As the story below says, Andy Stoddart was appointed Vice Chairman at our recent AGM and a part of his role was to help with explaining BBRC’s position on new taxa, especially those within the RIACT umbrella. The first outcome of that is his article on Stonechats where new splits etc have created new taxa […]
The British Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee (BOURC) has removed Slender-billed Curlew Numenius tenuirostris from the British List. Following a review by both BOURC and the British Birds Rarities Committee (BBRC), the identification of the bird seen at Druridge Bay, Northumberland, 4–7 May 1998 (sight record, photographed, video) (Br. Birds 95: 95: 272–278 & 279–299) is no longer […]
Although not published for a number of years, the ‘sister’ report to BBRC’s “Rare Birds in Great Britain” report is the “Scarce Migrant Report”. This will now be published in British Birds as a major set of articles, over the next 6 months covering Scarce Migrants from 2004 to 2010 inclusive. It will be published […]
Just an observation: As part of my method to keep an check on submissions coming in to BBRC I have an expected pattern of numbers (of rare birds) that will occur in each month, based on what has happened in previous years. Then as records come in I can compare the number expected with what […]
As from January 1st 2013 Olive-backed Pipit will no longer be a BBRC species. This delightful ‘Sibe’ has been showing a steady increase in numbers recently with typically from 10 to 20 birds each year. But in 2012 there was a major influx of close to 50 birds, and that meant our criteria for removal […]
After a request for claims of ‘Lesser’ Canada Geese we have now decided on an acceptable taxonomy to process them. The full details are in the “Species & RIACT”pages here These Species pages will become a major source of information on how various taxa are handled by BBRC. Be patient, but information on more species […]
Many counties are undertaking reviews of their avifauna and examining records of rarities from the pre-1950 era. Some of the records have been found wanting and both BBRC and BOURC have been asked to review some. Unfortunately neither body has the resources to carry out this work for all such records. It falls outside the […]
Despite the removal of a number of species in 2006 (Brit. Birds 99: 52 & 100: 18-19), the number of records received continues to grow and we assessed the frequency of several of the more common rarities at the AGM. White-billed Diver Gavia adamsii met the statistical criteria for removal from the list (more than […]
Following the request in British Birds (103:313) and elsewhere for candidates to replace our longestserving member John Sweeney in June 2010, Chris McInerny was nominated by Bob McGowan and seconded by Ron Forrester and therefore an election was declared on 10th June to select whether Chris or Richard Schofield, the BBRC nomination, would take on […]
The 2009 BBRC AGM was held at Minsmere, Suffolk in early March. The main items arising from the AGM can be found in a feature on the BBRC website (www.bbrc.org.uk) and a forthcoming article in British Birds, with key issues summarised below. Committee membership As no alternative nominations for election to BBRC were received, the […]
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