T05 10V April 2013 • Vol.106 • 181-238 Avian drop-catch play Raptor migration over Malta ISSN 0007-0335 British Birds Established 1907, incorporating The Zoologist, established 1843 Published by BB 2000 Limited, trading as ‘British Birds’ Registered Office: c/o Chappell Cole & Co, Heritage House, 34B North Cray Road, Bexley, Kent DA5 3LZ www.britishbirds.co.uk Editorial Roger Riddington Spindrift, Eastshore, Virkie, Shetland ZE3 9JS Tel: 01 950 460080 editor@britishbirds.co.uk ‘News 8c comment’ material to Adrian Pitches adrianpitches@blueyonder.co.uk Subscriptions & administration Hazel Jenner 4 Harlequin Gardens, St Leonards on Sea, East Sussex TN37 7PF Tel 8c fax: 01424 755155 subscriptions@britishbirds.co.uk Design & production Mark Corliss m.corliss@netmatters.co.uk Advertising Mathew Hance, Digital Spring Ltd, Adam House, 7-10 Adam Street, The Strand, London WC2N 6AA Tel: 020 7520 9326 BBAdsales@digital-spring.co.uk Guidelines for contributors See www.britishbirds.co.uk British Birds Editorial staff Roger Riddington (Editor), Caroline Dudley, Peter Kennerley Editorial Board Dawn Balmer, Ian Carter, Richard Chandler, Martin Collinson, Chris Kehoe, Robin Prytherch, Nigel Redman, Roger Riddington, Brian Small, Steve Votier Rarities Committee Adam Rowlands (Chairman), Chris Batty, Chris Bradshaw, Paul French, Martin Garner, Nic Hallam, James Lidster, Richard Millington, Mike Pennington, Richard Schofield, Steve Votier Secretary Nigel Hudson, Carn Ithen, Trench Lane, Old Town, St Mary’s, Scilly TR2 1 OPA; secretary@bbrc.org.uk Notes Panel Angela Turner (Chair), Will Cresswell, Ian Dawson, Jim Flegg, Ian Newton FRS, Malcolm Ogilvie Annual subscription rates Individual subscriptions: UK - £52.00 Overseas (airmail) - £59.00 Libraries and agencies - £97.00 Back issues available from www.britishbirds.co.uk or the subscriptions office. 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Front-cover photograph: Adult Little Gull Hydrocoloeus minutus, Lancashire & North Merseyside, April 2009. Steve Young DBA Oasis S-Coat Mg OjOtjCrOH Designed for today's birdwatcher and wildlife enthusiast and those who demand outstanding images regardless of latitude or prevailing light conditions, DBA Oasis S-Coat Mg binoculars deliver exceptional performance and specification combined with superb build quality and genuine user comfort. 30 year guarantee. 8x42 £629, 10x42 £629 Purchase a DBA Oasis S-Coat Mg 8x42 or 10x42 before the 30th April 2013 and qualify to receive a FREE Aspheric LE WP 8x25 Compact Binocular. SRP £125. See web for details. 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British Birds Volume 1 06 • Number 4 • April 20 1 3 BB eye Conor Jameson News and comment Adrian Pitches Organochlorine pesticides and birds Ian Newton Avian drop-catch play: a review Stephen Hewitt Autumn raptor migration over Malta Michael Sammut , Natalino Fenech and Juan Ellul Pirotta Obituaries: Geoffrey Matthews, Derek Yalden Notes 229 Letters Reviews 235 Recent reports Talking point Peter Bircham The impact of organochlorine pesticides on the British countryside is something that I remember reading about as a teenage birder in eastern England in the early 1980s - when seeing any raptor other than a Common Kestrel was a red-letter day. Witnessing the effects first-hand, in the late 1950s, must have been quite another matter, however. Most raptors have recovered strongly, following the eventual withdrawal of organochlorines from agricultural use in Britain, but the speed and the scale of the impact of these pesticides is sobering. Ian Newton’s paper in this issue, the second in our short series of papers to mark the centenary of Stanley Cramp’s birth, is an excellent overview of this subject, which also looks at the impact of organochlorine pesticides in other countries, and deals with more recent pesticide- and pollutant-related problems. At the end of this issue is the first offering in a new series. Talking point will be an occasional platform for BB readers to offer an editorial column. Peter Bircham has delivered a thought- provoking piece about the place of the amateur in British ornithology, and it will be interesting to see whether his points resonate with a wider audience. I have always felt that one of the main reasons that BB has survived into its second century is that it offers a place for solid, careful observations - whether of bird behaviour, population trends, unusual species, or whatever - in a format that adds to our collective knowledge without the necessity for complex analysis. Don’t get me wrong, I am keen to integrate both amateurs and professionals as contributors - the two are best served together in my view - but BB has a long track record of giving the amateur a voice. And long may that continue. Visit www.britishbirds.co.uk to let us know what your views are - and if you feel moved to offer a contribution on a topic that might generate debate. Roger Riddington British Birds aims to: ♦> provide an up-to-date magazine for everyone interested in the birds of the Western Palearctic; ♦> publish a range of material on behaviour, conservation, distribution, ecology, identification, movements, status and taxonomy as well as the latest ornithological news and book reviews; *> maintain its position as the journal of record; and ♦> interpret scientific research on birds in an easily accessible way. & FSC rt no. n-COC-002609 www.lsc.org forest Stewardship Council 182 184 189 206 2 S 7 224 227 234 237 ataeqqpiCqyW - » • NATURAL HISTORY ] MUSEUM LIBRARY j 0 e APR 2013 j PRESENTED j © British Birds 2013 88 eye Ghosts It has some of the hall- marks of a Conan Doyle murder mystery, complete with period costume, a shooting, a body, a fairytale Victorian Highland setting, suspects, big-city and small- town locations, journeys in between, and - for good measure and Hollywood appeal - a strong American angle. In fact, the central character is a ‘Yank’ - Accipiter gentilis atricapillus to be precise - the fabled Northern Goshawk. It’s spring 1869 and there is unrest in the British Empire - Canada, this time. The fin- ishing touches are being put to the Cutty Sark in a Glasgow shipyard. She will be one of the last of the tea clippers built, as the age of sail gives way to steam power. The journal Nature is also launched, and the People's Friend. A gamekeeper called Stewart is patrolling the slopes of Schiehallion - the ‘hill of the fairies’, some say - in Perthshire. Spying a bird of prey, in the tradition of the day he shoots it dead. By and by, he gets into conversation with a road surveyor called Menzies, who relieves the keeper of the bird, which has been crudely gutted. Menzies takes it to the town of Brechin, on the east coast, and a shop owner there by the name of Lyster. Lyster can turn his hand to taxidermy, and sells many things, chief among which are fishing lures, for which Red Kite Milvus milvus feathers are particularly suited. But the skin he is pre- sented with is not of a kite - or gled, as they were then known. In any event he has better things to work with, and puts it aside. Some time later a man called Gray drops in. He’s a keen ornithologist in his spare time and an inspector of banks by day. It’s not in great nick by this time but he recognises the bird skin as that of a Goshawk. He takes ownership of the specimen, and arranges for it to be sent on to Glasgow. There, he has another taxidermist clean, stuff and mount it. Goshawks were by this time rare, even in Scotland. It would be extinct as a breeder in Britain in little more than a decade. Having collected his order from the stuffer, it is only now that Gray realises there is something particularly unusual about this Goshawk. It is of the North American race atricapillus. At face value, this is the first record of its kind for Britain. The record is generally accepted; indeed, Gray later becomes a renowned and respected ornithologist. Fast-forward a century, and cutting a long story short, this American Gos is dropped from the Scottish List. No-one today seems very sure why. By this time there were several records of American Goshawk from Ireland and one from England (Tresco, Scilly, 28th December 1935). In each case the birds were evidently shot, enabling close inspection. Forward again, this time to the present day, when the Perthshire record is reviewed once more, and officially rejected. Over at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, experts are once again peering at the mummified corpse. The identity of the bird is not in dispute, but there is apparently sufficient doubt over provenance, with the possibility that a different (American) Goshawk skin replaced that deposited by Gray in the Glasgow shop. The verdict suggests a general doubt over the American Goshawk’s ability to cross 182 © British Birds 106 'April 2013 • 182-183 BB eye 5,000 km of ocean, a doubt in which it is easy to share. Even with a hurricane at its tail (there was such a weather event and a major fall of Goshawks in the USA in the late 1860s) and/or with the help of a boat, believing the Gos can achieve this feat assumes a voyage of weeks or even months rather than days, and a diet of seabirds caught on the wing, over the waves, en route... unless Roger the cabin boy had taken pity on the stowaway in the rigging, and was bringing it ships rations, or rats. Some ornithologists I’ve spoken to have shrugged at the idea of atricapillus being capable of crossing the Atlantic. ‘Northern Harrier [Circus cyaneus hudsonius ] and American Kestrel [Falco sparverius ] can do it,’ they’ll say. But this is to equate the talents of Mo Farah with those of Usain Bolt. The Gos, we know, is a bird that will spend most of an average day loafing, waiting for prey to come within ambush range: a sprinter, not a dis- tance runner. They are three times as heavy as harriers. We know they can cross the North Sea, but show a peculiar reluctance to do so, if the low number of records for Shetland, the oil rigs and coming in off the east coast are anything to go by (one Scandinavian ring-recovery, ever). But is it any more feasible that a Victorian trader would import such a specimen, and not label or market it for maximum value as an exotic? That it would be so casually or carelessly switched by a professional taxider- mist for no apparent additional fee? In the end, we can only speculate. Despite some of the finest minds having been trained on it, the Perthshire Goshawk saga will prob- ably remain one of the great unsolved mys- teries of ornithology, and just one of the many riddles surrounding the enigmatic, spectral, much-studied but only partially understood (and dare I say widely over- looked) Northern Goshawk. With thanks to Bob McGowan and Andrew Kitch- ener at the NMS for their insights. Bob’s full account of the history of this specimen will appear in a future issue of BB. Conor Jameson Footnote: the Irish American Goshawk records are also currently under review. The fact that two of the Irish records occurred within days of each other (both birds shot), and within weeks of the Perthshire bird, merely adds further intrigue to the overall tale. Conor’s book Looking for the Goshawk will be published by Bloomsbury on Nth April. I 1 8. Adult Peregrine Falcon Falco peregrinus and juvenile Northern Goshawk Accipiter gentilis, Connecticut, October 2007. British Birds 106 ‘April 2013 • 182-183 183 Photo Researchers/FLPA Kane Brides/WWT News and comment Compiled by Adrian Pitches Opinions expressed in this feature are not necessarily those of British Birds Missing: 50,000 Red-breasted Geese Researchers in Bulgaria have taken the largest-ever catch of Red-breasted Geese Branta ruficollis and fitted satellite-tracking devices in a bid to unlock one of the more significant mysteries of the natural world. Just over ten years ago, more than 50,000 of these tiny, brightly coloured geese seem- ingly disappeared from their wintering grounds along the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine. Co-ordinated international counts have not since recorded a significant increase, leaving scien- tists speculating whether the missing geese - half the world population - have relocated to unknown sites in southwest Asia or fallen foul of hunting, development and changes in farming. Teams from the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) and the Bulgarian Society for the Protec- tion of Birds (BSPB) caught 91 Red-breasted Geese in February and fitted tags to 1 1 individuals, which will enable the birds’ movements to be followed along their 6,000-km migration route to breeding grounds in Arctic Russia. Conservationists working to save the Red- breasted Goose are being realistic about the chances of rediscovering the ‘lost’ population, however. Nonetheless, the data gathered will also help conservationists to work with farmers, plan- ners and developers in Bulgaria. Peter Cranswick, Head of Species Recovery at WWT, has been at the heart of the international effort to catch and tag the geese. He said: ‘Almost overnight, we were unable to account for around half the world’s Red-breasted Geese. The reasons are still unclear and we are tracking these indi- vidual birds to find out more. The data we get will be invaluable to our work with local communities in Bul- garia - the farmers, shooters and land- owners - to work out how we support the remaining geese, while still meeting their needs. ‘It is also possible that, as the climate has changed, some birds have started to winter farther east. We hope our tagged birds will reveal as yet unknown sites, so we can assess their importance and - if necessary - ensure their protection.’ The project ‘Safe Ground for Redbreasts’ TIFE09/NAT/BG/000230 is funded by the contri- bution of the LIFE financial instrument of the European Community. I 19. Satellite-tagged Red-breasted Goose Branta ruficollis , Bulgaria, February 20 1 3. Gamekeeper’s illegal use of cage trap A North Yorkshire gamekeeper has pleaded guilty to the illegal use of cage traps and taking a live bird of prey. At Scarborough Magistrates Court, Shaun Allanson admitted to intentionally taking a Common Buzzard Buteo buteo using a cage trap baited with a live pigeon, and also to operating a second cage trap, again baited with a live pigeon. These offences took place at Blansby Park, a shooting estate near Pickering. Allanson was sentenced to a 120-hour community order to do unpaid work. 184 © British Birds 106 • April 2013 • 184-188 News and comment On 28th August 2012, an officer from Natural England discovered the Buzzard in a cage trap eating a pigeon. The officer released the Buzzard and informed the police. As a result, North York- shire Police made a number of visits to the estate, where they discovered a second cage trap baited with a live pigeon. Allanson was arrested by North Yorkshire Police in October. The RSPB, who were contacted by the police for advice, believe that the traps were being used to target Northern Goshawks Accipiter gentilis, which have suffered from illegal persecu- tion in North Yorkshire. Although cage traps are legal in certain circumstances for predator control, it is unlawful both to use a pigeon as bait and to capture birds of prey. Guy Shorrock, Senior RSPB Investigations Officer, said: ‘Mr Allanson has lost his job as a result of this conviction. We would like to see more shooting estates taking raptor persecution seri- ously and dismissing their staff when they are con- victed of serious offences.’ Licensing of upland grouse moors and gamekeepers An e-petition calling for the licensing of upland grouse moors and the gamekeepers employed there has been uploaded to the DirectGov website. If it attracts 100,000 signatures, this will trigger a debate in Parliament and potentially legislation would follow. Here’s the text: ‘Given the continuing levels of illegal persecution of birds of prey, the Govern- ment is called upon to introduce a system of oper- ating licences for upland grouse shoots. Following any proven offence of persecution on the shoot concerned, i.e. illegal trapping, use of poisons, shooting or the interference with or destruction of nests, the licence would be revoked for a period of not less than two years and commercial shooting activity cease. ‘Linked to the above the Government is called upon to introduce an accreditation scheme or licensing system for all gamekeepers, be they employed in a full-time or part-time capacity. If an individual then has any proven involvement with raptor persecution, the licence would be with- drawn for a period of three years along with the right to hold a gun licence. Any repetition of an offence would result in the licences being with- drawn for life.’ The e-petition is active until February 2014 and currently (mid March) has 3,500 signatures. If you wish to sign the petition, please go to: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/46473 A previous e-petition calling for the introduction of vicarious liability for landowners in England failed to go forward because it did not attract enough signatures. Poisoning of Irish White-tailed Eagles Raptor persecution is not restricted to Britain, as the recent deaths of two White-tailed Eagles Hali- aeetus albicilla in southwest Ireland have illus- trated. Despite changes to legislation in 2010, which effectively banned the use of poisoned meat baits, this archaic practice is still being carried out by a small minority in the Irish countryside. In January the carcase of a female White-tailed Eagle was discovered by a member of the public near Glengariff, in Co. Cork. Subsequent toxi- cology analysis confirmed that the bird had died from poisoning. A second White-tailed Eagle was also found dead in the same month near Caher- daniel, in Co. Kerry, and although poisoning is suspected it has not been possible to confirm the cause of death. White-tailed Eagles were once relatively wide- spread in Ireland, but became extinct during the nineteenth century, largely as a result of human per- secution. Since 2007, a total of 100 eagles have been released in Killarney through a reintroduction project managed by the Golden Eagle Trust. Although 2012 marked the first breeding attempt in Ireland in over 100 years, the issues that originally led to these magnificent birds being wiped out over a century ago have unfortunately not disappeared. Twenty-six eagles have been found dead since their reintroduction began in 2007, and it has been con- firmed that at least 12 of these were poisoned. Commenting on the death of the White-tailed Eagle in Cork, the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Jimmy Deenihan, said: ‘The poi- soning of an eagle in Co. Cork is very serious. Eagles are protected by law, they are majestic birds of prey, and their reintroduction to Ireland is an important and very worthwhile project. My Department is providing any assistance it can to the Gardai in the investigation of this matter.’ For extended versions of many of the stories featured here, and much more, visit our website www.britishbirds.co.uk British Birds 106 • April 2013 • 184-188 185 Barry Marsh Barry Marsh News and comment Richmond Park Woodchat Shrike revisited - 60 years on The 50th anniversary of the Suffolk ‘Houbara’ (Macqueen’s Bustard) Chlamydotis macqueenii (Brit. Birds 106: 4) prompted memories of another high-profile rarity for BB subscriber Barry Marsh. A Woodchat Shrike Lanins senator discovered in Richmond Park, Surrey/Greater London, in April 1953 presented Barry with a photographic opportunity that tested his ingenuity to the full. His photo appeared in Vol. 46 of BB and is repro- duced here. Barry says: The photograph by today’s superb standards is poor, but many readers of BB, particu- larly photographers, may wonder what kind of 120 & 121. The April 1953 Richmond Park Woodchat Shrike Lanius senator, photographed by Barry Marsh, with the camera involved also shown. camera and lens I used. Photographs of free-flying passerine migrants in those days were very much the exception. The lens, lacking any kind of iris, was a Zeiss Telikon 750 mm f6.3 and probably used by a German reconnaissance aircraft during the Second World War. This was connected to a 1/4 plate Soho Reflex Camera with a home-made arrangement that allowed the camera to move to focus, as it was much lighter than the lens. I increased the depth of focus by adding a disc, with right-sized hole, and inserted it into the home-made lens hood, as can be seen in one of the photographs. This leviathan was very heavy! The Woodchat favoured a wire fence into which I fixed a slightly higher perch, actually the end of a broom handle, so that I could organise a pre-focus point. The bird took to this like a duck to water. The camera was half hidden on the ground at a distance of about eight or nine yards and the shutter released from a distance with the aid of a long piece of string!’ Barry says that he still has the exposed glass plate of the shrike, but no longer owns the camera. And here’s the account from BB: ‘Several observers have sent us details of a Woodchat Shrike that remained in Richmond Park, Surrey, for some three weeks in April and May, 1953. It was first seen on April 13th (an early date) by A. Crutchley; the identification was confirmed on April 19th by E. D. Bushby, and on the 21st by B. A. Marsh. It was later seen by a large number of observers (including E.M.N., and P.A.D.H.) [Max Nicholson and Phil Hollom] until the morning of May 5th. On May 3rd a photograph was taken by Mr Marsh and this is reproduced on plate 47; unfortunately the front of the head and the under- parts are thrown into shadow by the sun’s shining directly onto the bird’s back, but a good impression is given here of the rather poor plumage in which the bird was. It seemed to be an immature with somewhat worn feathers; and the amount of black on the fore- head and round the eye, unmixed with chestnut, sug- gested a male. The scapular- patches, rump, and under- parts were greyish rather than white or cream.’ (Brit. Birds 46: 305-306) Owen Marks also wrote in after reading the Houbara 186 British Birds 1 06 • April 2013 * 184-188 News and comment piece. He is one of the select band who saw the famous bustard in 1962 and told N&c: ‘I saw the Bustard on 23rd and 29th of December 1962 together with a colleague Colin Kirtland, his father, and my uncle Maurice Atkin. He was able to take a few seconds of the bird on the ground and in flight on an 8-mm cine camera. On 23rd there were only three people viewing and on 29th only two.’ What is certain is that such solitude would not be enjoyed if another Macqueen’s Bustard arrived on the UK mainland now! New species of storm-petrel A distinctive Oceanites storm-petrel, first spotted by Irish birders Seamus Enright and Michael O’Keeffe off the coast of Chile in 2009, has been declared a new species by seabird expert Peter Har- rison. In February this year, Harrison led a small team that managed to capture 12 of the mystery storm-petrels at sea near Puerto Montt, Chile. ‘These birds are likely to be a completely new species, as they are so different from any other storm-petrels we know,’ says Harrison. There are just 22 known storm-petrel [species] worldwide.’ The key to the success of this project was the involvement of New Zealanders Chris Gaskin and Karen Baird and their specially designed net guns, which were used to clinch the rediscovery of the New Zealand Storm-petrel O. maorianus (see below). Using ‘chum’ to attract the birds, Har- rison’s team were able to capture the mystery petrels using net guns and could then take photos, measurements and biological samples. One of Chile’s leading ornithologists, Dr Michel Sallaberry Ayerza, from the University of Chile (in Santiago), collected blood samples and feathers, which will be analysed to confirm the identity of the new species. ‘This is a very impor- tant discovery for Chile,’ said Sallaberry, ‘and it seems the birds are in good numbers; in fact during our visit they were the most common seabird in the area. Once the DNA work is com- pleted the next step will be to try to find out more about these birds, where they breed and if they migrate away from the area during the winter, or remain resident.’ The putative new species has been discovered within sight of the beaches at Puerto Montt, which is a popular seaside town for Chileans. The waters of Seno Reloncavi are plied by cruise ships, cargo vessels, and fishing boats. While the current work provides the basis for a scientific description of the new species, the credit for its discovery must go to Messrs Enright and O’Keeffe, who were seabirding on the Puerto Montt ferry four years ago and noted that the storm-petrels with a lot of white on the underparts were not the local Fuegian subspecies of Wilson’s Storm-petrel O. oceanicus chilensis, since they had photographed this form off Valaparaiso only a few days before - and the birds had had (at best) some white mottling on the underparts. Harrison concluded: ‘To discover a completely new species is a special moment in any biologist’s life. Our discovery is made more significant because the new species is a seabird. Worldwide there are just 350 or so seabird species and storm- petrels are the smallest of all seabirds. Without doubt this discovery is a red-letter event for seabird enthusiasts of the world.’ New Zealand Storm-petrel breeding grounds discovered And there was more breaking news for Pacific petrel enthusiasts in February. Just days after the ‘Puerto Montt petrels’ were trapped, nesting New Zealand Storm-petrels were found only 50 km from Auckland. BirdLife announced that: ‘Researchers are elated to discover that the sparrow-sized New Zealand Storm-petrel, thought to be extinct until 2003, is breeding on Little Barrier Island Hauturu in the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park.’ The seabird is listed as Critically Endangered by BirdLife and finding the breeding site is vital for its conservation. Three specimens of the diminutive (35 g) seabird were collected off New Zealand in the 1800s and are held by museums overseas. But it was considered extinct prior to its rediscovery ten years ago. Since then there has been intense speculation as to where the species breeds. The team that found them camped on the Poor Knights Islands, Mokohinau Islands and Little Barrier Island, and used radio receivers to zero in on the breeding site. ‘It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,’ said Chris Gaskin of Forest and Bird (BirdLife NZ). A critical breakthrough came last year when the project team found brood patches on New Zealand Storm-petrels caught at sea. This determined the timing of incubation, the best time to find breeding birds on land. This year 24 birds were caught at sea using spe- cially designed net guns, and tiny ( 1 g) radio trans- mitters were fitted to each bird. Automated receivers British Birds S06 • April 2013 • 184-188 187 Nwenar Fatih /Nature Iraq News and comment narrowed down the search. Team members, based at a remote camp on the north coast of Little Barrier Island and using handheld receivers and spotlights, confirmed that birds were coming ashore under the cover of darkness and moving inland. Chris Gaskin said: ‘We discovered a bird on the ground, possibly having just left its burrow. At the same time team members detected another bird, this one most probably on a nest. It’s an amazing result for our enthusiastic and dedicated team.’ National Nestbox Week - in Iraq It’s not unusual for schoolchildren in the UK to be building nestboxes in February to put up in the school grounds. But now schools in Iraq have joined in the fun. With funding from the UK Government’s Darwin Initiative and support from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and BirdLife Interna- tional, the local affiliate, Nature Iraq, has provided the materials and expertise for five schools to build nestboxes to put up in their local areas. Between them they constructed 43 nestboxes for Great Tits Parus major and Sombre Tits Poecile lugubris and each of the five schools received an Arabic language bird book for children. For more on this story, see the BB website www.britishbirds.co.uk I 22. Pupils from Kani Shok primary school in Iraq getting to grips with nestboxes for the school grounds; February 20 1 3. Can you hear Golderest song? In March last year [Brit. Birds 105: 152-153), Richard Porter raised the issue of hearing loss and the declining ability with age of survey workers to hear, for example, Golderest Regains regains song. I am attempting to quantify how that problem develops with age. Please let me know how it is for you: I need only your gender, age and if you can, or cannot, hear Golderest song. Please let me know at goldcrest@lanius.org.uk or drop me a line at Oakerley, Clun Road, Aston on Clun, Shropshire SY7 8EW. Many thanks in advance for your help. (Contributed by John Tucker) Irs praise of... Russell Slack Anyone who has dipped into Rare Birds: Where and When by Russell Slack will have appreciated his presentation of data on rare birds in emi- nently readable form. As a first-rate birder and statistician, he was well placed to compile this valuable compendium. But we have been robbed of his talents at the shockingly early age of 45 fol- lowing his death from a very aggressive form of liver cancer. Russell, a Yorkshireman, was part of the small team that set up BirdGuides; he was responsible for establishing their Bird News Extra service and helped to develop the monumental DVD-ROM products BWPz and the 100-year archive of British Birds , BBz. Latterly he’d returned to academia at York LIniversity. He leaves a wife, Linda, and young daughters, India and Ruby; a fuller obituary will appear in BB shortly. 188 British Birds 106 • April 2013 • 184-188 Organochlorme pesticides and birds Ian Newton Abstract This is the second paper in a series to mark the research interests of former 88 editor Stanley Cramp, and looks at the impact of pesticides on birds over the past 50 years or so. Cramp’s interest in this subject was related to the effects of organochlorine pesticides, and this paper summarises the way in which these pesticides affected both individuals and populations, and describes how patterns of recovery followed the control and withdrawal of the pesticides involved. Some more recent problems with pesticides are also described, including deliberate poisoning of raptors, incidental relating to the use of veterinary products. This is the second paper in British Birds aimed to commemorate the contribu- tions to British ornithology made by the journals former editor Stanley Cramp, born 100 years ago, in 1913. His involvement with the impact of pesticides on birds began in the late 1950s, when thousands of birds were found dead and dying in recently sown cereal fields across Britain. The grains had been dressed with some newly released organo- chlorine pesticides - the so-called cyclodiene compounds, such as aldrin, dieldrin and hep- tachlor. The aim was to protect the sown grains against insect attack, reducing the losses for farmers. But it turned out that these pesticides were also extremely toxic to birds and mammals, killing many individuals that fed on treated grains spilled on the soil surface. The birds usually died in convulsions, and were otherwise in good condition. Chemical analyses revealed the presence of organochlor- ine residues in their body tissues. Affected species included not only seed-eaters, such as finches, buntings, pigeons and gamebirds, but also raptors, such as Eurasian Sparrowhawks Accipiter nisus, which fed on the dying birds. The many thousands of birds found dead around arable land were assumed to form a tiny proportion of the total killed, and the situ- ation can be exemplified by an account from an informant from Tunstall in Norfolk: ‘The place is like a battlefield. My keeper has found innumerable corpses, including masses of poisoning by rodenticides and problems small birds... this slaughter... is going on all around here and quite apart from the game, the destruction of wildlife is quite pitiful.’ (BTO archive material). Stanley Cramp’s main role was to collate the information on bird and mammal deaths collected across the UK under the auspices of the BTO, the RSPB and (from 1963) the Game Research Association. He chaired the newly formed ‘Joint Committee on Toxic Chemicals’, and acted as lead author on six reports presented to the Government during the period 1961-67. The first report was pub- lished in 1962, the same year as Rachel Carson’s influential book Silent Spring (Carson 1962), which drew attention to the problems of organochlorine use mainly in North America. On both continents, it soon became evident that birds of prey were in rapid decline and that broken eggshells were often found in the deserted nests. A break- through came in 1967 when Derek Ratcliffe published his discovery of eggshell-thinning in raptors and other species. Through the examination of dated eggshells collected in the past and housed in museums and private collections, Ratcliffe (1967, 1970) was able to date the timing of the start of shell-thinning among several species in Britain to the late 1940s. This was the time when another organochlorine, dichlor-diphenyl-trichloro- ethane (DDT), came into widespread agri- cultural use. © British Birds 106 • April 2013 • 189-205 189 John Hawkins/FLPA Newton The following decades saw a period of intensive research into the effects of organochlorine pesticides on birds and mammals, endless battles with the agricul- tural and agro-chemical lobbies, and eventu- ally the progressive banning of these chemicals from agricultural use in most parts of the world. This story has been told many times, perhaps most vividly for Britain by Derek Ratcliffe in his book The Peregrine Falcon (Ratcliffe 1980, revised in 1993). My own involvement with the organochlorine problem derived mainly from my work on the Sparrowhawk, one of the most affected species, and also from directing the pesticide research at Monks Wood Research Station over a 20-year period. This work included monitoring the organochlorine residues present in the carcases of predatory birds found dead and sent in for analysis by members of the public. My aim here is to summarise some research findings on the effects of organochlorine pesticides on birds, and the general lessons that emerged. Although these chemicals are no longer used in Britain, and their effects may be unfamiliar to younger readers, their period of use was a hectic time for bird protection, and stimu- lated a steep rise in the conservation move- ment worldwide. Some of the lessons learnt are just as relevant today, and towards the end of this paper I touch on some more recent problems caused by other pesticides and veterinary products. Some general points about pesticides As their name implies, pesticides are designed to kill pests, mainly of agricultural crops. They are thus seen as a great boon to human food production and health world- wide. But there are also environmental costs from their use. Firstly, if pesticides destroyed only the target pests and then quickly broke down to harmless by-products, problems from their use would be minimal. But most pesticides are non-specific and kill a wide range of organisms. Secondly, while some break down rapidly, others last for weeks, months or even years in animal bodies or in the physical environment, able to affect animals long after they were applied. Thirdly, 123. Male Eurasian Sparrowhawk at a plucking post with a recently killed Blackbird Turdus merula, West Midlands, April 2006. Sparrowhawks became contaminated with residues of organochlorine pesticides, acquiring small amounts from each prey item until enough had accumulated in their bodies to cause critical levels of shell-thinning (in the case of DDT in females) or death (in the case of aldrin/dieldrin in both sexes). Their populations thus declined from the combined impact of lowered reproductive success and increased mortality. Blackbirds obtained their residues mainly from earthworms, which in turn acquired them from the soil. 190 British Birds 106 ‘April 2013 • 189-205 Organochlorine pesticides and birds Fig. I. Modes of action of DDE (from the insecticide DDT) and HEOD (from aldrin and dieldrin) on raptor populations. From Newton (1986). some pesticides accumulate in animal bodies and readily pass from prey to predator, causing secondary poisoning, or even pass along several steps in a food chain, affecting animals far removed (in terms of trophic position) from the target pest. Depending on their chemical properties, all pes- ticides lie some- where within this three-feature spec- trum of variation, with respect to specificity, persist- ence and cumula- tive propensity. In addition, by contaminating air and water, some pesticides (like other pollutants) can reach areas and affect organisms far removed from points of application. This became shockingly apparent in the 1960s when residues of DDT were detected in penguins and other Antarctic birds, thousands of kilometres from the places where they were made or used (George & Frear 1966). Other problems are caused by pesticide manufacture which, through accidents and discharges, often leads to pollution of rivers, lakes and coastal areas, with loss of aquatic life. These problems are accentuated by many local accidents and abuses, excessive application, drift and care- less disposal. Some of these same points apply to some other chemical pollutants, but because pesticides were designed as biocides, and are applied deliberately each year to large land areas, the problems they cause are ever present. Organochlorine pesticides and predatory birds The different types of organochlorine com- pounds illustrate the two direct effects of pesticides on bird populations (fig. 1). As indicated above, DDT was