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 and rare birds to county records committees and BBRC.
- Considerable experience of record assessment
- The capacity to handle the considerable volume of work involved in assessing upwards of 1,000 records per year.
- The capacity to work quickly and efficiently
- Easy access to and knowledge of IT
- Regional credibility
James Lidster has demonstrated much of the above when acting as the Dorset County Bird Recorder and he has had numerous high class submissions to BBRC. He is widely travelled having spent a season at Long Point Canada and birded throughout Europe, North Africa and the Eastern Palearctic and has studied likely vagrants at migration hotspots in China and Mongolia. He is well known and widely respected by the birders of Dorset, Devon and Cornwall and is an ideal choice for BBRC.
Whilst we are delighted to have James on the committee we were disappointed that there were no other nominees as we feel that an election is good for the democratisation of BBRC.
James replaces Doug Page, who has been on BBRC since 1995. Although initially from South Yorkshire, Doug has lived on St Agnes, Scilly for several years where he has regularly found rarities. His retirement from BBRC will doubtless give him more time to do this and we expect an increase in the number of records from there. The chairman of BBRC will particularly miss the only other person he has met who combines being a Captain Beefheart & Liverpool FC fan. We wish him continued success in his career as the premier bird-finding postman of Britain.
