SUFFOLK
BIRD
REPORT
1962 Editor W.
H.
PAYN
assisted by The Recorders H.
R . BEECROFT a n d
C. G .
D.
CURTIS
and The County Records Committee H.
E.
AXELL,
G.
B.
P. H .
T.
G.
BENSON,
F.
K.
HARTLEY a n d A . E .
COBB, F .
C.
COOK,
VINE
O N C E again acknowledgement is made to the following societies for kindly supplying information and for permission to publish records from their reports :—The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Lowestoft Field Club, the Dingle Bird Club and the Essex Bird Watching and Preservation Society. Grateful acknowledgement is also made to Eric Hosking, F.R.P.S., for permission to reproduce in this Report the photograph of the houbara bustard.
Will observers please send their 1963 records to C. G. D. Curtis, 100 Camden Road, Ipswich, by the end of February, 1964, W I T H O U T FAIL. All other correspondence in connection with the Bird Report should be sent to the Editor at Härtest Place, Bury St. Edmunds, telephone Härtest 224. Separate copies of this report, as well as back numbers, can be obtained from the Editor, price 4/-. INTRODUCTION :
T H E YEAR IN RETROSPECT
Nineteen sixty-two will long be remembered by ornithologists for the consistently cold and sunless conditions that prevailed practically throughout the year. It opened with a blizzard and it ended with one. From January to March there were frequent spells of snow and ice, while unusually severe frosts and icy winds continued until early May. The summer months were generally cold and sunless. Winter set in early, with the first snowfalls in November. More snow feil on December 26 and from then onwards, for nine weeks without a break, ice and snow gripped the land with steadily increasing rigour.