Abstract
TO the April issue of British Birds, Messrs. Witherby and Alexander contribute an account of the visitation of crossbills to the British Isles in 1909. The birds made their appearance on Fair Isle on June 23, and before the end of that month were seen in the Shetlands, Orkneys, Outer Hebrides, Merionethshire, and Durham; while in July they were observed all over England except the extreme south-west, as well as in a number of places in Wales, and a few scattered localities in Ireland. The latest record of their being seen at sea was in the Shetlands early in August. The first nest recorded was taken on January 12, 1910, near Thetford, while the latest nests were seen “respectively in Sussex and Kent on May 25, the height of the breeding season being in March and April. Nests were recorded from thirteen English counties. The dates of departure of the birds varied locally; in some districts all had gone by the end of 1909, in others there was little or no diminution in the numbers till well on in the following year, but, as a whole, the records indicate that the main departure took place either in February or in April and May. From a second paper in the same issue, it appears, however, that a few crossbills remained to breed in certain localities in the spring of the present year. A note is added in the latter paper on the thin-beaked Scots crossbill (Loxia curvirostra scotica), which breeds regularly over a considerable area in Scotland.
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L., R. Bird Notes . Nature 86, 325 (1911). https://doi.org/10.1038/086325a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/086325a0