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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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
Absolutely! The lyrebird has a different timbre to its voice. It also helps when the lyrebird runs through its repertoire; the likelihood of several birds of various different species all being in exactly the same place at the same time is fairly low. Also you can often tell where the bird call is coming from; that can eliminate the possibility of it being a lyrebird. You might also see the calling bird in silhouette or only very briefly, but enough to get an idea of its size and shape. Cheers, Merrilyn
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I’m guessing that if Joshua has challenged Max’s year list criteria then there’s a bit of a competition going on. In that case, you both have to use the same rules, whatever they are.
Peter Shute
Interesting you mention the ‘seen with your own eyes’ category Tim.
Last year we had a rarity on a pelagic trip. The bird passed the boat on about 3 or 4 occasions out at about 50m and no closer, so no one could have identified it with naked eye. As the general call “light bellied stormie” went up , everyone’s binoculars (and cameras) swung around to get onto the bird. The outcome was, that a very few of the 14 folk on board got a number of clear images of the bird that were sufficient to allow us (I talk collectively as a team), together with the jizz of the bird, to identify it as a NZSP. Now by the strict codes that some folk use for their life list, maybe none of us really ticked the bird up on the day? It isn’t a view I hold, but I know at least one of the group who saw the bird early on and continued to ‘see’ it did not put it down on their list, because they felt they didn’t get a good enough picture to ID it personally. However, some others in the same situation did tick it up. I guess it’s the – what you can live with on your own list rule??
I tend to take the view Nikolas is suggesting, that although we all have a personal list, the greater good here is that when ever we go out we are contributing to science, which in the end benefits birds. I guess that’s why there are those times when we can be absolutely certain of the identity of a bird, by what ever means, and not necessarily nked sight verified, when it is our duty to report it for the greater good. If a bird I personally see is absolutely certain enough (without string) to be reported (due to perhaps other identification means) then who am I to go against the science?
I’m perhaps playing devil’s advocate here, as I do have limits on my own list, but if the criteria is: 1. did you see it? and 2. could you identify it (or perhaps as in the case of the NZSP) was it conclusively identified collectively on the day), then shouldn’t we ‘all’ have taken it? The NZSP is a good case here, because it really was a team effort that identified it, particularly since much of the evidence needed to be evaluated after the bird was no longer before us to put it to bed. More importantly it could never have been id’d without cameras, which goes somewhat against the ‘with your own eyes’ philosophy that Tim mentioned.
A number of you guys must run into this situation on pelagics from time to time, but it can happen with any bird we might only get a good view of without seeing diagnostic features in a team setting. How many of us walk away from such team settings with terrestrial birds without ticking the bird that we saw but couldn’t identify (but our three mates did)???
Allan Richardson Morisset
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I usually only tick a bird if I’m sure of the species, so if it’s questionable on sight alone, I like to hear the call too. However, I don’t tick solely on call (or I’d have Marsh Warbler, Golden Oriole and Noisy Pitta on the life list). However, that’s just for my list. If it was for a trip report where the information could be useful to someone, I’d mention birds that were only heard as long as I was reasonably sure of the ID. But then, I’ve attracted various levels of ire for not ticking introduced birds (I’ve got a separate ‘C’ list for those), which meant that the Little Corella I saw last week in Hattah-Kulkyne NP was a lifer for me. Cheers,
Tony
As an afterthought, do people tick heard-only birds in areas where Superb Lyrebirds are present? Cheers,
Tony
Hi Max,
It’s really up to you and your social context. This is my understanding of the context.
Cheers,
Tim Dolby ________________________________________ Sent: Sunday, June 12, 2011 12:12 PM
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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Very good point Nikolas! I agree, listening to bird song is a great source of information, and often it is also extremely beautiful to listen to. I see the error in my previous comment now – I was just trying to think of the question from a “year list perspective” (if you’ll excuse my twitcher language) I know my views will be different to others, really I’m just interested to hear what everyone thinks. Josh
Joshua,
I disagree with you for two reasons: (1) Listing for your own interest is unimportant. It is better to use your observations for a bigger picture (e.g. conservation). In this case song (which may indicate a territory) may be way more important than just a sight record. (2) There are quite some “look alike” species, e.g. within the reed-warblers, leaf-warblers, thrushes, nightjars, owls and many more… In these cases it may be much more convincing if you hear them rather than only see them. (3) Lots of birds have great songs – why then does listening to a hidden skulker not fit the “aim to observe the beauty, behaviour and uniqueness of a species”?
Have a look at the plates of Cleere & Nurney “Nightjars” and listen to the accompanying CD! Which one is more fun?
Vote for hearing (in selected cases even for the “life list”)
Cheers,
Nikolas
Joshua,
I disagree with you for two reasons: (1) Listing for your own interest is unimportant. It is better to use your observations for a bigger picture (e.g. conservation). In this case song (which may indicate a territory) may be way more important than just a sight record. (2) There are quite some “look alike” species, e.g. within the reed-warblers, leaf-warblers, thrushes, nightjars, owls and many more… In these cases it may be much more convincing if you hear them rather than only see them. (3) Lots of birds have great songs – why then does listening to a hidden skulker not fit the “aim to observe the beauty, behaviour and uniqueness of a species”?
Have a look at the plates of Cleere & Nurney “Nightjars” and listen to the accompanying CD! Which one is more fun?
Vote for hearing (in selected cases even for the “life list”)
Cheers,
Nikolas
Hi everyone I, (being the reason that Max asked this question) only tick “seen” birds on my yearlist. It just doesn’t seem right to hear a bird and say it counts. Kind of a contradiction to the term, birdWATCHING – where the whole aim is to observe the beauty, behaviour and uniqueness of a species
So, one vote for seeing. Joshua Bergmark
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I keep daily lists, so if I hear a bird I’m familiar with, I’ll usually list it without seeing it.
As for lifelists, if I hear a new bird but don’t see it, or get a bad view of it, I’ll give it a “half tick”. Once I get a good look at the bird and it’s features it gets a full tick (which is much more satisfying).
Belinda Forbes Stirling W.A.