradas (Venezuela) (12-inch 33.3 r.p m. disc). Ontario. Hai.l-Craggs, J. (1962): ‘The development of song in the Blackbird T Urdus nterula' . Ibis, 104: 277-299. Heck, I.., and Kocn, L. (1933): Sounds of Safari (in German) (book and 10-inch 78 r.p.m. disc). Munich. Heinroth, O., and Koch, L. (1935) : Gefiederte Meistersanger (book and three 10-inch 78 r.p.m. discs). Berlin. Kearton, C. (1938): My Woodland Home. London. Kellogg, P. P. (1938): ‘Hunting thc songs of vanishing birds with a microphone’. J. Soc. Motion Picture Eng., 30: 201-207. (1962): ‘Bird-sound studies at Cornell’. Thc Living Bird (Cornell Univer- sity), 1 : 37-48. and Allen, A. A. (1950): Jungle Sounds (12-inch 78 r.p.m. disc., no. BL 4219-20). Ithaca. Kirby, J. (1958): ‘Flow to catch the songs of birds’. Tape Recording and Hi-fi Magazine, September: 20-22. Koch, L. (1955): Memoirs of a Bird Man. London. (1957): The Encyclopaedia of British Birds. London . Littlejohns, R. T. (1931): The Song of the Lyre Bird ( 10-inch 78 r.p.m. disc). Mel- bourne. (1933): The Magic I oice: A Story of the Australian Iyre-Bird. Melbourne. Lohrl, H. (1960-61): ‘Vcrglcichcnde Studicn fiber Brutbiologic und Verhalten der Kleiber Sitta whiteheadi Sharpe und Sitta canadensis L.’. J. Orn., 101: 245-264; and 102: m-132. — (1964): ‘The use of bird calls to clarify taxonomic relationships’. Proc. XIII Inf. Orn. C.ongr. p. 544. Lorenz, K. (1951): ‘The scientific value of a group collection of live animals. 59 BRITISH BIRDS Severn Wildfowl Trust, Fourth Ann. Rep.: 47-50. Marler, P. (1959): ‘Developments in the study of animal communication’ in Darwin’s Biological Work: Some Aspects Reconsidered (ed. P. R. Bell). Cambridge. Miller, L. H. (about i960): Music in Nature (12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc). Berkeley, California. Nicholson, E. M. (1959): Review of Witberby’s Sound-Guide to British Birds. Brit. Birds, 52: 62-65. Peterson, R., Mountfort, G., and Hollom, P. A. D. (1954 and in press): A Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Fur ope. London. Original and revised editions. Phillips, C. (‘Imito’) (about 1925): Australian Bird Calls (10-inch 78 r.p.m. disc). Sydney. (1932): Imitations of English and Australian Birds (10-inch disc). Middlesex. Poulsen, H. (1959): ‘Song learning in the domestic canary’. Z. Tierpsychol., 16: 173-178. Rollin, N. (1956): ‘Song output by unstimulated Skylark’. Brit. Birds, 44: 218-221. (1958): ‘The daily behaviour of birds on the Fame Islands’. Trans. N.H.S. Northumberland and Durham, 12: 161-184. Simms, E. A. (1955a): ‘The conversational calls of birds as revealed by new methods of Held recording’. Acta XI Congr. Int. Orn., Basle, i<) /y. (1955b): ‘Birds and radio’. Bird Notes, 26: 227-229. (1957): Voices of the Wild. London. , and Wade, G. F. (1953): ‘Recent advances in the recording of bird songs’. Brit. Birds, 46: 200-210. Siple, P. A., and Lindsay, A. B. (1937): ‘Ornithology of the Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition’. Auk, 54: 147-15 9. Steinbaclier, G. (1959): Cage and Garden Birds. London. Thorpe, W. H. (1958): ‘The learning of song patterns by birds, with especial reference to the song of the Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs ’. Ibis, 100: 535-570. (1961): Bird-Song. London. (1964): Review of The Voices of Birds in Wild Nature. Ibis, 106: 270-271. Vaurie, C. (1959): Birds of the Palearctic Fauna: Passeriformes. London. Waldhoer, E. (1962): ‘The Wall Creeper’ (16 mm. colour film). Abstr. XIII Int. Orn. Congr. Walker, A. (1957): Alice in Birdland (7-inch, 45 r.p.m. disc). Sydney. Wyring, C. F., Allen, A. A., and Kellogg, P. P. (1945) : Jungle Acoustics. O.S.R.D. Reports 4699 and 4704, published privately from the Division of Acoustical Research, Rutgers University, Brunswick, N.J., U.S.A. Appendix. Relevant recordings made outside the Palearctic The following is a discography of recordings made outside the Pale- arctic of species whose natural ranges are common to the Palearctic and at least one other region, or of species which are known to have occurred as visitors in the Palearctic. This list thus completes all known published sources of sound recorded from birds which in even the widest sense can be described as Palearctic. Of the forty-one references one, North and Simms D26, includes one African recording; one, Bigwood D31, is