Listings

["Tony Russell" <>]

Thank you Phil Hansboro for complementing  Mike Carter's views and adding hopefully more sanity to this listing/not listing debate.

 

But, I've said this before and I'll say it again. We in Aust have all sorts of vagrant birds turn up from time to time, some on "official" lists and others not. Whether they are ship assisted or not is immaterial. The fact is we normally have no idea of how they got here,so to argue whether to count them or not on the basis of ship assistance (or not) is therefore irrelevant.

 As Phil points out, what's unnatural about ship assistance anyway?

In the course of human evolution a ship is a natural development and a bird may well sit on it and be inadvertently carried off.

This isn't unnatural.

 In the overall scheme of things it's no different to a log falling into water and conveying all sorts of life forms around.

 

The only factual thing we have to go on here is that birds do arrive, we see them. 

 So what if a bird came by boat or under it's own steam ( no pun intended)? It's here - together with all the other species which have made it with or without assistance.

I don't hear anyone suggesting we discount all the European species brought in by ( perhaps misguided ) migrant settlers. They're on the "official" list.

I don't hear anyone suggesting we should discount the South Island Pied Oystercatchers on the east coast ( hey, fellas, it's a long way across the Tasman, sure they didn't come by boat?)

How do you know that cocky you just atlassed wasn't someone's escaped pet? Did you still put it on the list? Naughty naughty !

 

This whole bird arrival debate is pure conjecture. Nobody knows, so how can you have rules?  It's like arguing about who won a race when no one saw the finish.

Tony. ( still counting the Crow, which of course only a few people saw.

            Good job Ken and Nick got pictures eh?)

 

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