first introduced into widespread agricultural use in the late 1940s and the cyclodienes after 1955. For a time they were widely used throughout the developed world, but during the 1970s and 1980s, they were banned progressively in one country after another as their environmental effects became increasingly apparent. They continue to be used without regulatory constraint mainly in some tropical and sub- tropical areas. Three groups of birds were particularly affected by organochlorines: (1) raptors, especially bird- and fish-eating species such as the Peregrine Falcon Falco peregrinus, Sparrowhawk, Osprey Pandion haliaetus and White-tailed Eagle Haliaeetus albicilla ; (2) various other fish-eating birds, such as cormorants and pelicans; and (3) seed-eating species, such as finches and buntings, doves, gamebirds, geese and cranes which, as described above, fed on newly sown seeds of cereals and other plants treated with organochlorines. It was this direct mortality, with thousands of seed-eating birds found dead and dying on newly sown fields, which first alerted ornithologists in Britain to the problems of organochlorine use. In Britain and Ireland, population declines were most apparent in birds of prey British Birds 106 • April 2013 • 189-205 191 M/7 4-> c 3 o u i/> 03 u Q) CL 00 CL td u rd Q) LO fd _CL> jQ t2 .03 ‘0 03 CL O G • ~ fL K G w Go • Q £ L. 03 Cl, !q Xl G S 1 N ^ d 03 ts X .h £ ?H 03 u OJ *H oj C cu £ o #o> *C Sx x 03 Qh I LO 3 03 J— , 03 .CL nd> O 03 • d d ^ s d o G cl, P O rd g X .a * t! => S 5P 2 ^ gc > d rd b CQ rd X W3 ^ c P 03 <3 K d W5 rd C O S c3 rd CL "d 03 cd -M d 03 rs ’d d O-i rd XI 3h rd N N d -C3 ^ O ^ 03 Xb rd W CL CQ c/5 ^ d 2 C/3 rd d O w u Cd X 5— , rd N N d CQ G» ^ CL a/ CL lo £ s C/5 i—l 03 t- Cl G d Cd ~ d CL LO X 03 torj d X 03 +- * +-* o dn C/5 X cd O Sm JZ X X ^ d cr ~ X 5 p X 00 d rd d W CL X ^ d 03 03 03 O X ^ o ^ d CQ O d o 'O +-> (T> a> x J-H a> i-l o u § 03 X d o £ £ o U CO d o 03 o 03 tQ 03 X 03 d 5 d o -03 GO lo • d P° 03 03 CL o o 03 w Oj H — i o tQ d ~d c Jo o ~5 LO O u d o 03 03 Pd Oj— , O JO Cu X c o X X X 03 X CQ IN CO ^rd O o pH 03 _d ■_ id 4—» d C/5 X X d Jx OJD 03 r< X o a j 03 X H o X Oh 03 ’£ O X X LD X d H British Birds 106 - April 2013 • 217-223 221 Short paper Table 2. Totals of each raptor species counted during autumn migration 2009-12; all sites in the study area. Species 2009 2010 2011 2012 TOTALS Honey-buzzard Pernis apivorus 917 2,800 1,232 2,665 7,614 Black Kite Milvus migrans 22 24 ' 27 40 113 Red Kite Milvus milvus 0 1 1 3 5 Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnopterus 1 0 0 2 3 Short-toed Eagle Circaetus gallicus 1 5 7 2 15 Marsh Harrier Circus aeruginosus 1,038 2,827 1,653 2,690 8,208 Hen Harrier Circus cyaneus 0 0 1 0 1 Pallid Harrier Circus macrourus 6 6 8 9 29 Montagu’s Harrier Circus py gar gus 5 12 14 34 65 Pallid/Montagu’s Harrier 1 1 2 11 15 unidentified ringtail harrier 1 10 5 0 16 Eurasian Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus 22 28 19 43 112 Common Buzzard Buteo buteo 5 3 3 2 13 Steppe Buzzard Buteo buteo vulpinus 2 3 10 5 20 Lesser Spotted Eagle Aquila pomarina 4 2 14 3 23 Booted Eagle Aquila pennata 2 0 5 4 11 Osprey Pandion haliaetus 22 45 30 49 146 unidentified broad-winged sp. 9 9 6 198 222 Lesser Kestrel Falco naumanni 119 175 163 390 847 Common Kestrel Falco tinnunculus 112 228 138 190 668 Lesser/Common Kestrel 39 92 70 248 449 Red-footed Falcon Falco vespertinus 3 3 1 3 10 Merlin Falco columbarius 2 5 3 1 11 Hobby Falco subbuteo 140 229 179 211 759 Eleonora’s Falcon Falco eleonorae 12 24 47 34 117 Saker Falcon Falco cherrug 1 0 1 3 5 Peregrine Falcon Falco peregrinus 8 10 16 20 54 unidentified falcon 2 24 16 39 81 TOTALS 2,496 6,566 3,671 6,899 19,632 different times, the second half of September sees the greatest volume of passage (figs. 4-7). Interesting observations during the survey years include an increase in Lesser Spotted Eagle Aquila pomarina records. This species was formerly very rare and there were several years without a single sighting (Fenech 2010), but a record flock of five was seen on 3rd October 2011, part of a record 14 that year. Eleonora’s Falcons F. eleonorae also increased noticeably during 2009-11 (table 2), although numbers were lower in 2012, ironically a year when falcons in general, and Lesser Kestrels in particular, were abundant. The apparent increase in Peregrine Falcon F. peregrinus records is probably a spurious result affected by a local breeding pair. At least four second-calendar-year Honey- buzzards were observed (and photographed) in autumn, which presumably means that juvenile birds must have returned to Europe after their first winter, unlike most first-year birds, which remain in Africa (Forsman 1999). A good number of Marsh Harriers still roost in trees (see Sammut 2005), though disturbance has become an issue and on many occasions birds did not land before it was completely dark. On a few occasions they were observed to roost in trees outside the usual known areas. A small number of dark- morph male Marsh Harriers were also 222 British Birds 106 • April 2013 • 217-223 Short paper 1 43. Adult Hobby Falco subbuteo, Buskett, Malta, September 20 1 2. recorded during the survey, mostly in late September. Conclusions Results show that raptor migration through Malta is on a considerably larger scale than has been reported previously (and we reit- erate that the numbers presented here are just from one part of the main island, and in the afternoons only) and needs further study. Our aim is to expand the study area to achieve a more inclusive picture through co- ordinated surveys and collaboration, ideally with watchpoints throughout the islands. Acknowledgments Special thanks go to the late John Azzopardi, who initiated the project with MS; also to Joseph Grech and Chris Cachia Zammit, who were active observers throughout the project, and Emanuel Curmi for his immense contribution, especially during the second phase of the study, both in the field and during various discussions on migration patterns. Thanks are also due to AquiLarus Study Group, Dominic Frendo, Marvic Sammut, Ryan Sciberras, Richard Cachia Zammit and his family, Nicholas Flores Martin, Ray Testa and all those who took an active part at some point during the surveys. References Fenech, N. 20 1 0. A Complete Guide to the Birds of Malta. Midsea Books, Malta. Forsman, D. 1 999. The Raptors of Europe and the Middle East: a handbook of feld identification. Poysen London. Meyburg, B-U„ Howey, RW„ Meyburg, C„ & Fiuczynski, K. D. 201 I .Two complete migration cycles of an adult Hobby tracked by satellite. Brit. Birds 104: 2-15. Sammut, M. 2005. Marsh Harriers roosting in trees. Brit. Birds 98: 314-31 6. - & Bonavia, E. 2004 Autumn raptor migration over Buskett, Malta. Brit. Birds 97: 3 1 8-322. Michael Sammut, 11 Sqaq Riga, Birkirkara BKR 2131 Malta; e-mail sammutmichael@gmail.com Natalino Fenech, 90 Greece Street, Naxxar NXR 3408 Malta; e-mail natalino.fenech@yahoo.com Juan Ellul Pirotta, 5 Serenity Lodge, Sir A. Freemantle Street, San Pawl tat-Targa NXR 1383 Malta; e-mail juanellulpirotta@gmail.com British Birds 106 ‘April 2013 • 217-223 223 Natalino Fenech WWT archives Obituaries /\ O Geoffrey Vernon Townsend Matthews, who died in January 2013 aged 89, was the first Research Director of the Wildfowl Trust (now Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust). He was appointed in 1955, when the Trust began to receive regular funding from the (then) Nature Conservancy to monitor Britain’s wildfowl, principally through the National Wildfowl Count scheme (later WeBS), species censuses and ringing, as well as by more eco- logical and biological studies. I joined the small research unit in October 1960. Noted colleagues at that time were George Atkinson-Willes, Hugh Boyd, Janet Rear and Peter Olney, and a few years later, Myrfyn Owen. Geoffrey skilfully oversaw our work, at the same time encouraging research into behavioural studies of the unrivalled collec- tion of captive wildfowl at Slimbridge (and later at other WWT centres), and also forging important research links with the Universi- ties of Bristol and Cardiff. Geoffrey studied natural sciences at Cambridge University and, following service in World War II, completed his PhD on bird navigation in 1950. This subject remained an abiding interest and his research into it con- tinued through the 1960s and 1970s using the Mallard Anas platyrhynchos as a study species. Work in North America in the 1950s had shown that, when released far from home, Mallards show a strong tendency to fly off in a set direction, but Geoffrey was one of the first to put studies of avian orientation onto a scientific footing. Over several years, hundreds of Mallards, mainly caught in the duck decoys at Slimbridge and Peakirk, Northamptonshire, were released singly, usually on old airfields giving good all-round visibility. The vast majority disappeared from sight to the northwest. A small torch battery and bulb, taped to the bird’s leg, even enabled released birds to be followed after dark. The time of day or night, the sun, moon or stars had no effect on this strange phenomenon, which Geoffrey termed 'nonsense’ orientation. 144. Geoffrey Matthews (left), celebrating a successful Bewick’s Swan Cygnus columbianus catch at WWT Slimbridge in January 1979, with the eminent Russian ornithologist Prof. Vladimir Flint. (The bird which Vladimir is holding, ringed ‘FR’ and named ‘Flint’ in his honour, was last sighted at Oosterwolde, Gelderland, the Netherlands, on 24th December 1991.) 224 © British Birds 106 • April 2013 • 224-227 Obituaries Despite many theories as to why birds (not only Mallards) have a standard escape direc- tion, none have justified a change in name. It doesn’t in fact last long, just a few miles. Thereafter, the birds disperse either home or randomly. Geoffrey quickly established himself as a considerable force in the field of wildfowl conservation, both nationally and interna- tionally. At a national level, he helped to change many conservationists’ attitudes towards wild fowlers by insisting that co- operation not confrontation was the way forward. He also ensured that the Wildfowl Trust’s influence was paramount in the Nature Conservancy’s establishment of a countrywide network of wildfowl reserves, by the provision of accurate, up-to-date infor- mation. Another achievement was his critical input to the banning of wildfowl shooting in hard weather. Following complaints about heavy shooting of wildfowl during spells of severe weather in early 1979, particularly in the (unfrozen) southwest of England, where large numbers of wildfowl had moved from frozen areas farther north, a committee was convened by the Department of the Environ- ment with a remit to prevent a recurrence. The question was: If there were to be hard- weather shooting bans, how would they be triggered? The sometimes acrimonious debate was ended when Geoffrey analysed weather data from a network of meteorolog- ical stations around the country whose tem- perature readings could be used for the purpose. If a majority of them reported freezing conditions for more than 13 days, then a ban would be triggered automatically. This universally accepted mechanism is still in place today. Geoffrey became British Delegate to the International Wildfowl Research Bureau (IWRB, founded before the war) in 1956 and quickly realised that co-operation between countries was as important as that within them, given the migratory nature of so many of the wildfowl. He became Honorary Director of IWRB (now Wetlands Interna- tional) in 1969. Its headquarters (at that time just two staff) moved to Slimbridge, which became a focus for further major develop- ments, including expansion from a mainly European organisation to include the Amer- icas, Australasia and Africa. What was seen by Geoffrey and others to be lacking was an international convention on the conservation of wildfowl and their habitats - wetlands that have some of the richest biodiversity on the planet. Much intense effort led to a meeting at Ramsar, in Iran, in 1971, at which the ‘Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as Waterfowl Habitat’ (the Ramsar Convention) came into being. There are now over 160 member states that have designated over 2,000 wetlands covering more than 200 million ha. This designation has been used In many countries both to prevent deterioration and destruction of wet- lands and to enhance them. Such major progress in international co-operation can never be the work of one man, but without Geoffrey’s determination and even, on occa- sions, bloody-mindedness, the