SUFFOLK BIRD REPORT 1976 Editor W . H . PAYN
assisted by The County Records Committee C . G . D . CURTIS, G . J. JOBSON a n d A . E . VINE
Acknowledgements. We are as usual indebted to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds for providing us with records from its logs and to the Editors of the Norfolk Bird Report, the Cambridge Bird Club Report, the Lowestoft Field Club Report and the Dingle Bird Club Report for passing on records and information. The Suffolk Ornithologists' Group and the Stour Estuary Bird Group also provided us with much valuable information. We are also most grateful to Eric Hosking, Geoffrey Hollis and Brian Brown for allowing us to use their photographs illustrating this Report. Records for 1977 should be sent to the Editor at Härtest Place, Bury St. Edmunds by the end of January next AT THE LATEST. It is regretted that they cannot be acknowledged unless a s.a.e. is enclosed. In the case of 'difficult' species, semi-rarities or birds considerably out of their normal season, observers are asked to send in füll descriptions of what they saw. This would apply to such species as for instance ferruginous duck, dotterel, Sabine's gull, icterine and melodious warblers, redbreasted flycatcher, ortolan, etc. Review of the Year We shall long remember 1976 for its climatic extremes. Little or no rain feil between April and August and as this dry spell followed two unusually rainless winters, severe drought conditions soon developed. Crops failed and water rationing was imposed. A Minister for Water was even appointed in July. He did his job—the drought broke on August 28th and thereafter throughout the winter and well into the spring more than twice the normal rainfall was recorded. Opinions vary as to whether the hot, dry summer was benefkial or otherwise to bird life. Wetland species like ducks, moorhens and some waders certainly suffered from the rapid drying up of