Tony,
It looks like you guys are confusing me with Keith. I started off the whole
conversation in order to speak PRO BARC!!!
Tony, your response using my name is actually a response to Keith Weekes'
comment. I never ever talked about "clubiness" or "corpses"!
Nikolas
----------------
Nikolas Haass
Sydney, NSW
----- Original Message ----
From: Tony Russell <>
To: Keith Weekes <>; Nikolas Haass <>
Cc:
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 11:42:53 AM
Subject: Rarities Committees (long)
Further to Nikolas' note in which I think he was trying to be as
balanced as possible, I have to agree with him in that my perception of
the BARC committee does seem to have a "clubbiness' about it.
In addition, and having read a few of the submissions, notably those of
our most esteemed twitcher Mike Carter, they do seem to me to be almost
excessively detailed pursuant to convincing the committee of the
validity of the claims.
This has the effect on me of thinking that even if I was certain of an
ID I'm not sure I could be bothered submitting a claim. It's just too
much of a chore. I'm prepared to go along with IDs determined by myself
and other birding associates without going through the difficult
ratification process of BARC just to get the bird on the 'official' Oz
list. Is the 'official" list that important anyway? Who to?
And then there are the delays which plague the BARC system. To me these
seem to be of two types - one is that some people take a very long time,
sometimes years, to put their submissions in, and the other is the time
it can take for the committee to consider a claim and give a
determination. As Nikolas suggests, this may be influenced by a
claimant's past reputation and /or club membership which isn't
necessarily a sound basis for decision making.
As for submitting corpses -- not sure I'm too keen about that approach
Nikolas, someone is bound to ask whether the bird was alive or not when
first seen, and we all know that dead-uns are not acceptable. Don't we
?
Tony.
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of Keith Weekes
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 7:55 AM
To: Nikolas Haass
Cc:
Subject: Rarities Committees (long)
Nikolas
I don't think anyone is suggesting the committee members are "evil".
They are all widely respected birders and/or twitchers and as I
understand it mostly with appropriate scientific qualifications. I also
understand the rationale of being very cautious in accepting records.
But, whether or not it's true, there is clearly a perception that BARC
is a bit of a club and that you shouldn't bother submitting interesting
sightings unless you have irrefutable evidence of them (not just your
own sighting, but photos, measurements, videos, DNA samples and so on)
or you're a member of the club. That's quite understandable of course. I
think people also need to inject a sense of reality into things and
realise that it's appropriate for BARC members to treat a report from
someone they know for a fact to be excellent at identifying birds in the
field as more authoritative than a report from an unknown.
However, reading the reports there does seem to be a bit of a skew
towards trying as hard as possible to rule sightings out. It seems that
there is an attitude of "we're 99% sure but can't rule out x" so we're
not allowing it. (eg
http://users.bigpond.net.au/palliser/barc/SUMM459.htm)
I have no idea, but maybe a few more "false positives" in areas of
uncertainty and where it's not a "first sighting" would be of more
scientific value than the current system which seems to:
(a) tend towards excluding records (possibly incorrectly); and
(b) discourage people from reporting.
Also, there is an impression that even detailed field notes and
observations often don't seem to cut it. I know that if I ever come
across a possible American Golden Plover I'm just going to shoot the
thing and submit the corpse.
On 17/12/2007, Nikolas Haass <> wrote:
>
> What is wrong with Australia's birders' attitude toward Rarities
> Committees?
>
>
> To my earlier post, I got several private responses which seemed to be
> driven rather by anger than anything else:
>
> "As for the committee members, many do it for their own ego, and
> nothing else."
>
> "To be told I need to look at feather length when plumage colour
> varies is ridiculous."
>
> "How can a group of people who weren't there say you didn't see a
> particular bird?"
>
> "It seems to me that if you don't have a camera or aren't part of the
> 'in' crowd, i.e. know someone on the committee then your record will
> almost certainly fail."
>
> "This is not a good system. It only serves to encourage the who gives
> a shit about the committee attitude."
>
> "This is also not helped by such comments as xxx's on the topic (of
> the
> magpie) who basically said don't bother putting in a submission form
for the
> magpie as he will reject it."
>
> "Yes we need a system of checking claims, but we need one that either
> works or that people have confidence in (preferably both). At the
> moment we do not have such a system."
>
> "While the committee always treats submissions with respect that has
> not been the level of conduct of some members."
>
>
>
> Here some of my comments in response:
>
> > How can a group of people who weren't there say you didn't see a
> particular bird? It seems to me that if you don't have a camera or
> aren't part of the
> > 'in' crowd, i.e. know someone on the committee then your record will
> almost certainly fail.
