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To avoid wasting effort to see birds like the
House Crow that may not be tickable, it may be time to adopt a consistent
approach. Consequently, don't bother chasing some of the wagtails, gulls
and others that doubtless were also ship-assisted.
Shipping is a fact of life, a part of the built
environment. Birds have taken advantage of ships to assist their movements
for centuries. I clearly remember even in an old Emu [1950s ?]
that a wagtail boarded a ship somewhere in the Pacific and hitched quite a long
ride. These birds will depart the ship probably at first sight of land
[e.g. Fraser Island Black-backed Wagtail], or in port [e.g. Darwin
Black-tailed and Sabine's Gulls, April 1982].
Trying to separate the
putatively unassisted from the clearly assisted birds seems faintly
ridiculous. It is spurious to assess records inconsistently.
I would be interested to see an enumeration of criteria that
may be useful to validate the provenance of all such birds. I think it is
impossible.
Glenn
Glenn Holmes & Associates
**birding & botanical specialists**
PO
Box 1246 Atherton Qld 4883
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