to an Australasian disc; 60 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS one, Queeny D6 to an Ethiopian region disc; two, Zubcr D32 and Frisch D37, to Neotropical discs; and the remaining thirty-five to Nearctic discs. They are arranged in date order of publication. All forty-one records include, of course, at least one recording of a species on the Palearctic fist, but specific attention is drawn only to recordings of Palearctic nesters for which there is no published Palearctic recording. The other relevant recordings on these discs, to which specific attention is not drawn, fall into two categories which some examples will serve to illustrate. First, there are additional recordings of Palearctic breeding species made outside the Palearctic: for example, a Wheatear recorded in Baffin Island (Borror and Gunn D41); Wrens (Winter Wren) recorded in different parts of the North American continent (Kellogg and Fassett Dio, Kellogg and Allen D27, Kellogg D40, Borror and Gunn D41); a Black-winged Stilt recorded in East Africa (Queeny D6); and a Quail of the African race in North and Simms D26. Second, there are the scores of species known as visitors to the Palearctic: for example, the Stilt Sandpiper and other Nearctic non-passerines and passerines on Kellogg and Allen D27 and other North American discs; the tropical Magnificent Frigate-bird \ regata tn agnificens on Zuber D32; and the Red-eyed Vireo Vireo olivaceus on Frisch D37. Di. gennett, harry (1934): Birds. One io-inch, 78 r.p.m. disc, no. 1153. Gennett Record Company, Richmond, Indiana. D2. brand, a. r. (1934) : The Songs of Wild Birds. Two 7-inch, 78 r.p.m. discs, and book (91 pages). Thomas Nelson and Sons, New \ ork. D3. brand, A. R. (1936): A lore Songs of 'Wild Birds. Four 7-inch, 78 r.p.m. discs, and book (116 pages). Thomas Nelson and Sons, New \ork. D4. brand, a. r. (1938) : Birds of the North Woods. Two 12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. discs, nos. CF 13 1 and CF 132. American Foundation for the Blind. _ D5. Kellogg, p. p., and allen, A. A. (1942): American Bird Songs. Six 12-inch, 78 r.p.m. discs. Comstock Publishing Co. Inc., Ithaca, N.Y. For revised edition of this set of discs see D13. . D6. queeny, e. m. (1951): Songs of East African Birds. Three 12-inck, 78 r-P-m- discs. American Museum of Natural History, New York. Includes Pin-tailed Sandgrouse Pterocles alchata. „. D7. Kellogg, p. p., and allen, A. A. (1951): AwtWflw B/r ongs 0 time 2. iv 12-inch, 78 r.p.m. discs, nos. CU 4-860 to CU 4-864. Comstock Publishing Co. Inc., Ithaca, N.Y. For revised edition see D9. , v ^ DS. STILLWELL, j. and N. (1952): Bird Smg, »/ F,iU r.rj r«rrt S.r. One 12-inch, „,y r.p.m. disc, no. C.iol. Ficke, Recordmg Sc.ce, Old Green- s'1' STloooTt., and all£n, a. a. A— ,2 inch, r.p.m. disc. Cornell University Press, Irhaca. Revised edition of “ToSDA, and Fassm> H. : »* W 33.3 r.p.m. disc. Cornell University Press, Ithaca. 61 BRITISH BIRDS Dii. Stillwell, j. and n. (1953): Bird Songs of Dooryard, Field and Forest, No. 2. One 12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc, no. C.107. Ficker Recording Service, Old Green- wich, Connecticut. D12. fish, w. r. (1954): Western Bird Songs. One 10-inch, 78 r.p.m. disc, no. CH-1028-29. Cornell University Press, Ithaca. D13. Kellogg, p. p., and allen, a. a. (1954): American Bird Songs, Volume i. One 12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc. Cornell University Press, Ithaca. Revised edition of the six discs in D5. D14. gunn, w. w. h. (1954): Representative Songs of 2j Common Songbirds of Ontario. One 10-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc. Federation of Ontario Naturalists, Don Mills, Ontario. For revised edition see D16. D15. allen, a. A., and Kellogg, p. p. ( 1 9 5 4) : Songbirds of America in Color, Sound and Story. One 10-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc, and book 28 pp. Book Records Inc., New York. For revised edition see D20. D16. gunn, w. w. h. (1955a): Songs of Spring. One 10-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc. Federation of Ontario Naturalists, Don Mills, Ontario. 