> > This is not a good system. It only serves to encourage the who gives
> > a
> shit about the committee attitude. This is also not helped by such
> comments as
> > xxx's on the topic (of the magpie) who basically said don't bother
> putting in a submission form for the magpie as he will reject it.
> > Yes we need a system of checking claims, but we need one that either
> works or that people have confidence in (preferably both). At the
> moment we do
> > not have such a system.
>
> Again I can only speak for the many committees I have experience with
> and the three committees I worked for. You said "How can a group of
> people who weren't there say you didn't see a particular bird?". I
> agree it is difficult, but of course they can - it all depends on the
> quality of your report. Ideally you submit photographs, but usually
> you don't necessarily need to. If you report all the key field marks
> you observed, maybe draw a sketch pointing out important observed
> features and explain how and why you ruled out other similar species,
> your record should NOT fail! To my experience (which is an
> international experience), only a small minority of records are
> rejected - the idea is NOT to reject records, the idea is to make
> observations scientifically valid. Typically only very bad
> descriptions which don't rule out other more likely species or reports
> proving that the seen species is not the reported species (e.g. an
> accompanying photograph clearly shows another 'common' species) get
> rejected immediately (if all members agree). All 'tricky' ones will be
> discussed by all members of the committee and in many cases more
> experts will be asked for advice. Of course the committee members are
> humans and it can happen that a member looks at a perfect picture of a
> 'common species' which has been sent in as a 'rare species' and says
> "Bullshit". But this rare event shouldn't discourage good birders to
> contribute to science. It is also not true that the committees ignore
> escapees and releases - again I am speaking for other Rare Birds
> Committees, because I have no experience with BARC. These birds just
> end up in another category - one for released and escaped birds (e.g.
> if you saw a Flightless Cormorant [from Galapagos] in Australia it
> would end up in such a category). If populations of released or
> escaped birds are self-sustaining for a certain period (typically 10
> years or so) these species will enter another category - one for
> self-sustaining populations of escaped or released birds (e.g.
> Eurasian Blackbird, ...). I do agree that the system is not ideal. But
> it is the best system we were able to come up with. BTW all members of
> the committees are volunteers. They spend their personal time and
> money (for travelling) to do this job. I really don't think those
> people are evil.
>
>
>
> > So you are telling me to take a camera or don't bother submitting a
> report?
>
> I was telling you exactly the opposite: I said that typically if you
> report all the key field marks you observed you DON'T necessarily need
> a camera! (see e-mail above)
>
> > As for the committee members, many do it for their own ego, and
> > nothing
> else.
>
> That's absolutely wrong for all the committees I know. All of us do
> this job without any advantage - however, we are putting quite some
> time into this volunteer work. I don't see any advantage for any kind
> of 'ego'. Especially since no committee member is allowed to review
> his/her own record (of course!).
>
> > To be told I need to look at feather length when plumage colour
> > varies
> is ridiculous.
>
> That is not ridiculous. Many field guides are misleading regarding
> plumage colour. In many cases the RELATIVE length of certain feathers
> is an important key (e.g. tail projection, wing projection, primary
> projection
> etc.)
> And again: everybody can have his own personal list at home and no one
> would bother. However, I believe that it is a pity that many not
reported
> sightings are lost for science. Therefore I still think it is the best
to
> report to the appropriate committee.
>
>
>
> My original post:
>
> I "give a shit what Rare Birds Committees think"! I can't speak for
> BARC. However, in my "American life" I was a member of the New Jersey
> Rare Birds Committee (NJBRC, the New Jersey counterpart of BARC) and
> in my "German life" I was a member of the Hessen Rare Birds Committee
> (AKH) and the Schleswig-Holstein Rare Birds Committee (AKSH) (two
> German counterparts of BARC). The idea of Rare Birds Committees is NOT
> to 'kill' a tick on someone's 'list'. No, the most important job of
> Rare Birds Committees is to peer review the documentation of a 'rare
> bird' (reports and photos, sketches, sound recordings - or whatever
> you submit), to collect, publish, and archive the records that prove
> that a 'rare bird' occurred. Therefore, documentation must eliminate
> any other species that might be confused with the claimed rarity. Some
> documentation is clear cut, such as a good photograph which shows
> identification characters. Some documentation is less clear cut, and
> that's why there is a large committee with a variety of specialties,
> opinions, and skills to vote on the evidence. To learn about recent
> range expansions of certain species it is also important to get an
> idea if a bird came on its own or was released by someone. Serious
> scientific journals only use data that were accepted by the
> responsible Rare Birds Committee for their analysis. That's why I'd
> like to encourage observers of a 'rarity' to document it, so that it
> can be used for scientific studies.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Nikolas
>
>
> ----------------
> Nikolas Haass
>
> Sydney, NSW
>
>
>
>
>
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