General
The manuscript should be written in English (consistent usage of either UK or US spelling), with – if possible – a Finnish or Swedish summary. The text of a manuscript should be typed without special style settings (unindented, no boldface, capitalization, multiple spaces or other unusual formatting). Use 1.5 or double spacing between lines. A blank line should be used to separate headings, sections and paragraphs from the text that follows. A ‘Brief Report’ has a maximum of 4,000 words for the whole manuscript including references, tables and figure captions.

Numbering: Number all pages, starting with the title page (page one). Use line numbering (per page), if available in your word processor (e.g. Microsoft Word).

Italics: Use italics only for scientific names of species (e.g. Parus ater) and words that are originally not English (e.g. in vitro, et al.).

Species names: Use capitals for species names of birds. Using species names in English is encouraged, but on first mention of a species in the abstract and in the text, always indicate the scientific name, e.g. Coal Tit (Parus ater).

Structure of the manuscript
Title: Never in capitals. Give, apart from the full title, also a running title of maximally 80 characters including spaces.

Author: Always full first name, followed by initial(s) of other name(s), if any, and surname (e.g. James T. Brown). Indicate clearly which author is responsible for the correspondence relating to the manuscript.

Address: Postal address and E-mail address should be given separately for each author, if available.

Abstract: should be on a separate page, consisting of one paragraph of up to 200 words. It should be informative (summarising) rather than indicative (listing). All relevant key words should be included in the title and the abstract, and should not be given as a separate list. Articles submitted as ‘Brief reports’ do not require an abstract.

Headings of chapters: (Introduction, Material and methods, Results, Discussion and other main headings) are numbered decimally starting with ‘1.’ (’Abstract’, ‘References’ and ‘Acknowledgements’, are not numbered). Sub-chapters headings must be numbered e.g.: ‘1.1.’, ‘1.1.1.’ and so on, depending on how many levels of sub-chapters you have in your article.

Referring to literature in the text (examples):
Mihok et al. (1985) or (Mihok et al. 1985).
Kurtén & Anderson (1980) or (Kurtén & Anderson 1980).
(Kurtén & Anderson 1980, Mihok et al. 1985).

When referring to more than one publication, arrange them using the following keys: 1. year of publication (ascending), 2. alphabetical order for the same year of publication.

Referring to tables and figures in the text: Tables are referred to as ‘Table’ and figures as ‘Fig.’, followed by their number.

Lists: Begin each item with a single hyphen-dash ‘-’ in the beginning of the line followed by one space. Each item always occupies a separate line e.g.:
- first item,
- second item.

Equations: Each equation occupies a separate line. Indicate its number on the right-hand side e.g.:

In the text, equations are referred to as ‘eq.’. For complicated equations, only Microsoft Word’s or MathType’s Equation Editor can be used.

References: begin with the heading ‘References’; they must have the same format as the text. Journal names are written in full. Each reference must be separated from the next one with one blank line.

Ordinary journal article:
Järvinen, O. & Väisänen, R.A. 1978: Long-term changes of the most abundant south Finnish forest birds during the past 50 years. -- Journal of Ornithology 119: 441–449.

Book:
Kurtén, B. & Anderson, E. 1980: Pleistocene mammals of North America. -- Columbia Univ. Press, New York.

Clutton-Brock, T.H. (ed.) 1988: Reproductive Success. -- University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Chapter in a publication:
Burnham, K.P. 1993: A theory for the combined analysis of ring recovery and recapture data. -- In Marked individuals in the study of bird populations (ed. Lebreton, J.-D. & North, P.M): 199–213. Birkhäuser, Basel.

Non-English publications:
Use Latin symbols for the author’s name. Use translated title only if given in the original publication. State within parentheses the original language and – if an English summary is given – indicate this:

Okulewicz, J. 1989: Breeding biology and ecology of the Reed Bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus) in the region of Milicz fish pond area. -- Ptaki Slaska 7: 1–39. (In Polish with English summary)

Glutz von Blotzheim, U.N. & Bauer, K.M. 1997: Handbuch der Vogel Mitteleuropas, vol. 14. -- AULA Verlag, Wiesbaden. (In German)

Article in press may be included in the references list, with ‘(in press)’ instead of the year of publication. Material in preparation or unpublished cannot be included in the reference list, and can only be referred to in the text using all authors’ initial(s) and name(s) followed by ‘in prep.’, ‘unpubl.’ or ‘pers. comm.’.

Tables: should be embedded in the appropriate place within the ext. A self-explanatory heading needs to be included. Tables are exclusively made with the same word-processing program as the text and must fit an A4 page (upright). Do not use the table tools of your word-processing program. Always use tabulator marks to separate columns within tables (there must be the same amount of tabulator marks as columns in a table). Never use multiple spaces or spaces and tabs while formatting tables. Do not use vertical lines as dividers, only horizontally dashed lines (’-----’) are allowed.

Figure captions: should concisely describe the content of the figures. All captions should be on the same page, separately from the figures. Captions should be clearly numbered and separated by a blank line.

Figures, drawings and photographs: each on a separate page. If drawn using a computer programme, figures are best inserted in the document. Alternatively, figures can be submitted on a separate file. In each case, each individual figure must be identified with the name(s) of the author(s) and the number of the figure. In questionable cases, the top of the picture should be marked. All captions must be placed on a separate page apart from the figures. A figure, drawing or photograph including all texts and legends can be at the most 200 mm (width) × 290 mm (height). Avoid fancy design (e.g. 3-D). Relate the size of letters, the thickness of lines, and the size of other parts of a figure, to the size of the figure itself in order to make sure that figures remain intelligible after size reduction. Explain all graphic symbols within the figure in the caption. Identify parts of a composite figure with letters, not numbers. Do not use fine rasters for filling of columns or areas. Only solid (white and/or black) or line-type fillings are allowed.

Photographs (black-and-white in print): should be provided as black-and-white prints, or slides accompanied with respective black-and-white prints. The top of the photo must be indicated with an arrow. Avoid writing on the photo itself, use adhesive letters instead.

Photographs (colour in print): can be reproduced but the Author will be charged for colour printing. For details contact the Editor.