Reserve reported sightings ??????

[dddiver]

Is it me? ,or does anyone else think that some reserves invent sightings just to bring the punters in?

I was at Rainham RSPB today after seeing reports of penduline tits and serins on Bird guides andBirdforum.The car park was packed ,so the signs looked good.Up in the visitor centre , i found out that so far there had been no sightings of either.So I went for a stroll around to the reed beds for a couple of hours.

Nobody I spoke to on the way had met anyone who had seen either bird. So as it was getting dark ,I headed back to the centre to find that there had been no reports of penduline tits ,but someone reported a possible juvinile serin.
Now that could have been anything.

So who puts the initial reports out?

Dave

[Stephen Dunstan]

Dave,

There are pictures of these birds on Surfbirds (i.e the Penduline Tits), they are genuine. I think the Serins have been around a while.

Regards,

Stephen.

[dddiver]

I know they are genuine,but they were genuine yesterday not today.They were reported today , but nobody saw them !!

[Stephen Dunstan]

Sightings boards aren't always bang up to date. Over enthusiastic visitors claim birds when they are mistaken. C'est la vie.

Ultimately if two small birds are on a reserve one day and haven't been reported the next they might still be there so why not take a look?

Regards,

Stephen.

[kite1035]

Is it me? ,or does anyone else think that some reserves invent sightings just to bring the punters in?

Dave

Answer to your Question is No
Do bear in mind that some of the reports are before the reserve is open to the public when there is less distubance

[simon]

I know they are genuine,but they were genuine yesterday not today.They were reported today , but nobody saw them !!

Last report i can find on Birdguides was on the 2nd at 11.44 with NO further sightings at 15:55 the same day as the Serin was reported. No reports of any sightings on the 3rd when i presume you were there.
The sighting may well still be up on the reserves sightings board to alert punters that the birds were being seen regularly and may well still be around.

[Phil Carter]

I was there yesterday too and although the board was showing that the bird had been seen, the bloke issueing the permits had told us that there had been no reports so far that morning. I got the impression that the board was for visitors to add to rather than anyone at the centre to 'run'.
Still, a nice place to waste a few hours.
Cheers
Phil

[Vespa]

I was there all day on 2nd Jan when both Penduline Tit and Serin were seen. It's important to note that both these birds have been on the Rainham site for well over a month now, but they can be quite elusive. I only got to see the Penduline Tit in the morning, and that was after a couple of hours searching. They then flew off west high into the distance, but they had done that very early on the same day and obviously did retrun.
The Penduline Tits did seem very mobile, and there is a quite a large area of reed to cover so its not surprising the reserve goes through days when they are not seen.
As for the Serin (I believe the regular bird is a juvenile), in theory that should be easier as it hangs around the centre with Goldfinches. However, I spent most of the afternoon looking and for the second frustrating time in a month left without seeing it.
I suspect they are both still around but its a case of searching and a bit of being in the right place at the right time.

[ColinD]

You should always view reserve sightings with caution. Usually they're on a notice board where the public can add too them without any vetting what-so-ever. A large percentage of birders at these reserves are beginners or people with limited experience and maybe wild imaginations.

To give you a couple of recent examples. On New Years Eve I went to Martin Mere. There had been a Green-wing Teal reported on the notice board, by somebody whose name I didn't recognise. Bear in mind that I've been going to Martin Mere for over 30 years so I do recognise many of the names. I didn't see the GWT and didn't meet anybody who had. I'm not saying that it wasn't a genuine sighting, I'm just using it as an example.

Drake Green-winged Teal is a very easy bird to identify. Unfortunately, what a lot of beginners fail to realise is that ALL Teal have green speculums, and the green wing is NOT the way to identify them. There was a bloke in one of the hides confidently telling another that one of the Teal in front of us must be the GWT because it had green in its wing. Of course it was just a Common Teal.

The second example is from Leighton Moss. I was in the hide about a week ago when a birder with all the gear, scope / Leica bins / camera etc. suddenly proclaimed that there was a kite flying over the hill in front of us. Almost immediately he corrected himself and decided that it was a harrier. This bird was not flying over the reedbed or marsh, it was high up, over the hillside and the woodland where harriers never go. The bird was a classic Buzzard. It didn't even have a white rump as some do.

In both of these examples, the birders concerned could quite easily have gone to the notice board and reported their erroneous observations. What are the staff then to do with this info? Do they reject it? Do they spend time trying to check it out. No, if the bird is not particularly rare, or there have been previous sightings recently, the news will just get passed onto the bird information services, and people like you then travel miles to try to find a bird which never existed.

[deborah4]

Drake Green-winged Teal is a very easy bird to identify. Unfortunately, what a lot of beginners fail to realise is that ALL Teal have green supercilliums, and the green wing is NOT the way to identify them. There was a bloke in one of the hides confidently telling another that one of the Teal in front of us must be the GWT because it had green in its wing. Of course it was just a Common Teal.



