Hi Max,
I love the way you call this a "quick question". "Heard only" is probably one
of the most controversial topics in all of competitive birding. As you have
pointed out, there is often a distinction between life list ticks, year lists,
day lists and so on. The authority that most people use when deciding whether
to tick a bird or not is the American Birding Association Listing Rules -
http://www.aba.org/bigday/rules.pdf. There are five rules:
(1) The bird must have been within the prescribed area and time-period when
encountered.
(2) The bird must have been a species currently accepted by the ABA Checklist
Committee for lists within its area, or by the A.O.U. Checklist for lists
outside the ABA area and within the A.O.U. area, or by Clements for all other
areas.
(3) The bird must have been alive, wild, and unrestrained when encountered.
(4) Diagnostic field-marks for the bird, sufficient to identify to species,
must have been seen and/or heard and/or documented by the recorder at the time
of the encounter.
(5) The bird must have been encountered under conditions that conform to the
ABA Code of Birding Ethics.
Rule number (4) is the one that covers "heard only", and is the rule that
generates the most controversy. In fact, the original ABA listing rule (4) did
not allow seen and/or heard - it previously stated that the bird must be
"identified by the recorder". Most big listers interpreted this rule to mean
that the bird must be seen, however the wording of the rule was considered
ambiguous and was changed to the current wording. This change occurred sometime
in the 1980s (sorry I am unsure of precisely when).
Apparently the change in wording was so controversial that a number of the big
listers, including Phoebe Snetsinger and Richard Koeppel steadfastly refused to
submit their lists to the ABA thereafter. These listers all insisted on
actually seeing the bird.
In my experience, most people tend to use the ABA rules (or a localised version
of them) for birding competitions such as Twitchathons and Big Years, but use
stricter rules for life lists, where "heard only" is not acceptable. For
personal year lists, I think you can safely follow whatever rules you want to,
but if you are in a competition with someone (even if it is for a previous
record) then you must follow the same rules as the other participants. For
example, in our Big Year last year, Ruth and I were competing against Tim Dolby
who previously held the record. For various reasons, Tim chose not to allow
species seen pelagically to be counted, so Ruth and I ended up keeping two
lists - one for all species seen in Victoria (389) and one for species other
than those seen pelagically (375). Ruth and I are only interested in counted
seen birds on our life list, and we extended that for our Big Year to mean that
state ticks must also be seen. Ultimately, as things turned out, we ended up
seeing all the birds anyway, so it didn't really matter whether we were
following the ABA rules or the stricter version.
Paul Dodd
Docklands,Victoria
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of Max Breckenridge
Sent: Sunday, 12 June 2011 12:12 PM
To: Birding-Aus
Subject: [Birding-Aus] Year List Ethics (Poll)
Hey all,
just a quick question: If you, like many birders, record ‘year lists’, do you
tick birds only on sight alone or do you tick birds from call (even if you
don’t end up seeing them). Personally if I hear a bird that would be new on my
year list, I tick it as this saves me time trying to see a perhaps common
species that I’ve seen many times before and so gives me more time to focus on
birds I may not have seen. One questionable aspect of my practice is the fact
that, if I hear a bird that would be a lifer for me and tick it on my year list
that it only remains as a year tick until the day I do end up seeing and
identifying the species in question.
Basically I’m asking if you tick by sight or sound on your year list, not your
life list.
I would appreciate any/all answers!
Kindest regards,
Max Breckenridge,
Gladesville, Sydney.
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