A bird rarities committee or bird records committee is a committee which exists to validate records of rarebirds in a particular country or region.
Many countries have national rarities committees; in some areas, such as Europe, coverage is near-complete at a national level. European national committees are all members of the Association of European Rarities Committees.
Some countries have committees covering more localised areas - e.g. in the United States, most states have their own state records committee, and in Britain, each county has its own county records committee.
A records committee differs from a list committee in that the latter just compile a list of the species found in an area, and do not typically assess every individual record of the rare species.
Birdwatching, or birding, is a form of wildlife observation in which the observation of birds is a recreational activity or citizen science. It can be done with the naked eye, through a visual enhancement device like binoculars and telescopes, by listening for bird sounds, or by watching public webcams.
The British Ornithologists' Union (BOU) aims to encourage the study of birds ("ornithology") and around the world, in order to understand their biology and to aid their conservation. The BOU was founded in 1858 by Professor Alfred Newton, Henry Baker Tristram and other scientists. Its quarterly journal, Ibis, has been published continuously since 1859.
The Caspian gull is a large gull and a member of the herring and lesser black-backed gull complex. The scientific name is from Latin. Larus appears to have referred to a gull or other large seabird, and cachinnans means "laughing", from cachinnare, "to laugh".
The British avifauna is the birds that have occurred in Great Britain. This article is a general discussion of the topic. A full species list can be found at List of birds of Great Britain.
RSPB Minsmere is a nature reserve owned and managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) at Minsmere, Suffolk. The 1,000-hectare (2,500-acre) site has been managed by the RSPB since 1947 and covers areas of reed bed, lowland heath, acid grassland, wet grassland, woodland and shingle vegetation. It lies within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the Suffolk Heritage Coast area. It is conserved as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, Special Area of Conservation, Special Protection Area and Ramsar site.
Twitchers' vocabulary is the set of jargon words used by twitchers. Some terms may be specific to regional birding communities, and not all are used due to dialectic and cultural differences.
The conservation status of a group of organisms indicates whether the group still exists and how likely the group is to become extinct in the near future. Many factors are taken into account when assessing conservation status: not simply the number of individuals remaining, but the overall increase or decrease in the population over time, breeding success rates, and known threats. Various systems of conservation status exist and are in use at international, multi-country, national and local levels as well as for consumer use.
The Association of European Rarities Committees is a co-ordinating and liaison body for the bird rarities committees of Europe and other nearby countries.
The British Birds Rarities Committee (BBRC), established in 1959, is the national bird rarities committee for Britain. It assesses claimed sightings of bird species that are rarely seen in Britain, based on descriptions, photographs and video recordings submitted by observers. Its findings are published in an annual report in the journal British Birds.
Two species of bee-eater have occurred as wild visitors to Britain, with a third species having occurred as an escape from captivity.
The Hastings Rarities affair is a case of statistically demonstrated ornithological fraud that misled the bird world for decades in the twentieth century. The discovery of the long-running hoax shocked ornithologists.
The fauna of Scotland is generally typical of the northwest European part of the Palearctic realm, although several of the country's larger mammals were hunted to extinction in historic times and human activity has also led to various species of wildlife being introduced. Scotland's diverse temperate environments support 62 species of wild mammals, including a population of wild cats, important numbers of grey and harbour seals and the most northerly colony of bottlenose dolphins in the world.
The Siberian accentor is a small passerine bird that breeds in northern Russia from the Ural Mountains eastwards across Siberia. It is migratory, wintering in Korea and eastern China, with rare occurrences in western Europe and northwestern North America. Its typical breeding habitat is subarctic deciduous forests and open coniferous woodland, often close to water, although it also occurs in mountains and spruce taiga. It inhabits bushes and shrubs in winter, frequently near streams, but may also be found in dry grassland and woods.
Pine Hill Ecological Reserve is a nature reserve of 403 acres (1.63 km2) located due east of Folsom Lake in the Sierra Nevada foothills, in El Dorado County, California. The reserve was established in 1979, and is managed by the California Department of Fish and Game.
The Gower Ornithological Society is a society for professional and amateur birdwatchers covering the geographical areas of south Wales comprising Gower, Swansea, Neath and Port Talbot.
Colin Bradshaw is an English physician and ornithologist who was chairman of the British Birds Rarities Committee from 1997 to 2008. He was active in the BBRC for almost 20 years, both as a committee member and as chairman. He is a medical doctor by profession and travels extensively for birding, and among his other hobbies are guitar, cricket, and photography.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
