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Cocos & Christmas Island Rarities

To: Dave Torr <>
Subject: Cocos & Christmas Island Rarities
From: Laurie Knight <>
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2011 11:38:11 +1000
Or do you mean "if a vagrant turns up and no-one twitches it, was it really there?". More to the point, "if a vagrant turns up and no-one twitches it, does anyone really care?"

The big question for the twitcher might be "if a vagrant turns up and BARC doesn't accept the observation, can I add it to my list?" ;)

LK

On 09/01/2011, at 11:25 AM, Dave Torr wrote:

It has always struck me as a little strange that a vagrant that turns up once is added to the list, yet a bird that goes extinct is removed from the list. Perhaps if a vagrant does not turn up again for (say) 50 years it should also be removed from the list? There is also the interesting question of how often does a vagrant have to come before it ceases to be a vagrant? And - to be really philosophical - if a vagrant turns up and no-one twitches it then does it exist???

On 9 January 2011 12:16, Laurie Knight <> wrote: How long do you have to reside at a place before you are considered to be part of the population? Do you include tourists and short- term foreign students? I'm not sure what the average "half-life" of internment on Christmas Island is. The long-term residents of Christmas Island are made up of three ethnic groups: Chinese, Malays and mainland Australians.

Shifting the focus of attention to the birds, would you include all the vagrants exciting the twitchers in the bird populations of Xmas and CCK Islands?

LK


On 09/01/2011, at 10:32 AM, Carl Clifford wrote:

Tom,

I heartily agree. You could almost say that birding on Christmas and Cocos was SE Asian birding for xenophobes, except for the fact that the population of Cocos is mainly Malay and the population of Christmas is mainly Middle Eastern, albeit they are banged-up in a concentration camp

Cheers,

Carl Clifford


On 09/01/2011, at 7:38 AM, Tom Tarrant wrote:

Hi Frank,

I think you are missing the point regarding that comment, as exciting as Christmas and Cocos sound (I would love to go birding there!) they are not
in the same faunal zone as Australia so many birders don't see the
relevance. You may as well go New Caledonia and add those species to your
'French' list.

Tom



And I remember there was a comment about the possible Short-toed Eagle in Victoria being better than the rarities reported on Cocos and Christmas in December. Sorry. Not even close!!! I saw 11 new birds for my Australian list, and I dipped on two. Even Mike Carter added 9 birds to his Australian
list.


--
********************************
Tom Tarrant
Kobble Creek, Qld

http://kobble.aviceda.org

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/aviceda/
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