Letter: Owls on the increase and nightingales that sing in Berkeley Square

Sir: As an enthusiastic - though very amateur - ornithologist, I was pleased to see some serious coverage of the new British and Irish census of breeding birds. Unfortunately, a photograph of a barn owl (which, admittedly, had plenty of snow in it) was misidentified as a snowy owl.

Another slight grouse is that the opening statement about nightingales (that 'they almost certainly never sang in Berkeley Square') is very much open to question. Berkeley Square is, as the nightingale flies, only a hundred yards or so from the Hyde Park/Green Park/St James's Park green belt, where nightingales are often heard.

Yours faithfully,

NICK GRUNDY

London, SE11

8 November

(Photograph omitted)