[reccom] Review List changes

[Mark Stackhouse]

Hello from right now not-so-sunny Mexico,

I doubt I'll get much sympathy from you guys over the cold snap we're 
having here (60's and sometimes rainy), but it feels cold to those of 
us accustomed to upper 70's this time of year. I'm glad to have a day 
that I'm not in the field. I'm sorry to be missing the good birds 
you're seeing there (several new possibilities for my Utah list), but 
can't complain about the nearly 400 species I've seen this month.

It seems like we've had this discussion before, and I agree with David 
that the decision to add or remove species from the review list will 
always be subjective, and is written as such in the bylaws. It's why 
we're paid so well for this duty, to exercise our judgment. 
Realistically, the 2 occurrences or more for each of ten years must 
refer to more than just documented and reviewed sightings, or hardly 
any species would achieve that status. I think, in fact, that we see a 
negative-feedback in that as a species becomes more common, we get less 
of the reported sightings actually submitted for review. I think 
Glaucous-winged Gull is a good example - lots of reports on the 
Birdnet, but how many get submitted? I'm not sure of the real value of 
setting an arbitrary number of sightings over time, as other factors, 
such as the difficulty of identifying a species, should be considered 
as well. Cases such as Boreal Owl are even more problematic, as it's 
presumably a rare permanent resident, but how often can we expect 
reports? Speaking of that, should we make a formal request, as the 
checklist committee, for data from the Forest Service or DWR as to what 
they know, so that we can have a more accurate picture of this species?

Another issue, and one I feel more strongly about, is the idea of 
requesting documentation from species outside their normal area of  
occurrence. In other states that are large and geographically diverse, 
regionally differentiated review lists are common. In our case, we 
could request documentation for sightings of Common Redpolls outside of 
Cache, Rich, and Box Elder Counties, for example. There would be a 
number of birds for which documentation of occurrences outside of 
Washington County would be appropriate (the recent Black Phoebe 
reported in Tooele County should probably be reviewed). Some birds that 
rather completely migrate, such as the Swainson's Hawk reported on the 
Salt Lake CBC, could be examples of birds for which sightings 
out-of-season could be requested. I think that it would be fairly easy 
to make a list of birds for which documentation could be conditionally 
requested, and that, because the number of out-of-area or out-of-season 
sightings would be few, I don't think it would add significantly to our 
workload. Having such birds on our review list would be more in keeping 
with how other large diverse states do their lists.

Well, it's off to the beach (too cold to swim, but there might be some 
good shorebirds or cool shells).

Stay warm!

Mark

Mark Stackhouse
Westwings, Inc.
www.westwings.com
mark at westwings.com
801-487-9453 (Salt Lake City, Utah, USA)
011-52-323-285-1243 (San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico)

On Jan 24, 2007, at 1:10 PM, David Wheeler wrote:

> Hello, All:
>  
> I am pleased so many of you are participating in this conversation.
>  
> When I read Rick's comments, I see that he also is under the 
> impression that the bylaw:
>  
> "In general, the Review List will consist of species that have 
> occurred within Utah on average two or fewer times per year in each of 
> the ten years immediately preceding revision of the Review List."
>  
> might be considered to mean "...occurred within Utah and records 
> thereof submitted to (or even approved by)...".  But is that really 
> the standard we want to hold our list to?  Consider:
>  
> 1)  There are several species on the Review List which "occur" in Utah 
> more than twice a year (Boreal owl, Hermit warbler, Glaucous-winged 
> gull, Redpoll?, etc.).  But not enough people in the birding community 
> write them up to ever take them off the list.  Even if our own Mr. 
> Tripp and Mr. Fridell studiously write up and submits Hermit warbler 
> sightings for six years, it may not get taken off the list if the 
> average isn't adequate over the last decade.  By this standard, I 
> doubt any of the above-named species would be removed from the list.
>
> 2)  If we relax that interpretation of the standard and remove birds 
> we "know" to occur more than twice off of the Review List without 
> documentation (i.e. officially approved by the Committee), we allow 
> subjective "knowledge" to shape the list.  I don't personally have a 
> problem with that (we were supposedly chosen as the gatekeepers of the 
> state's birding records, or "High Priests of Birding" as one person 
> would have it, precisely because of our expertise), but we should all 
> be clear that this is what we are doing.  By this standard, we could 
> vote on Boreal owl, Hermit warbler, Glaucous-winged gull, Redpoll, 
> etc. and possibly remove them from the list based on our expert 
> (albeit undocumented) knowledge of the occurrence of said species in 
> our state.
>  
> We get some guidance from other portions of the bylaws:
>  
> 1.c.  The Committee may, as it sees fit, delete species from the 
> Review List. Such deletions will be made by majority vote.
>  
> 2.a.  Notwithstanding the criterion above, any committee member may 
> petition the Committee to remove a species from the Review List if the 
> species can be demonstrated or comfortably presumed to be more 
> abundant than the number of accepted records presently indicates.
>  
> b.  The petitioning member must submit written documentation to 
> substantiate the purported patterns of historical abundance, and/or 
> recent trends in abundance and/or access, coverage, or reporting.
>  
> c.  Any such petition to remove a species by this special rule shall 
> be voted on and accepted with a vote of 5-2 or greater.
>
>  
> I take it from 2.a., that we are to consider only official Committee 
> accepted records for the 2/yr over 10 years rule unless 
> a written petition is submitted and accepted as described in 2.b. & 
> c.  I don't think we can just propose and vote on species for removal 
> without going through this process.  Do the rest of you read this 
> differently?
>  
> David_______________________________________________
> reccom mailing list
> reccom at utahbirds.org
> http://utahbirds.org/mailman/listinfo/reccom
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