2nd edition of D14; for further revision see D28. D17. gunn, w. w. h. (1955b): A Day in Algonquin Park. One 12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc. Federation of Ontario Naturalists, Don Mills, Ontario. For revised edition of this disc see D29. D18. Stillwell, j. and n. (1956): Western Bird Songs of Dooryard, Field and Forest, No. q. One 12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc, no. C.109. Ficker Recording Service, Old Greenwich, Connecticut. D19. boyes, e. and a. (1956): Wild Bird Songs, Volume /. One 12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc, no. GO. BP 0312. E. and A. Boyes, Detroit, Michigan. Revised edition no. HO8P 7033-4. D20. allen, a. A., and Kellogg, p. p. (i 95 7) : Songbirds of America in Color, Sound and Story. One 10-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc, and book 28 pp. Cornell University Press, Ithaca. 2nd edition of D15. D21. anon (about 1957): Ducks ( Black Ducks and Mallards), D-100, Ducks ( Black Ducks, Mallards and Pintails), D-101, and Geese, G-200. Three 7-inch, 45 r.p.m. discs, nos. above. Animal Trap Company of America, Lititz, Pennsylvania. D22. trumbull, Virginia and fred, et al. (about 1958): Animal Language. One 12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc, no. SD-22. Sounds Unlimited, P.O. Box 335, Los Altos, California. D23. Stillwell, j. and n. (i 95 8) : The National Network of American Bird Songs. Three 12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. discs. Ficker Recording Service, Old Greenwich, Connecticut. A combined edition of D8, Dii and D18. D24. Kellogg, p. p., and allen, a. a. (195 8) : An Evening in Sapsucker Woods. One 10-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc. Cornell University Press, Ithaca. D25. borror, d. j., and gunn, w. w. h. (1958): Warblers: Songs of Warblers of Eastern North America. One 12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc. Federation of Ontario Naturalists, Don Mills, Ontario. D26. north, m. E. w., and simms, e. (i 95 8) : Wi/berby’s Sound-Guide to British Birds. Thirteen io-inch, 78 r.p.m. discs, nos. HFG 1-13, and two booklets. H. F. and G. Withe.'by, London. D27. Kellogg, p. p., and allen, a. a. (1959) : A Field Guide to Bird Songs of Eastern and Central North America. Two 12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. discs. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. Includes Pintail Anas acuta. Marsh Hawk (=PIen Harrier) Circus cyaneus. Red-breasted ( Corsican) Nuthatch Sitta canadensis and White-winged (= Two-barred) Crossbill Loxia leucoptera. D28. gunn, w. w. h. (1959a): Songs of Spring. One 12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc. Federation of Ontario Naturalists, Don Mills, Ontario. 3rd edition of D14; for 2nd edition see D28. 62 DISCOGRAPHY OF PALEARCTIC RECORDINGS D29. GUNN, w. w. h. (1 95 9b) : A Day in Algonquin Park. One 1 2-inch 33.3 r p m disc. Federation of Ontario Naturalists, Don Mills, Ontario. 2nd edition of D17.' D30. gunn, w. w. h., and benson, t. (1959): Birds of /be Forest. One 12 -inch 333 r.p.m. disc. Federation of Ontario Naturalists, Don Mills, Ontario. D31. bigwood, k., and j. (1959): A Treasury oj New Zealand Bird Song. Three 7-inch, 45 r.p.m. discs, nos. EC-14, EC-15 and EC-16, and booklet by G. R. Williams (40 pages). A. H. and A. W. Reed, Wellington. Includes Great White Heron Egret ta alba. D32. zuber, c. (i960): Galapagos (French). One 7-inch, 45 r.p.m. disc, no. EC 253. Editions de la Boite & Musique, Paris. D33. boyes, e. and a. (i960): W ild Bird Songs, Volume 2. One 12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc, no. LO8P 4352. E. and A. Boyes, Detroit, Michigan. D34. borror, d. j., and gunn, w. \v. h. (i960): Finches: Songs of Fringil/idae of Eastern and Central North America. One 12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc. Federation of Ontario Naturalists, Don Mills, Ontario. Includes White-winged (= Two-barred) Crossbill Loxia leucoptera. Common or Hoary (= Arctic) Redpoll Carduelis flammea or hornemanni and White-crowned Sparrow Zonotricbia leucophyrys. D35. KELLOGG, p. p., and ALLEN, A. a. (i960): Dawn in a Duck Blind. One 10-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc. Cornell University Press, Ithaca. D36. ansley, h. and s. (1961): The Bird's World of Song. One 12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc, no. FX 6115. Folkways, New York. D37. FRiscn, j. d. (1961): Songs of the Birds of Brazil (Portuguese). One 12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc, no. SCLP 10502. S.O.M., Sao