Ramsar Con- vention and all that has stemmed from it would not have happened as soon as it did nor have been as effective as it has. Geoffrey was a prolific author, of his major monograph ( Bird Navigation , Cam- bridge University Press, 1955, 2nd edition 1968), over 150 papers, and chapters in over 40 multi-authored books. His first scientific contribution - a note on the Common Cuckoo Cuculus canorus - was published in BB in 1947 (Brit. Birds 40: 313). He was awarded the OBE in 1986, and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the Golden Ark in 1987 by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, both awards being for his services to conser- vation. He also received medals from the BOU and RSPB. On a personal level, I remember him as a constant source of encouragement and stimulation of my own research. We jointly edited Wildfowl for several years and co-authored papers, and I stood for hours on many a bleak airfield, releasing Mallards from a carrying basket while Geoffrey followed them out of sight. He was a fine administrator and the catalyst for great progress in wildfowl conservation. He also recognised (and enjoyed) the often very basic steps needed in carrying out research. Malcolm Ogilvie British Birds 106 ‘April 2013 • 224-227 225 Dawn Balmer Obituaries Derek William Yalden (1940-2013) It is hard to think of a more complete zoolo- gist and natural historian than Derek Yalden, who died on 5th February 2013. His expertise and enthusiasm inspired generations of stu- dents at the University of Manchester, where he taught for 40 years, while his many books and scientific publications have had a far wider reach. Although he regarded himself firstly as a mammologist (he was president of the Mammal Society from 1997), Derek made a tremendous contribution to ornithology far in excess of many who profess birds to be their primary passion. His studies on European Golden Plovers Pluvialis apricaria and Common Sandpipers Actitis hypoleucos in particular are rare exemplars of the importance of detailed, long-term and meticulous monitoring, the value of which was neatly described in his 2003 paper in Wader Study Group Bulletin 100: 212-215. Derek was born in Surrey in 1940 and enjoyed a childhood exploring the natural history of the area. After obtaining a first- class Zoology degree at University College London in 1962, he studied carpal bones in mammals for his PhD at Royal Holloway College before joining the University of Man- chester in 1965, firstly as an assistant lecturer, and then as a senior lecturer, where he soon 145. Derek Yalden at the BTO conference in December 20 1 0. familiarised himself with the local wildlife. He recounted one or two late-night encoun- ters with police investigating what a tall gen- tleman wearing a thick pair of gloves was doing wandering the parks of Manchester at night - looking for Hedgehogs Erinaceus europaeus of course! Soon this interest expanded to the Peak District, about which he wrote: ‘When I moved to Manchester from Surrey, I knew nothing of the fauna of the Peak District, but was rather surprised that no-one else knew very much either, or perhaps more accu- rately, little of what they knew was written down.’ Forty years of dedicated research and investigation followed, which generated many scientific papers on Golden Plovers and Common Sandpipers, and also publica- tions on Black Lagopus tetrix and Red Grouse L. lagopus , Merlin Falco columbarius , Common Kestrel F. tinnunculus and owls, as well as upland birds in general. His 1974 paper on the status of Golden Plovers and Dunlin Calidris alpina in the Peak District, published in The Naturalist 930: 81-91, was in many ways ahead of its time. It was based on extensive surveys of the Dark Peak that Derek undertook himself, with the results mapped in relation to other factors, long before GIS techniques were available. He published extensively on all aspects of the fauna and flora of the Peak District, with papers on such wide-ranging taxa as the Labrador tea plant Rhododendron groen- landicum , newts and wallabies! A final paper by Derek documenting the extinction of the feral wallaby population in the Peak District was published in British Wildlife just days after his death. His incredibly wide expertise made being with Derek in the field a delight, as virtually nothing escaped his eye, or his knowledge. He was not just an incredibly successful sci- entist and gifted naturalist, however, but also a passionate conservationist. He and his wife Pat published key papers on the subject of recreational disturbance of wildlife in the Peak District; work that helped guide the National Trust to pave the Pennine Way long- distance footpath on their High Peak Estate, thus reducing the impact of walkers on both 226 British Birds 106 • April 2013 • 224-227 Obituaries the surrounding vegetation and the breeding birds, such as Golden Plovers. With John Tallis and Penny Anderson, he also under- took long-term studies on the erosion and restoration of moorland vegetation in the Peak District, which helped to steer the sub- sequent work of Moors for the Future, restoring eroded parts of the Dark Peak that Derek loved so well. In total, Derek published over 200 scien- tific papers as well as a wide range of books. His work on mammals included Mammals of the British Isles (2008) and the History of British Mammals (1999), as well as a cata- logue of the mammals of Ethiopia, where he undertook a number of expeditions, and indeed had two species, Grassland Forest Treefrog Leptopelis yaldeni and Yalden’s Desmomys Desmomys yaldeni , named in his honour. He also edited Mammal Review for 22 years. The History of British Birds (2009), which he authored with Umberto Albarella, is the most complete account of the subject, and emphasises another area of Dereks expertise, that of zooarchaeology. His incredible bone collection, collated over a lifetime, was an invaluable teaching tool to help undergrad- uate students (and student demonstrators!) to grapple with the wonderful subject of zoology. Here again, Derek published widely, from papers on Archaeopteryx and the exca- vation of archaeological sites in the Peak Dis- trict, to using place-names to assess the historical distribution of birds. It is difficult to do Derek justice in so few words. I cannot recall another modern-day zoologist who has had such a far-ranging impact on so many fields of study. Ornithology, mammology and zooarchae- ology have each lost a great enthusiast and gentleman, and the Peak District a great expert and advocate. Many of us have also lost a great friend. I will always treasure memories of happy hours spent with Derek in the field and at the university, as we worked to understand Golden Plover ecology together, and will be forever grateful for his infectious enthusiasm and humour that inspired me as a young postgraduate student and beyond. He will be sorely missed by all who knew him, for he was unique. He leaves behind his beloved wife Pat, who was an unending source of support to his amazing career. James Pearce-Higgins Notes White-tailed Laurel Pigeon copulating with a plastic decoy The White-tailed Laurel Pigeon Columba junoniae is one of the two endemic pigeons of the Canary Islands. The species is currently restricted to Tenerife and the western islands of La Gomera, El Hierro and La Palma. However, fossil and historical evidence indi- cate that its past distribution included the whole archipelago (Hernandez & Martin 2003). In relation to a project aimed at restoring part of the former laurel forest on Gran Canaria, the island’s local government (el Cabildo) initiated a reintroduction pro- gramme for the White-tailed Laurel Pigeon during 2007. When attempting to capture some juveniles on La Palma, plastic pigeon decoys, about one-third larger than real pigeons, were used for attracting the birds to the traps. Three elaborate models were used that represented pigeons in flight, feeding and standing postures. Initially, fieldwork was carried out from early morning to about midday in Barranco de La Galga (Puntallana). At the beginning of the project, the standing pigeon decoy was found lying on its side every morning, something that we ini- tially attributed to the effect of wind or rats. On 28th July 2007, however, we remained longer than normal in the hide. At 13.30 hrs, a male approached the decoy and commenced a courtship display (cooing, bowing, and tail- dragging) before finally jumping on the © British Birds 106 ‘April 2013 • 227-228 227 Aurelio Martin Notes 146. White-tailed Laurel Pigeon Columba junoniae copulating with a plastic decoy, La Palma, Canary Islands, July 2007. decoy s back, where the mating display ended with copulation. This behaviour was repeated four times in about an hour and a half. During the following days, repeated courtship and copulation occurred every afternoon (plate 146). On one occasion, a male accom- panied by a female also proceeded to court and copulate with the decoy. From 31st July, we confirmed that at least two different males were showing this behaviour and on 3rd August two were present together, and took turns to copulate with the decoy. This behav- iour was observed until mid August. Throughout this period only the standing decoy was selected for copulation, probably as a result of its greater resemblance to the female solicitation posture. In September 2010, this decoy was used again in an attempt to minimise the aggressive behaviour of a male towards the female of a captive pair. After the decoy was introduced, the female made frequent and violent attacks on the plastic pigeon, flapping her wings on the body and furiously pecking at the neck, while the male did not interact with the decoy but aggression between the live birds ceased abruptly. However, in the case of a solitary captive male, the feeding decoy induced cop- ulation and also aggressive behaviour. Copulation with dummies or inanimate objects appears to be quite rare in birds, but has been reported for several species (Pellatt & Birkhead 1994; Saint lalme et al. 1994; Gronstol et al. 1999). The technique is useful for studies of sperm numbers and ejaculate quality and also for artificial insemination in relation to the breeding of endangered species in captivity. Acknowledgments We thank David Tavib and Rafael Pedro for their help during fieldwork and Keith Ermmerson for improving our English. The Cabiido de Gran Canaria provided financial support for the reintroduction programme. References Gronstol, G. B„ Byrkjedal, I., Hafsmo, J. E„ & LislevandT 1 999. Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus copulating with a grass turf. Orn/s Norvegica 22: 60-62. Hernandez, M. A., & Martin, A. 2003. Columba junoniae White-tailed Laurel Pigeon. BWP Update 5 (3): 223-228. Pellatt, E. J., & Birkhead, T R. 1994. Ejaculate size in Zebra Finches Taeniopygia guttata and a method for obtaining ejaculates from passerine birds. Ibis 136 ( I ): 97-106. Saint Jaime, M., Gaucher P, & Paillat, P 1 994. Artificial insemination in Houbara Bustards ( Chlamydotis undulata ): influence of the number of spermatozoa and insemination frequency on fertility and ability to hatch. Journal of Reproduction and Fertility 100:93-103. Aurelio Martin and Alejandro Sudrez-Perez, Dpto. Biologia Animal (Zoologta), Universidad de La Laguna, 38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain ; e-mail aumartin@ull.es 228 British Birds 106 ‘April 2013 • 227-228 Letters Water Rails in Britain In the recent APEP report (Musgrove et al. 2013), I was surprised to see the estimate of 1,100 territories for the breeding population of Water Rails Rallus aquaticus in Great Britain. Although it was dearly stated that assessing the numbers of this notoriously skulking species is difficult, I feel that a better estimate might have been made, given the published data available. Most previous estimates of the British Water Rail population have been associated with the national breeding atlases, the most recently published being of 450-900 pairs (Gibbons et al. 1993). That figure was based on 2-4 pairs per 10-km square for the 215 squares where breeding evidence was recorded. Initially, I assumed that the 1,100- pairs estimate was a simple revamp of those figures, but further reading made it clear that the figure used was derived from the Rare Breeding Birds Panel (RBBP). The RBBP Sec- retary, Mark Holling, explained: ‘The popula- tion estimate in the APEP paper was derived from data submitted to RBBP in 2006-10, a five-year mean of the maximum number of territories reported (1,092 territories in Holling et al. 2012, rounded to 1,100).’ An estimate of the Scottish Water Rail population published in The Birds of Scotland (Forrester et al. 2007) appears to have been overlooked. This noted that ‘recent studies in Scotland taken together suggest 800 territories’; and then presented an estimate for the whole of Scotland, based on known territories and extrapolated to unsurveyed areas, of at least 1,250-1,400 pairs. More recently, even that estimate for the Scottish population seems low. Tape-luring for Water Rails, the main driver for the changes in our knowledge of numbers, has continued to be popular with some workers; this, together with the extra survey effort associated with Bird Atlas 2007-11, has given a clearer picture of the size of the Scottish population. Tape-luring is pretty straightforward; an outline of the technique was given by Gilbert et al. (1998) and Jenkins & Ormerod (2002), while its efficacy was reviewed by Brambilla Table I. Maximum counts from sites holding Water Rails in Scotland; data from published sources and local bird reports. Recording area Territories No. sites Date Source Angus 8c Dundee 32 8 2008 SBR Argyll 149 30 2007 ap Rheinalt et al. (2007) Ayrshire 101 38 2007 SBR Borders 261 75 2011 South-east Scotland Bird Atlas (in prep, Caithness 7 3 2007 SBR Clyde 216 74 2006 SBR/BoS Clyde Is 2 2 2007 SBR Dumfries 8c Galloway 41 21 2008 SBR Fife 47 25 2007 SBR Highland 53 17 2007 SBR Lothian 27 18 2011 South-east Scotland Bird Atlas (in prep. NE Scotland (inc. Moray 8c Nairn) 175 ? 2011 Francis 8c Cook (2011) Orkney 27 17 2008 SBR Outer Hebrides 4 2 2002 SBR Perth 8c Kinross 7 14 2006 SBR Tay Reedbeds* 126 1 1991 SBR/BoS Shetland 7 6 2008 SBR Upper Forth 7 6 2008 SBR Scotland 1,289 357 Key SBR: Scottish Bird Report website; BoS: The Birds of Scotland; * Tay Reedbeds, the largest area of reeds in Britain, is rarely fully surveyed, hence the use of the 1991 count. © British Birds 106 ‘April 2013 • 229-233 229 Letters & Jenkins (2009). In most cases it is necessary only to circumnavigate the edge of a moss or marsh, without wading in. Typically, I repeat a 60-second recording 2-3 times, moving on if there is no response. Birds respond to even quiet recordings from 60-70 m or more, ‘kekking’ or ‘sharming’ in response. The results can be recorded as singles or pairs, as pairs will often duet in reply. It is not unusual to get birds replying at your feet, invisible among marshy vegetation. I then move another 50-60 m along the wetland margin before repeating the process. Density depends on the habitat quality, but territories can be as little as 50-100 m apart along the wetland margin. In my recording area of Borders, most mosses and marshes are rela- tively small, so easy to cover. Nevertheless, I suspect that I miss some birds located deeper into larger wetlands, hundreds of metres across. It is worth noting nil results, to record which sites have been surveyed, and it is worth repeating surveys in later years as numbers can change. A blank year at a water- body may be followed by several in another breeding season, and vice versa. I was horri- fied to find a marsh where I had estimated 23 territories in 1999 with no birds in the very dry spring of 2011. Water Rail is a species covered by the RBBP and as well as recording numbers at each site visited, it is also valuable to report nil returns (see www.rbbp.org.uk/ downloads/rbbp-recording-standards.pdf). Surveys are best performed in the early spring, from late March to late April, to provide the best detection rate but, simply to establish presence or absence, I was happy to gather data whenever possible from mid April (many migrants, presumably Icelandic birds, are still present at wintering sites in Scotland in March) to August. This may mean that some of my counts are underesti- mates. Moreover, although surveying in the early morning is ideal, birds appear to respond at virtually any time of day, which is useful if covering many sites in a single day of fieldwork. Systematic use of tape-lures almost always increases the number of Water Rails recorded. Some 50 pairs at 26 sites were esti- mated in Lothian 8c Borders during the local tetrad atlas survey during 1988-94 (Murray et al. 1998). In Borders alone, this rose to 175 territories at 47 sites by 2006-07 (the esti- mate used in The Birds of Scotland) and to 261 territories at 75 sites by 2012. Some local sites still lack a survey visit, so numbers should increase further. Similarly, in North- east Scotland Francis 8c Cook (2011) updated earlier estimates of c. 95 pairs in 2006-07 to 175 territories in 2011. Without the use of tape-lures, Water Rails are grossly under- recorded, and many local bird reports (dependent on casual records only, without the use of tape-luring) thus provide little insight into the true numbers present. It seems likely that casual, rather than system- atic, observations lie at the heart of the very low national estimate of Water Rails by APER Table 1 shows the April-August numbers published in Scottish local bird reports (using the Scottish Bird Report tool on the SOC website www.the-soc.org.uk/sbr.php); with one exception, the maximum number since 2000 is shown. Table 1 shows that Scotland holds some- thing in the order of 1,300 ‘known’ Water Rail territories, well in excess of the APEP estimate for the whole of Britain. Since many are likely to be lurking unreported across much of the country, an estimate of 1,800-2,000 territories for Scotland alone might not be unreasonable. Preliminary maps available from the BTO Table 2. Water Rail numbers in the best-surveyed recording areas in Scotland, based on the number of occupied 10-km squares in Bird Atlas 2007-1 I. Recording area Territories 10-km squares 2008-11 Territories/ 10-km square Argyll 149 13 11.5 Ayrshire 101 12 8.4 Borders 261 24 10.9 NE Scotland (inc. Moray & Nairn) 175 29 6 Clyde 216 17 12.7 Total/mean 902 95 9.5 230 British Birds 106 ‘April 2013 • 229-233 Letters for Bird Atlas 2007-11 suggest that Water Rails were recorded from 682 10-km squares in Great Britain during 2008-11. Using the density figure employed in the 1988-91 Breeding Atlas, this would raise the GB popu- lation to 1,320-2,640 territories for 2008-11. In Scotland, Water Rails were reported from almost 200 10-km squares in 2008-11, about 30% of all squares in mainland Britain. Using data from table 1 gives a 'density’ of 6.5 territories per occupied 10-km square. However, in the best-surveyed recording areas of Argyll, Ayrshire, Borders, Clyde and Moray & Nairn/NE Scotland, this figure rises to 9.5 territories per occupied 10-km square (table 2). Using these values produces a range of 4,430-6,480 territories for Great Britain, with 1,530-2,230 territories in Ireland. While dedicated national surveys are valu- able in assessing population levels for many species, more use might be made of the good data available within local bird reports for others. Hopefully this note will prompt more observers to get out in the field and use tape- lures to record this enigmatic species. While some enjoy the discovery of a rarity, I find surveying for Water Rails just as exciting. You never know what to expect and there can be a real thrill at the moment when you hear a reply from across a marsh but also the satis- faction that what you’re doing is helping to unravel a local and national mystery. Acknowledgments I would like to thank Dawn Balmer; Mark I— lolling and David Jardine for comments on the text and the BTO for allowing use of the unpublished totals from Bird Atlas 2007-1 I. References Brambilla, M., & Jenkins, R. K. B. 2009. Cost-effective estimates ofWater Rail Rallus aquaticus breeding population size. Ardeola 56:95-102. (www.ardeola.org/files/ 1 424.pdf). Forrester R.W., Andrews, I.J., Mclnerny, C.J., Murray, R. D., McGowan, R.Y, Zonfrillo, B., Betts, M. W„ Jardine, D. C., & Grundy D. S. 2007. The Birds of Scotland. SOC, Aberlady. Francis, I., & Cook, M. (eds.) 2011. The Breeding Birds of North-east Scotland. SOC, Aberdeen. Gibbons, D. W., Reid, J. B., & Chapman, R. A. 1 993. The New Atlas of Breeding Birds in Britain and Ireland: I 988- 1991. Poyser, London. Gilbert, G., Gibbons, D.W., & Evans, J. 1998. Bird Monitoring Methods: a manual of techniques for key UK species. RSPB/BTO/JNCC/WWT/ITE/The Seabird Group, Sandy Holling, M„ & the Rare Breeding Birds Panel. 20 1 2. Rare breeding birds in the United Kingdom in 2010. Brit. Birds 1 05: 352-4 1 6. Jenkins, R. K. B., & Ormerod, S. J. 2002. FHabitat preferences of breeding Water Rail Rallus aquaticus. Bird Study 42: 2- 1 0. Murray R. D., Holling, M„ Dott, H. E. M„ &Vandome, R 1 998. The Breeding Birds of South-east Scotland. SOC, Edinburgh. Musgrove, A., Aebischer N., Eaton, M„ Hearn, R., Newson, S„ Noble, D., Parsons, M„ Risely, K„ & Stroud, D. 20 1 3. Population estimates of birds in Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Brit. Birds 106: 64-100. ap Rheinalt.T, Craik, C., Daw, P, Furness, R„ Petty, S., & Wood, D. 2007. Birds of Argyll. Argyll Bird Club, Minard. Ray Murray, 4 Bellfield Crescent, Eddleston, Peebles EH45 8RQ; e-mail ray ! murray@btinternet.com Editorial comment Andy Musgrove, lead author of the APEP report, has commented: ‘Ray has clearly identified one of the most difficult species to source estimates for. We flagged the RBBP-derived Water Rail breeding numbers as a known underestimate and, indeed, failed to come up with a winter estimate at all. I acknowledge that we overlooked the figures in The Birds of Scotland for this species - we tended to refer to that source in those cases where the whole GB/UK population was in Scotland, for which it provided a robust national estimate. In general, we shied away from producing entirely new estimates ourselves by collation of information from county bird reports (unfortunately, the Panel just doesn’t have the resources to take that approach), but Ray’s figures and approach certainly seem perfectly sensible. If Ray, or one of his colleagues, can continue to look at Water Rails in this level of detail for a few more years, and publish the results in BB, I’m sure that the authors of APEP4 will be delighted to be able to cite them! And there might be a few more Baillon’s Crakes Porzana pusilla discovered along the way. Population estimates of birds in Like many readers, no doubt, I was hugely impressed by the sheer amount of work that lay behind the UK/GB population estimates set out in the recent APEP report (Musgrove et at Great Britain and the UK 2013). One statistic that caught my eye points either to an inconsistency or to an interesting and little-known phenomenon, however. The summer estimate for UK Moorhens British Birds 106 ‘April 2013 • 229-233 231 Letters Gallinula chloropus suggests that there are 270,000 territories. If each territory repre- sents a pair, and each pair raises a single sur- viving young (which for Moorhens seems a rather conservative estimate), this suggests an early autumn population of over 800,000. The winter estimate, however, is only 330,000. Since BWP suggests that, if any- thing, the UK is a net importer of Moorhens (which are perhaps much more migratory than we might realise) in the winter, this suggests either large winter mortality or that a great chunk of the UK population does after all move south in winter. My suspicion is that the winter estimate is too low (and less clearly that the summer estimate is too high), and that (as the authors suggest) the Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) is not the best way of measuring the winter population of what is often a ditch/pond/ field bird, except in the harshest weather. Nonetheless, when there is a big freeze, where do all these birds go - or is winter mortality even higher than we currently believe? Clifford Smout, 5 Westfield Avenue, Harpenden, Hertfordshire AL5 4HN; e-mail psmout@btinternet.com Editorial comment Andy Musgrove commented: ‘While The Migration Atlas shows that there is a small degree of movement in and out of the UK, most Moorhens are highly sedentary and I agree that at least one of the APEP estimates is probably some way off the mark. I also agree that the winter estimate was harder to generate than the breeding one, and was judged less reliable. However, it was not based solely on WeBS counts; the full details of its derivation were published in “Overwinter population estimates of British waterbirds” (Musgrove et al. , Brit. Birds 104: 364-397).’ Breeding Baillon’s Crakes in Britain With reference to the fascinating story in Ausden et al. (2013) about the discovery of breeding Baillon’s Crakes Porzana pusilla in Britain, I should like to point out that the late Peter Grant reckoned with this possibility in the 1970s. Considering the availability of (seemingly) suitable habitat, he strongly believed that breeding had been overlooked in Britain. Knowing my experience with this intriguing species in the Netherlands, Peter invited me to write a note for BB on discov- ering breeding Baillon’s Crakes (Oreel 1981), hoping that this would assist British bird- watchers. References Ausden, M„ White, G„ & Eaton, M. 201 3. Breeding Baillon’s Crakes in Britain. Brit. Birds 106: 7-1 6. Oreel, G. J. 1981. Discovering breeding Baillon’s Crakes. Brit. Birds 74: 146-147; www.britishbirds. co.uk/search?model=pdf&id=5585 Gerald J Oreel, Deurganck 15, 1902 AN Castricum, Netherlands; e-mail gerald.oreel@planet.nl I was interested to read the recent article on the breeding by Baillon’s Crakes in Britain in 2012 (Ausden et al. 2012). It struck me that there is a curious parallel to events in the mid-nineteenth century, in terms of British workers benefiting from experience gained in the Netherlands. Breeding by Baillon’s Crakes in England was documented or suspected several times in the mid-nineteenth century (Wolley & Newton 1902). Joseph Baker, a collector and taxidermist from Cambridge, learnt his skills in searching for this species when vis- iting the Netherlands in May-June 1855 and April-June 1856. At that time, Baillon’s Crake was a common breeder in the Netherlands (Jansen & Vlek 2010), and Baker used his experience to good effect when he returned to the UK. He was involved with a nest discovered in east Norfolk on 6th June 1858 (there is some discrepancy in reports of the locality, which was claimed by another dealer to have been in Cambridgeshire), and this is generally taken to be the first confirmed breeding record for Britain. Fuller details can be found in Sealy ( 1859) and Wolley & Newton (1902); the eggs are retained in the University Museum of Zoology in Cambridge. 232 British Birds 106 ‘April 2013 • 229-233 Letters References Jansen, j. J. F. J„ & Vlek, R. 20 1 0. Joseph Baker; een Engelse vogelverzamelaar in Nederland in het midden van de negentiende eeuw. Limosa 83: 176-182. Sealy, A. F. 1 859. Occurrence of Baillon's Crake, and its nesting in England. The Naturalist 17: 6329-6320. Wolley, J., & Newton, A. 1 902. Ootheca Wolleyana: an illustrated catalogue of the collection of birds' eggs. Part III. Columbae-Alcae. Porter, London. Justin J. F J. Jansen, Ravelijn 6, 5361 EJ Grave, the Netherlands; e-mail justin.jansen@gmail.com Thrush arrivals on Holy Island in I read with interest the recent account of the exceptional arrival of thrushes on Blakeney Point, Norfolk, and at Spurn, Yorkshire, on 22nd October 2012 {Brit. Birds 106: 114-117). On Holy Island, Northumberland, two huge influxes of thrushes were noted during October 2012, one on 12th and a second on 22nd-23rd. The overnight weather forecast on 11th October looked very promising with rain and strong southeasterlies, gusting to gale force. I reached the Island soon after sunrise on 12th October and birds were already arriving in large numbers. From 09.00 to 10.30 hrs, I esti- mated that approximately 6,000 thrushes came in off the sea at The Snook, at the north end of the Island. Wave after wave of thrushes, like swarming flocks of locusts, just cleared the ground, with many birds flying around my feet as they poured in. Many were totally exhausted, crashing into isolated bushes at The Snook car park, after an arduous North Sea crossing. However, others passed straight over the island at height, perhaps having taken a slightly different track across the North Sea and avoided the worst conditions? Simultaneously, Paul Massey witnessed a similar arrival in Holy Island village. Our esti- mated combined totals for the morning were 6,380 Redwings Turdus iliacus, 4,900 Black- birds T. merula , 900 Fieldfares T. pilaris, 460 Song Thrushes T. philomelos, a few Mistle Thrushes T. viscivorus and 5-6 Ring Ouzels T. torquatus. Estimates for other species of note, among a good variety of common and scarce migrants, included 120 Goldcrests Regains regulus, 27 Robins Erithacus rubecula, six Common Chiffchaffs Phylloscopus collyhita , six Common Redstarts Phoenicians phoenicurus and several Short-eared Owls Asio flammeus. Ten days later, on 22nd October, after October 20 S 2 overnight southeasterlies and fog, a second major influx of thrushes occurred. Ian Kerr’s estimates for the Island included 4,000-4,500 Redwings (of which more than 3,000 passed south over The Heugh to the mainland) and 2,000 Blackbirds. The following day I counted 660 Fieldfares on the island and Ian noted a further 2,000 passing southwest. In contrast to the arrival on 12th (and with the situation at Blakeney and Spurn), no new Ring Ouzels or Song Thrushes were recorded. Notable totals of other species included c. 300 Robins, 200 Bramblings Fringilla montifringilla and 70 Goldcrests. Interestingly, and unlike the situation farther south, Northern Wheatears Oenanthe oenanthe were totally absent from Holy Island during both arrivals and Common Chiffchaff numbers were well below those recorded elsewhere. A conservative estimate of over 22,500 birds was recorded in both influxes without any systematic counting. In a historical context, the total of 4,900 Black- birds on 12th October has been beaten only three times in Northumberland, with 10,000 on Holy Island on 28th October 2004 being the highest count (Frankis et al. 2006). The total of 6,380 Redwings on 12th October has been bettered only seven times, with the highest county total being 20,000+ on Holy Island on 10th October 1991 (Kerr 2007). Both influxes were truly memorable, with an equally impressive supporting cast of species. Acknowledgments I wish to thank Paul Massey and Ian Kerr for helpful comments on a first draft of this letter References Frankis, M„ Kitching, M., & Malloy, J. (eds.) 2006. Birds in Northumbria 2004. Northumberland and Tyneside Bird Club, Newcastle upon Tyne. Kerr, I. 2007. The Birds of Holy Island. Holy Island. Andy Mould, 10 Fairfield, Longbenton, Newcastle upon Tyne NE12 8UF; e-mail highroller 1 0@btinternet.com British Birds 106 • April 2013 • 229-233 233 Reviews ■ Fee? Ifisitfe T&i Jw*;3w;s-ft*'vrf *&»■£*?& siMtrtJ .; ■ D E R E K A N'N Birds in a Cage By Derek Niemann Short Books, 2012 Hbk, 312pp ISBN 978-1-78072-093-7 Subbuteo code M21587 £20.00 BB Bookshop price £18.00 John Barrett, John Buxton, Peter Conder and George Waterston were four of the most significant British ornithologists to be born in the 1910s. All wrote papers for British Birds at various times and each made his mark on bird study in a different way. By chance, they each joined a different regiment in the Second World War and, by tragic coincidence, all found themselves imprisoned at different places during that war, having been captured in Germany, Norway, France, and Greece respectively. The war brought together so many people from different backgrounds, often in very challenging situations. Friendships were forged in the toughest of circumstances - not least in Prisoner of War camps across Germany. These four ornithologists were all moved between different prison camps in varying locations but all four were held at the same place between October 1941 and September 1942. That place was the Oflag VI-B camp for offi- cers at Warburg in Germany - roughly halfway between Flanover and Cologne. This book tells the story of their wartime service, but particularly the time they spent together. If anything, their interest in birds was strengthened by their enforced imprisonment. There were relatively few things that inmates could do, but each of them had noticed birds around the camp, and - despite the absence of binoculars - they had started to record what they saw. In partic- ular they observed the spring migration of 1942, with a daily log being kept of every bird seen over a period of almost two months. In addition Buxton focused his attention on the Common Redstart Phoenicurus phoenicurus. Their interest in birds attracted the attention of security guards, who suspected them of plotting an escape plan. Not surprisingly, some of the inmates thought that they were an odd group - not least when they started to correspond with a German ornitholo- gist. All but Barrett were later moved south to another camp in a wooded valley at Eichstatt, where Conder studied the Goldfinch Carduelis car- duelis and Waterston focused on the Wryneck Jynx torquilla. The latter study totalled an astonishing 1,200 hours of observation for Waterston and his ‘assistants’. Eventually, the men were split up before the war ended in 1945 and all returned home safely. In their own ways, each of the four men went on to make their impression on the world of ornithology and bird conservation. John Buxton became a teacher and academic and wrote up his studies of the Common Redstart in a New Natu- ralist monograph ( The Redstart , Collins, 1950); John Barrett became the warden of Dale Fort Field Centre in Pembrokeshire and wrote highly popular guides to seashore wildlife; Peter Conder became the warden at nearby Skokholm, eventually joining the RSPB staff in 1954 and becoming the Society’s Director General; George Waterston, who founded Fair Isle Bird Observatory, also ended up on the RSPB staff and is widely accepted as the man who made sure that the Osprey Pandion haliaetus suc- cessfully reintroduced itself to Scotland in the 1950s. The great value of this book is that it brings together the story of what these men experienced. These are stories that have rarely been told, as each of them remained relatively tight-lipped about their experiences - even to close family. Peter Conder did write up some of his thoughts but never completed them, and John Buxton even wrote a book on the subject, which was rejected for publication. The strength of this book comes from the fact that you are drawn into their lives and it feels as if the men are in a room talking about what had happened. All four died a long time before Derek Niemann had the idea for this book, but despite having never met any of them, he has brought to life their different attitudes and experiences with great ease. Keith Betton SUBBUTEO The BB Bookshop, brought to you by Subbuteo Natural History Books www.wildlifebooks.com/bb, and see our list after Talking point 234 © British Birds 106 ‘April 2013 • 234 Recent reports Compiled by Barry Nightingale and Harry Hussey This summary of unchecked reports covers the period from early February to early March 2013. Headlines Another quiet period, but one punctuated by some long-awaited rarities, the most sought-after being a male Harlequin Duck in the Outer Hebrides. A Pied-billed Grebe in Somerset was more accessible and also in the southwest was a returning Pacific Diver in Cornwall and a rare English record of an American Herring Gull on Scilly.The list of long-staying passerines remained impressive, headlined by Pine Grosbeak in Shetland and the first Desert Wheatear to survive a Scottish winter. Cackling Goose Branta hutchinsii Long-stayers: Islay (Argyll), to at least 1st March; Frampton Marsh (Lincolnshire), to 9th February; North Wootton (Norfolk), to 9th February; Balranald, North Uist (Outer Hebrides), to 10th March; and Lissadell (Co. Sligo), to 16th February. In addition: Mersehead (Dumfries 8c Galloway), 23rd February to 3rd March; Termoncarragh Lake (Co. Mayo), 20th February; and Raghly (Co. Sligo), two, 24th February. Red-breasted Goose Branta rupcollis Thorney Island, Langstone and Farlington Marshes (Sussex/Hampshire), long-stayer to 10th March. American Wigeon Anas americana Long-stayers: Tullaghan (Co. Leitrim), to 24th February; Udale Bay (Highland), to 9th March; South Uist (Outer Hebrides), to 17th February; and Cahore (Co. Wexford), to 23rd February. New arrivals: South Ronaldsay (Orkney), 8th February; Fiskerton (Lincolnshire), 9th-27th February; Slimbridge (Gloucestershire), 15th- 16th February; Bowling Green Marsh/Topsham (Devon), 16th February to 10th March; and Finstown (Orkney), 3rd-10th March. Baikal Teal Anas formosa Tacumshin (Co. Wexford), 8th-9th February. Black Duck Anas rubripes Long-stayers: Mizen Head (Co. Cork), two to 9th March; Strontian (Highland), to 10th Feb- ruary; and Sruhill Lough, Achill Island (Co. Mayo), to 10th February. Blue-winged Teal Anas discors Threave (Dumfries 8c Galloway), long- stayer to 1st March; North Bull (Co. Dublin), 14th— 17th February. Ferruginous Duck Aythya nyroca Long-stayers at Priory CP (Bedfordshire), to 2nd March, and Cockshoot Broad (Norfolk), to 10th February. Also: Blashford Lakes (Hampshire), 22nd-24th