A Question on Listing Established Escapes

[crispycreme]

We were wandering through a man-made preserve in a suburban neighborhood the other day, and we came across dozens of Peach-faced Lovebirds. It was clear that these were fairly well established and thriving, but obviously descendants of escapees. Now, both my bird guides (American Bird Conservancy & Nat'l Geographic) have taken the trouble to list established parrots (mostly those found in Miami and Los Angeles) but neither include the Lovebird. Should I include it on my lifelist, or is that a no-no? I might note that we have seen these birds before, in other parts of the city, so it seems they have taken root and aren't merely aberrations.


edit - I just realized that I put this in the wrong forum (dumb n00b error). If a mod needs to move it, by all means do so.

edit again - thanks, Grouse. :)

[Grousemore]

Have moved it to Lists,which may be the right place!

[Michael Frankis]

Hi Crispy,

Maybe the 'authorities' (in your case, the AOU) don't even know about them yet? - quite often, breeding escapes don't get reported well enough.

Each case really needs to be judged on its merits, so I guess what's needed is to get a postgrad student to carry out a fairly long-term study of their breeding success, death rates, etc, etc, and do some predictive analysis to see if the population is likely to go on increasing, or whether they've just had one fluke breeding season and might die out soon.

Michael

[Dave B Smith]

CC,

This is a good question that comes up here from time to time. I asked the same thing several months ago when "Millicent", a Peahen, took up residence in our neighborhood.

First, I'll add a link to a few previous posts that will give some guidelines and then leave it open for Dennis and the Listing Police 8-)

Adding to a list (http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=7026)
Can I add her to my list? (http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=7790)

[crispycreme]

Thanks Michael, although that seems like a lot of trouble to go through before sticking a bird on my lifelist. ;) (j/k) I have noted that the field guides do list breeding escapes even though they have unsustainable populations (e.g. the budgeriars of Miami, and the recently extirpated myna in Washington)

edit - oops, your post slipped in ahead of mine, Dave. Thanks for the link, going off to read it now.