Paulo. D38. allen, a. a., and Kellogg, p. p. (1961): Bird Songs in your Garden. One 10-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc, and book (28 pages). Cornell University Press, Ithaca. D39. gunn, w. w. h. (1962): Prairie Spring. One 12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc, no. T.51091/2. Federation of Ontario Naturalists, Don Mills, Ontario. D40. Kellogg, p. p. (1962): Field Guide to Western Bird Songs. Three 12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. discs. Ploughton Mifflin Co., Boston. Includes Eared (= Black-necked) Grebe Podiccps nigricol/is, Cattle Egret Ardeola ibis. Pintail Anus acuta. Marsh Hawk (=Hen Harrier) Circus cyaneus, Chukar Alectoris ebukar, Sandcrling Crocethia alba. Red (=Grey) Phalarope Phalaropus fulicarius. Royal Tern Sterna maxima and \\ hite- winged (= Two-barred) Crossbill Loxia leucoptera. D41. borror, d. j., and gunn, w. w. h. (1963): Thrushes, Wrens and Mocking Birds of Eastern North America. One 12-inch, 33.3 r.p.m. disc, T.52150. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, and Federation of Ontario Naturalists, Don Mills, Ontario. A I 1 k 63 Natural History Books available from WITHERBY’S BOOKSHOP A New Dictionary of Birds edited by Sir Landsborough Thomson. The centenary publication of the B.O.U. Comprehensive and authoritative. 900 pages; 48 pages of illustrations, 16 in colour. November 19th. 5 gns. The World of Birds by James Fisher and Roger Tory Peter- son. A work of scholarship, magnificently illustrated. 5 gns. The Oxford Book of Birds by Bruce Campbell, illustrated by Donald Watson. A companion volume to The Oxford Book of Wild Flowers (35s.) and Garden Flowers (35s.). 96 four- colour plates; 240 pages. 35s. Menagerie Manor by Gerald Durrell. The story of the author’s zoo in Jersey. Illustrated by Ralph Thompson. 21s. The Birds of Natal and Zululand by P. A. Clancey. 20 colour, 10 half-tone, 40 line illustrations and coloured map. 84s. African Wildlife by F. A. Roedelberger. 250 photographs, 24 in colour. 45s. The Private Life of the Rabbit by Ronald Lockley. Coloured frontispiece and half-tones. 25s. Birds of Prey by Philip Brown. British species; coloured frontispiece and half-tones. 25s. The Mammals of Arabia by David Harrison. Volume 1. Contains a general introduction and sections on insectivores, bats and primates. 7 gns. The Story of My Pelican by Albert Schweitzer. 35 illustra- tions. 10s. 6d. Brocky by Sylvia Shepherd. An astonishing story of a badger cub and its successful hand-rearing. 16 half-tones. 15s. The Highlands and Islands by F. Fraser Darling and J. Morton Boyd. A completely revised edition, with new illustrations, of Dr. Darling's famous ‘New Naturalist volume. Illustrated. Late November. 30s. The Wild Life of India by E. P. Gee. Illustrated with 76 plates, 12 in colour; 192 pages. 30s. Please address all enquiries to The Manager, Witherby’s Bookshop 61/62 Watling Street, London, E.C.4 or telephone City 5405 all books sent post free LISTEN . . . THE BIRDS A superb series of 33£ r.p.m. double- sided seven-inch records produced by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Wide variety The complete set of nine records covers a wide variety of birds including several Continental species such as Golden Oriole, Black Woodpecker and Icterine Warbler. Illustrated notes Each record plays for a total of 12 minutes and individual species are banded to allow easy selection for identification purposes. Each of the nine records comes in an attractive sleeve which opens out to show line drawings and full descriptive notes of the recordings. PRICE 10s. 6d. each, plus packing and postage For the blind The lifelike atmosphere of the recordings has not been interrupted by spoken commentaries but, in order that blind listeners can fully enjoy the records, notes prepared in Braille can be supplied at an extra cost of Is. per record. Minsmere Bird Reserve Also available is a two-record album Minsmere Bird Reserve featuring most of the characteristic species to be heard at this famous R.S.P.B. reserve in Suffolk. Price 21s., plus packing and postage. Write now for fully illustrated free catalogue to R.S.P.B. - THE LODGE - SANDY - BEDFORDSHIRE Printed in England by Dicmcr & Reynolds Ltd., Eastcotts Road, Bedford Published by H. F. & G. Withcrby Ltd., 61/62 Watling Street, E.C.4 *