Its really all very personal - if you're keeping a year list. Whether
you tick the bird or not on audio only that year, well, really its up to
you isn't it?
I won't actually 'tick' a bird for the first time (lifer) on audio only,
however, once I have seen it - Lewin's Rail, Bush hen and Spotless Crake
would be three perfect examples - I'll 'tick' it at a new site on audio
only. But that's me - I don't keep a year list or a day list, a month
list or a week list... I have enough to do simply keeping my area lists
up to date, emailing Birding Aus and updating Eremaea!
While on the subject - could I encourage all birders who do count or
list birds on a regular basis to put their lists on Eremaea? Its a
brilliant resource but dependent on birders to contribute their data,
which I am sure you all have heaps of. I know it all seems too hard, but
ultimately the collection of statistical data for a specific area is so
useful to other birders and for longer term planning and conservation.
Your lists can then be easily sent to Birds Australia Atlas so you don't
need to double up if you are already a contributor there...
Cheers
Colin
On Tue, 14 Jun 2011 20:36 +1000, "Paul G Dodd" <>
wrote:
> 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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Colin Reid
So many birds, so little time......
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