SUFFOLK BIRD REPORT 1969 Editor W . H . PAYN
assisted by C . G . D . CURTIS
and The County Records Committee H . E . AXELL, G . B . G . BENSON, F . K . COBB, F . C . COOK, T h e R e v . P . H . T . HARTLEY, a n d A . E . V I N E
Acknowledgements: We are as usual indebted to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Lowestoft Field Club and the Dingle Bird Club for providing records from their logs. Also to the Editors of the Norfolk Bird Report, the Essex Bird Report, and the Cambridge Bird Club Report for passing on relevant records and correspondence. Records for 1970 should be sent to the Editor at Härtest Place, Bury St. Edmunds (telephone Härtest 224) by the end of January next. Please ensure all records are arranged in accordance with The Check List of Gt. Britain and Ireland. We have regretfully to record the deaths during the year of two Suffolk ornithologists — the Rev. P. R. Westall, who edited the first two numbers of the Suffolk Bird Report and A. D. Rowe, who was one of the pioneers of the Dingle Bird Club.
A Brief Summary of the Year Climatically, 1969 will long be remembered for the spell of dry sunny weather which lasted without a break throughout September and October and which was followed by a winter of quite extraordinary unpleasantness, in which periods of rain, fog, frost or snow were only relieved by further spells of similar weather. Strangely enough, these conditions did not produce anything very remarkable in the way of bird migration or 'irruption', except for two quite large 'weather rushes' in late December. Nevertheless, the year was füll of interest, with the usual good tally of uncommon visitors and vagrants.