Statistics in Ornithology The General Context of Statistics in Ornithology The General Context of Statistics in Ornithology Section A General: Colour Feeding Movement and Migration Winter Feeding Assemblies Wing Lengths and Weights of British Dunncocks A Bivariate Discrete Model of Changing Colour in Blackbirds Migration Counts and Local Weather at British Bird Observatories — An Examination By Linear Discriminant Analysis Statistical Problems in the Study of Seed Eating Birds Models to Describe Razorbill Movements Accounting for Visible Migration Section B Analysis of Census Data Multivariate Analysis of Atlas Data A Test for Seasonal Occurrence An Index of Population Change With Application to the Common Bird Census Area Species Incidence Recording Analyses of Nest Spacings An Assessment of Species Area Relationships Using Ornithological Data Apparent Systematic Effects on Species Area Curves Under Isolation and Evolution Section C Survival Are Hunting Losses of Young Black Ducks (Anas Rubripes) Too High The Estimation of Survival in Bird Populations By Recaptures or Sightings of Marked Individuals Maximum Likelihood Methods for Investigating Reporting Rates of Rings on Hunter Shot Birds Examples of the Use of Glim to Analyse Capture Recapture Studies Age Dependent Mortality Rates of Some Common British Birds Estimation and Comparison of Functions of Daily Nest Survival Probabilities Using the Mayfield Method Prior Knowledge and Ornithology Inherent Difficulties in Estimating Age Specific Bird Survival Rates from Ring Recoveries The Effect of Age on Survival in the Canada Goose (Branta Canadensis) in Nottinghamshire Estimation of Age Specific Survival in Hen Harriers (Circus C. Cyaneus) in Orkney Approximate Unbiased Estimation in the Multi Sample Single Recapture Census Approximately Unbiased Variance Estimation for the Jolly Seber Mark Recapture Model : Population Size References Author Index Bird index (english names) Bird Index (scientific names). The genesis of this volume was in a one day meeting arranged under the auspices of the Nathematical Ecology Group jointly of the British Region of the Biometric Society and the British Ecological Society and held in the Natural History Museum in London on the 4th May 1982. The object of the meeting was to bring together individuals from different dis­ ciplines but with a common interest in ornithology. In this volume we have tried to preserve the flavour of the meeting so that all but two of the papers read or pre­ sented as posters can be found here. The two papers that have not been included have since been published elsewhere: see Birkhead and Nettleship (1983) and Cav~ (1983). Further papers have been added to the volume from contributors who were unable to attend the London meeting or were unable to present a paper there. All of the papers were refereed by ourselves. A volume which contains papers by both statisticians and non statisticians is inevitably going to be variable with regard to the depth and range of statistical techniques used. Thus non statisticians are likely to find some of the papers written by statisticians difficult at times and conversely statisticians n2Y find that they would have treated some problems differently from non statisticians. It is hoped however that this volun~ will increase awareness of the interests and problems (including solutions) in the general area of ornithology and stimulate cross fertilisation of ideas.