From Jonathan Elphick
I was delighted to read Adrian Barnett’s positive and well-written review of my book The World of Birds (23 August, p 45). However, I have a couple of points to raise.
The largest known flying bird ever was not the seabird Odontopteryx but, as I described in my text, Argentavis, another Miocene bird and a member of a group known as teratorns. This had a wingspan up to 7.5 metres.
Also, you captioned Diane McAllister’s dramatic photograph of a young owl as a Blakiston’s eagle owl. It is, in fact, a fledgling long-eared owl. Although this widespread Eurasian and North American species is far smaller than the formidable east-Asian Blakiston’s eagle owl, by spreading its wings wide and fluffing out its plumage it looks much larger than it is. I chose that image to make this point.
Exeter, Devon, UK
