A Blast from the Past
Via The New York Birding List, I am delighted to learn the New York State Avian Records Committee has officially accepted the 2007-2008 Union Square Scott’s Oriole as a legitimate record, marking the Official One True and Only First State Record of Icterus parisorum for New York.
What does this mean, exactly? It means that NYSARC, composed of eight illustrious and experienced New York birders, has gone over all submitted records of Scotty – the photos, the written descriptions, any recordings that were made – and determined that he A.) is an actual, honest-to-goodness Scott’s Oriole and B.) can be reasonably believed to have gotten to Union Square under his own power, rather than escaping from captivity. Since 1977, the committee has used this two-pronged criteria to determine which birds are and are not recognized rarities in New York State. Sometimes it can get quite complicated, with discussions of hypothetical hybrids and tail-feather wear from cages spanning years. The result, after the votes are counted, is the official list of birds known to occur in New York.
The committee also accepted four other new additions to the state list for 2007/2008 – the Western M(*^$^&^%&^^ing Reef-heron, Pink-footed Goose, Cassin’s Kingbird, and Yellow/Eastern Yellow Wagtail. This brings New York’s list to 475.
If it seems like I’ve been waiting eagerly for this day, I have. Things don’t always work out so happily for listers and the megararities they cherish.
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Great Auk - or Greatest Auk? 
December 2, 2009 at 11:52 pm
To add to the mess, it is possible to have a record be accepted by a state committee but not by the ABA (or the opposite).
December 3, 2009 at 2:56 am
Interesting. I had just assumed that the ABA follows the state committee’s lead. I can see where that would cause problems.
December 3, 2009 at 1:43 pm
The ABA only makes decisions on birds that the state committees have already accepted.
Incidentally, there’s also the AOU checklist which typically accepts birds in lockstep with the ABA, but there are occasional differences. The Caribbean Eleania being the only one I can think off of the top of my head, where the AOU did not accept it, but the ABA did (but they’ve since removed it, and just this past year I believe)
December 3, 2009 at 2:52 pm
So both the ABA and the AOU checklist can in theory only ever be equal to or less than the sum of all state committee lists?
It’s a pity that Stephen Jay Gould was so hung up on baseball. If he’d explained birding statistics, it would have been useful.
December 3, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Yeah, that’s how I understand it. The state committees are autonomous, and refer potential first records to the ABA and AOU Checklist committees.
December 3, 2009 at 3:15 pm
That is surprising and it doesn’t really seem to make much sense!
In Germany we distinguish between national and local rarities:
those species that are rarities nationwide are the ones you ought to report to the national committee only (who will then inform the local committee about its decisions) and those species that are only locally rare (e.g. seabirds inland that are common at the German coast) are to be reported to the relevant local committee only, without any involvement from the national committee.
Of course, if the national committee doesn’t achieve anything for nearly a decade things get messy. But this seems like a viable system and – to the best of my knowledge – is the system used in most European countries.
December 3, 2009 at 12:38 am
John is right, North Carolina had A Swinhoe’s Storm Petrel that was added to the state list 10 years before a second was found and added to the ABA list. I recall it causing no small amount of acrimony between state birders and the national guys.
And Florida, I believe, has a Caribbean Eleania on their list that the AOU and ABA believed couldn’t be identified to species.
December 3, 2009 at 10:15 am
Swinhoe’s Petrel are presumed to be near-impossible to identify at sea because the situation and taxonomic status of dark-rumped Leach’s hasn’t been fully resolved yet.
Swinhoe’s is now even presumed to breed somewhere in the north-eastern Atlantic because there are so many reports of “dark-rumped Leach’s” at sea and I might even recall a few Swinhoe’s have been caught at colonies of other petrels, yet most national lists only mention the sightings at sea as “dark-rumped petrels, possibly Swinhoe’s”.
December 3, 2009 at 1:40 pm
That was the argument for the original sighting, for which there was a inconclusive photo taken. Fortunately they found it again in 2008 (and again in 09, too!) and got hundreds of fabulous photos from all possible angles.
So it worked out in the end, but it was kind of a funny situation for a while there.
December 3, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Truly, petrels are the flycatchers of the sea.
December 3, 2009 at 3:16 pm
They saw the species in three consecutive years?
How strange is that?!
December 3, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Two consecutive years (08 and 09). The initial sighting was from 1998 or something.
Fingers crossed for 2010. Fingers really crossed it’s a boat I’m on.
December 3, 2009 at 3:50 pm
You reckon Noah can handle rough surf?
December 3, 2009 at 5:03 pm
If he’s my son, probably not.
December 3, 2009 at 2:19 am
Considering that the wagtail was a one-observer bird (and the Cassin’s Kingbird not much more than that) I am pretty happy to say I get to add three birds out of five to my NYS list. Scotty is definitely my favorite of the three though.
December 3, 2009 at 4:11 pm
I know the dining and retail opportunities near Scotty were a lot more pleasant than those convenient to the Heron Whose Name I Curse.
December 3, 2009 at 4:48 am
Can someone please smack me for not seeing Scotty? I went once and it wasn’t seen.
December 3, 2009 at 2:48 pm
If you saw the Western *^&*%&^% Reef-heron, you have no room to talk.
If you didn’t, my condolences.
December 3, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Carrie, please, it is just a subspecies of Little Egret, hear me? No big miss!
December 3, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Well, that’s ok then, because I have so many Little Egrets on my list… oh wait, no I don’t.
December 3, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Dang!
I really tried to be nice, you know?
December 3, 2009 at 4:12 pm
It’s the thought that counts.
December 3, 2009 at 4:19 pm
You’re kind.
December 3, 2009 at 8:33 am
In Germany we currently have quite an “explosive” situation:
The national records committee was hopelessly behind with their assessments and publications (I think they hadn’t published the list of accepted records or even assessed them for almost the last 10 years), so everyone was completely relying on the local records committees for their life lists but also scientific publications.
Now finally the national committee has made a huge leap forward and will catch up this fall. However, they have adopted such a critical approach that around 36% of the submitted reports are rejected.
That’s more than a third.
Of course this is causing a HUGE stir because
a) birders now have to delete records from as much as 10 years back and are often completely p***ed off because they had missed several opportunities in the meantime to get another observation of a species they now have to delete, all the time thinking it was safely on their list,
and b) many, many records were accepted by local committees that are now rejected by the national one. So there is a huge struggle of “power” regarding scientific publications, local bird lists etc.
@Corey: the Yellow Wagtail is a frustrating record because it simply isn’t one as the observer apparently wasn’t able to assign it to a specific form. Currently, the Yellow Wagtail is split into two species (Western and Eastern), but research suggests that all forms currently regarded as subspecies are indeed deserving of full species status – which has already been implemented in Germany. It’s like having a “Stint spec.” on your list, or a Selasphorus spec. hummer – still somewhat interesting for purely scientific reasons (not really though), but definitely worthless for an individual birder’s life list.
@Patrick: aren’t you the guy who just saw his second Ivory Gull? Ha!
What the f…amilyblog are you complaining about?
😉
December 3, 2009 at 2:33 pm
@Nate: you know, I sometimes think Carrie has switched her comment section to the 3-replies-limit in order to effectively undermine our constant hijacking effords.
December 3, 2009 at 2:48 pm
I didn’t realize I could change that setting – hijack away!
December 3, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Ha!
You said it, you gave me the green lights, it’ll all be your responsibility then!
😉