Mick is correct about the only other report of Purple Heron in Australia. A
juvenile
was seen by the late Phoebe Snetzinger, Ben King and Hugh Buck on 23 August
1991 (Andrew 1997;
Johnstone & Darnell 2004a; Gentile 2009; B. King in litt.). Although no
description or specific locality was given,
this record of a distinctive species came independently from very experienced
observers so is likely to be valid. However, no submission to BARC was ever
made, nor does one seem likely. Therefore, it has not been added to the
Australian list so far. In correspondence with Ian McAllan, Ben King said he
has no field notes to base a submission on and does not recall sufficient
details. Ian and I accept the record as valid in our forthcoming review of CI
birds (submitted to AFO).
Mick is also correct that I removed it (and lots of other unconfirmed species)
from the supplementary list in the most recent BARC Checklist of Australian
Birds based on the IOC list. That is because of the following change to the
supplementary list:
"The Supplementary List has been reduced to exclude
unverified reports that have not been formally documented to a satisfactory
standard ..."
It would be great to see this new Herdsman Lake record of Purple Heron
submitted to BARC for appraisal, based on the photos but with a few supporting
details of observer, date, location and circumstances.
Cheers,
David James
Sydney
==============================
===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
http://birding-aus.org
===============================
|
