As many birders will already know, Mike Rogers, secretary of the British Birds Rarities Committee for a quarter of a century, sadly died earlier this year. His contribution to birding in Britain was immense, understated and rarely fully appreciated. Not only did he look after the administration of each of the thousand or so submissions […]

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For some years BBRC has been developing new strategies for records assessment, anticipating the impact of technology on the way observers want to submit records. This affects record management at a county as well as a national level, and many counties are already further down this road than BBRC. The last two or three years […]

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BBRC seeks 2 new members

Published on 11 September 2006

BBRC is seeking 2 new members to replace Paul Harvey and John Martin who are retiring after many years of outstanding service. The criteria for nominations are not changed from previous years: The prime qualifications of candidates are; A widely acknowledged expertise in identification, Proven reliability in the field A track record of high quality […]

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BBRC aim to go paperless for 2007 records

Published on 23 March 2006

At the 2006 AGM the British Birds Rarities Committee decided that it would become paperless for all records from 1st January 2007. Whilst we will continue to accept paper submissions from individuals after that date we hope that all counties and most individuals will be submitting by email or on a new web-based system. Any […]

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BBRC to come to NW for AGM

Published on 16 January 2006

The British Birds Rarities Committee are to come to Lancashire for their Annual General Meeting from 3rd – 5th March 2006. The meeting is to be held at the Hope Carr Environmental Centre at Leigh and, in common with all BBRC AGMs, we will hold open house for local birders on the Saturday night [4th […]

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BBRC Says goodbye to birders favourites

Published on 12 January 2006

The number of records the BBRC assesses has grown rapidly, whilst at the same time some observers are becoming more reticent about submitting descriptions for species they feel are ‘less’ rare. Following a consultation with county recorders and records committees, to control this increasing workload BBRC has decided to take a number of Britain’s best-loved […]

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BBRC Dumps Black Brant

Published on 07 June 2005

At its 2005 AGM the British Birds Rarities Committee agreed to withdraw Black Brant Branta bernicla nigricans from the list of rare species and races that it considers from 1st July 2005. BBRC believes that whilst Black Brant is still undoubtedly a rare bird, the number of returning individuals has increased observer familiarity with this […]

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James Lidster is new BBRC member

Published on 04 April 2005

BBRC is pleased to announce that James Lidster as been elected, unopposed, as the new member for 2005 for the rarities committee. James has all the qualities required for our needs. These include; A widely acknowledged expertise in identification, Proven reliability in the field A track record of high quality submissions of descriptions of scarce […]

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While this may seem an extraordinary question, it was one of the major agenda items during the 2004 BBRC Annual Business Meeting, held at Dungeness Bird Observatory, in Kent, in February. Debating our remit will help with some of the increasingly complex decisions we now have to make. These range from general issues such as […]

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BBRC have recently completed detailed assessments of several claims of African Chaffinches Fringilla coelebs africana/ spodiogenys. So far, claims of six different individuals have been assessed, including the first, well publicised bird, in Essex in 1994 All of the birds assessed so far have certainly shown features which are strongly reminiscent of male African Chaffinches […]

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