The Wheatear [first edition]

This is an extensive study on the shy wheatear, a small bird which nests chiefly in rabbit burrows. Most of the research took place on Skokholm, an island off the Pembrokeshire coast where the author ringed over 90% of the wheatears for easy identification. One of the great benefits of the colour-ringing was that, without having to re-trap an individual, the author was able to identify and look up its life history. From this he would know who were the parents of an individual bird, whether any of its siblings were still on the island and whether it was occupying the same territory that it had in a previous year.