February; Ham Wall area, 27th February to 10th March, with another at Wimbleball Lake (both Somerset), 3rd March. Lesser Scaup Aythya affinis Long-stayers: Lough Gash (Co. Clare), to 2nd 147. Male Harlequin Duck Histrionicus histrionicus, Balranald, North Uist, Outer Hebrides, March 20 1 3. © British Birds 106 ‘April 2013 • 235-236 235 Kit Day GaryThoburn Recent reports 1 48. Pied-billed Grebe Podilymbus podiceps, Ham Wall, Somerset, March 20 1 3. March; Colliford Lake to 19th February, then Siblyback Resr (both Cornwall), to 10th March; and Cardiff Bay (East Glamorgan), to 10th March. Burton Mere (Cheshire & Wirral), 3rd March, pre- sumed same Shotwick (Flintshire), 4th-8th March. King Eider Somateria spectabilis St Combs (North- east Scotland), long-stayer to 25th February; Bally- vaughan (Co. Clare), 18th February; Bluemull Sound (Shetland), 1st March. Harlequin Duck Histrionicus histrionicus Balranald, 18th February to 10th March. Surf Scoter Melanitta perspicillata Fong-stayers: Llandulas (Denbighshire), up to four to 3rd March; The Wig (Dumfries & Galloway), to 19th February; Fargo Bay (Fife), to 5th March; Ballinskelligs to 24th February, and Brandon Bay (both Co. Kerry), to 21st February; North Uist, to 11th February; and Broadhaven (Pembrokeshire), to 5th March. New arrivals: Rerwick Head (Orkney), 9th February; Ballyvaughan, 18th February; Soleburn (Dumfries & Galloway), 26th February to 9th March. Pacific Diver Gavia pacifica Mount’s Bay (Corn- wall), 12th-23rd February. White-billed Diver Gavia adamsii South Ronaldsay/Burray (Orkney), 9th February to 1st March; Fewis (Outer Hebrides), 18th February; Huna (Highland), 4th March; Uisaed Point (Argyll), 5th March. Glossy Ibis Plegadis falcinellus Fong-stayers at Marloes Mere (Pembrokeshire), to 9th March, and Warblington/Bickerley Common (Hampshire), to 10th March. Pied-billed Grebe Podilymbus podiceps Ham Wall, 15th February to 10th March. White-tailed Eagle Haliaeetus albicilla Various sites in northwest Norfolk, 16th February to 6th March. Northern Harrier Circus cyaneus hudsonius Tacumshin, long-stayer to 9th March. Gyr Falcon Falco rusticolus Fong- stayer in Orkney, reported from Yesnaby 8th February, South Ronaldsay 26th and Newark Bay, 27th February. American Coot Fulica ameri- cana Murloch (Co. Galway), long-stayer to 11th March. American Golden Plover Plu- vialis dominica Tacumshin, 1st March. Long-billed Dowitcher Limnodromus scolopaceus Long-stayers at Gann Estuary (Pembrokeshire), to 7th March, and Fady’s Island Fake/Tacumshin (Co. Wexford), to 9th March. Lesser Yellowlegs Tringa flavipes Ernesettle Creek (Devon), long-stayer to 10th March. Forster’s Tern Sterna forsteri Galway Bay (Co. Galway), long-stayer to 17th February. Bonaparte’s Gull Chroicocephalus Philadelphia Fong-stayers: Ogmore Estuary (East Glamorgan), to 9th March, and Eastbourne (Sussex), to 26th February. Also, Cardiff Bay, 24th February to 9th March; Skerries (Co. Dublin), 2nd-9th March. American Herring Gull Larus smithsonianus Baltimore (Co. Cork), long-stayer to 9th February; St Mary’s (Scilly), 28th February. Dark-breasted Barn Owl Tyto alba guttata Rodmell/Southease (Sussex), long-stayer to 16th February. Snowy Owl Bubo scandiacus Pettigo Plateau (Co. Donegal/Co. Fermanagh), 1 0th— 1 5th February; Ben Macdui (North-east Scotland), 18th February to 4th March. Penduline Tit Remiz pendulinus Stodmarsh (Kent), long-stayer to 6th March. Dungeness (Kent), two, intermittently, 8th February to 10th March; Grove Ferry (Kent), 8th February. Pallas’s Leaf Warbler Phylloscopus proregulus Green Moor Lakes (Berk- shire), long-stayer to 5th March. Rose-coloured Starling Pastor roseus Exminster (Devon), long- stayer to 10th March. Black-bellied Dipper Cinclus c. cinclus Thetford (Norfolk), long-stayer to 9th March. Desert Wheatear Oenanthe deserti Rattray Head (North-east Scotland), long-stayer to 10th March. Pine Grosbeak Pinicola enucleator North Collafirth (Shetland), long-stayer to 23rd Feb- ruary. Little Bunting Emberiza pusilla Longstone Hill (Somerset), 5th March. 236 British Birds 106 ‘April 2013 • 235-236 Talking point The amateur British ornithologist - amber-listed? David Lack once said that the greatest pleasure he derived from his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society was that the work that underpinned it - the study of Robins Erithacus rubecula that he undertook while teaching at Dartington Hall - was carried out while he was an amateur. Any student of the history of Britain’s ornithology will be aware of the contribution made over a long period by people whose working lives were unrelated to birds. Many seminal studies were carried out in the twen- tieth century by people such as Edgar Chance (Common Cuckoos Cuculus canorus ), Arthur Landsborough Thomson (migration) and Edward Armstrong (Wrens Troglodytes troglodytes), and up to the 1960s most of the papers published in ornithological journals were the result of work done by amateurs. Where it was the work of professionals it was almost always related to taxonomy and nomenclature since professional ornithology was largely confined to the curatorship of collections - usually, but not always, working in museums. In the latter part of the twentieth century, ornithology, like other sciences, moved into a professional era. Much of this was due to the success of our new post-war conservation ethic and the subsequent firm financial base and leadership of the RSPB, first by Peter Conder and then by Ian Prestt. Once on a sounder footing, the RSPB could afford to employ the research scientists it needed, both Directors realising that they had to use science and research to underpin their conservation strategies. There was also a new interest in birds in academia, not least in their behaviour and in using them for models of more general studies. The number of professional ornithol- ogists grew exponentially and Britain con- tinued to be among the world leaders in the field. It is difficult to pinpoint the moment at which professional ornithology became the norm in this country but it probably hap- pened sometime in the 1980s and early 1990s. There is no suggestion here that this pro- fessionalisation is a bad thing. It has led to a proliferation of studies that have unravelled many surprising facts, such as extra-pair paternity; and, using ever-advancing tech- nology, it has revealed in a matter of days secrets that, despite our efforts, remained hidden for hundreds of years such as Cuckoo migration strategies. It is difficult to see how all this new knowledge could have been achieved entirely by amateurs. However, the professionalisation of ornithology has seen a significant decline in the publication of amateur studies. The two main British ornithological journals, Ibis and Bird Study , now publish studies almost entirely by professionals. Only BB continues to provide an outlet for the amateur and even here about half the papers are from profes- sionals - and not always about British birds! So as far as most national publications are concerned, the amateur has been so margin- alised by these advances as to be barely visible today. In one field of study, however, amateurs remain very much in the vanguard - that of bird identification and, as a consequence, in the recording of rare birds and the status of bird species. Furthermore, the basis of the BTO’s work continues to rely on its network of amateur birdwatchers and ringers who supply the raw material from which the organisation constructs its influential data- base of our avifauna. Yet professionalism has prevailed in the BTO, too, and this is most obvious today in the changing nature of Ringing and Migra- tion, which was set up to be the journal by which British amateur ringers and students of migration could publish their results. Yet ‘R&M has undergone a gradual but inex- orable shift towards professional ornithology and has departed almost entirely from the original concept of the journal, put together by Colin Bibby, the first editor. To the average BTO ringer, recently published studies of wing moult of Eastern Olivaceous Warblers Iduna pallida in the Sahara and the sexing of migrating Tengmalm’s Owls Aegolins funereus are unlikely to raise much interest. This © British Birds 106 ‘April 2013 • 237-238 237 Richard Porter Talking point 1 49. Wader counters on the Wash, in 1971; from left, Alan McGregor, John Andrews, Peter Conder, James Cadbury and Gareth Thomas, is it the case that there was less of a distinction between professional and amateur ornithologists 40 years ago, when professionals were just as likely to get their wellies dirty in the cause of what we might today call ‘citizen science’? departure from the, albeit parochial, subject of ‘our’ birds and the move to modern science publishing standards cannot have been anything other than discouraging when it comes to persuading ringers and other amateurs to submit papers for publication to a journal for which historically they provided the funding - do they still? Of course most editors would doubtless argue that they publish from the papers that they receive and they do not receive papers from amateurs. This may well be true. Yet the pattern of current publication will provide no encouragement for amateur ornitholo- gists. Complex statistical analyses, in partic- ular the current devotion to mathematical modelling, act as a significant deterrent (to readers as well as potential authors) since most amateurs are untrained in this arena. So what is left for the amateur? An article in a local bird report perhaps, or a natural history magazine? A casual glance at such outlets reveals some very interesting papers and articles that almost always remain within a limited readership. Such articles deserve better, county bird reports often contain some examples of good basic ornithological research. Yet now they have no natural outlet for wider publication. Within the Wicken Fen Group simple analyses of our collected data are frequently circulated by e-mail. For example, studies of the distri- bution and longevity of Cetti’s Warblers Cettia cetti , survival of Blue Tits Cyanistes caeruleus and passage periods of Common Whitethroats Sylvia communis are all relatively recent topics. Other ringing groups do the same, some having their own websites (e.g. Rye Meads Ringing Group, www.rmrg.org.uk/pubs.htm). All this work, only a fraction of which is mentioned here, remains outside the main- stream of British ornithology. We cannot turn the clock back and nor should we try; so how can we restore the amateur to a wider audience? A solution would be to provide a forum in which the amateur can publish their analyses, with proper scrutiny but without the rigours of strict scientific peer review. Within the army of surveyors, birdwatchers and ringers there must be many who would like to undertake further study of their data and to see it in the public domain. What is required is a univer- sally available depository that is accessible both physically and intellectually, namely a website. To have credibility such a site needs to be managed by one of the present jour- nals, or by an organisation such as the BTO or even the BOU; with material being uploaded via a moderator who might reason- ably be expected to act as an editor of sorts. Ornithology, like astronomy, has always enjoyed a strong relationship between ama- teurs and professionals, it would be a shame to lose it altogether. Would David Lack’s studies of Robins be published today in the form in which he sub- mitted them? If you think not, then surely something has gone wrong. Peter Bircham If you would like to write a Talking point column, please contact us at editor@britishbirds.co.uk 238 British Birds 106 ‘April 2013 • 237-238 n • i • i n • j British Birds Bookshop Brought to you by NATURAL HISTORY BOOKS The only place to find all your specialist ornithology, natural history and travel books NEW a M19489 hbk RRPiSQ^O £45.00 a M21375 pbk RRPi24r93 £22.45 a M21602 pbk RRP £14*99 £13.49 For more information on any of these books or to request a copy of our 2012-2013 catalogue, visit our website today. Pre-publication Offer < M21351 hbk Due May 2013, price valid until 30th April 2013. Price thereafter £120.00 Pre-publication price £99.00 Handbook of the BIRDS OF THE WORLD The BB/BTO Best Bird Book of the Year 2012 Scottish Birdfair We will be attending the Scottish Birdfair on 11th - 12th May at Hopetoun House, Edinburgh. If you are attending and would like us to bring any specific titles, the please get in touch and we will happily bring them along. 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