I believe you're referring to the speculum (the bright patch of green wing feathers) rather than the green head pattern vis a vis identification of either. ;)

I'm sure the easiest way is just remembering the white line on swimming Common Teal is horizontal but vertical down the flanks on GWT

Our main local Reserve is pretty much covered on a daily basis by experienced birders so don't think there's too much of a problem with stringy reports although it might be safer to rely on local OS sightings boards rather than the visitors book!

[dddiver]

I did'nt mean for it to come over as a full on whinge,more tongue in cheek really.But I'm a slow typer,so by the time I got near the end of the post,a bottle of wine had taken effect making me sound narky.
I had a good day anyway at Rainham,even though I missed the jack snipe aswell.

Dave

[ColinD]

I believe you're referring to the speculum (the bright patch of green wing feathers) rather than the green head pattern vis a vis identification of either. ;)

I'm sure the easiest way is just remembering the white line on swimming Common Teal is horizontal but vertical down the flanks on GWT

Our main local Reserve is pretty much covered on a daily basis by experienced birders so don't think there's too much of a problem with stringy reports although it might be safer to rely on local OS sightings boards rather than the visitors book!

Yes I did mean the speculum - thanks for that;)

The vertical white line of GWT is virtually the only valid identification feature visible in the field at any distance. The horizontal white line is not always visible on Common Teal.

I'm sure that most reserves are covered daily by expert birders, and Martin Mere and Leighton Moss are no exception. The problem comes when visiting birders, sometimes with limited experience, jump to conclusions and then put their "sightings" on the public notice board.

[ColonelBlimp]

On a visit to Mere Sands Wood a while back I was quite excited to find Green Heron on the recent sightings board-from talking to the staff the impression I got was that noone could bear to scrub it off!!!

[Nightranger]

On a visit to Mere Sands Wood a while back I was quite excited to find Green Heron on the recent sightings board-from talking to the staff the impression I got was that noone could bear to scrub it off!!!

It is a difficult call for visitor centre (often volunteers) staff to know what to put on boards and what to have checked. The RSPB reserve at The Lodge has a lucky situation in having a relatively experienced birder (hi Sarah) in the shop some of the time. The problem comes in a visitor reporting a rarity at a time when it cannot be checked by a more experienced member of staff. Obviously, there is the risk of being accused of suppression if the information is not released to the public domain yet the report could be wrong (probably just a mis-ID). What would you do?

On the other hand, some reserves are not blessed with loads of rarities and it is all too easy to be a bit emotional about removing a previous rarity. ;)

[steve_zodiac]

Well my experience of RSPB reserves is the wardens seem to go all out to rubbish reports of rare bird sightings. The policy seems to be 'If you see it and we don't you are mistaken'.

A Broad-billed sandpiper at Titchwell some years ago was brushed aside as a Jack Snipe by the wardens! Until the bird dropped down in front of thirty birders.

[mikfoz]

Prime example:

I was out at first light this am and saw 25 Barnacle Geese on my local reserve. The temperature was -3C and there was nobody else about. They flew away at 8:10am. Do you think anyone else saw them? But there's no way I'm mistaken.

Yet I'm not in Scotland.

I also saw 7 Long-eared Owls but people right next to me could only see 3.

Meanwhile I missed the Bittern that some visitor spotted on his way in by about 20 mins in the very spot I was staking out and I've yet to see the damned thing and it's my patch! He seemed sincere, yet at Leighton Moss the other week some bright spark was hopping up and down shouting "Bittern, Bittern!" over a female Mallard. Should I have called him a liar?

Reserves that waste the time of birders deliberately are pretty soon going to get rumbled. So I doubt it.

However, as many have said before, how do you tell my genuine, uncorroborated sighting from an overenthusiastic person muddling with a Canada Goose.

[Stephen Dunstan]

This will be Marton Mere??

The Barnacles fly in every evening from Blackpool Zoo, and leave again early morning. So you are quite right, they are Barnacles.

Regards,

Stephen.

[mikfoz]

Graaah! I thought they were wild. I've never spotted them before.

I'm going to have a little cry now.

Erm... I did see a Peregrine, too, honest!

[Stephen Dunstan]

Sorry, don't cry about it.

Peregrines are always nice to see aren't they.

Regards,

Stephen.

[Nightranger]

Well my experience of RSPB reserves is the wardens seem to go all out to rubbish reports of rare bird sightings. The policy seems to be 'If you see it and we don't you are mistaken'.

A Broad-billed sandpiper at Titchwell some years ago was brushed aside as a Jack Snipe by the wardens! Until the bird dropped down in front of thirty birders.

This is probably quite an extreme example but I understand where this comes from in that even Bill Oddie advises to assume something common and work from there. I hate to classify bird watchers even after 30+ years of bird watching myself but a lot of reports from (potentially) inexperienced birders can be suspect. Putting aside the stringers (sadly, there are individuals who seem to have an almost professional duty to string reports) there are some very genuine and understandable examples where people have really believed what they saw. On the other hand, it is not good practise for an RSPB (or WWT, or Wildlife Trust, or Woodland Trust) warden to react to a report before checking it out or having confirmation from other observers. Given this thread started with the posit that some site staff 'invent' rare bird reports, we can see how this will vary with individuals. I believe Titchwell has the highest visitor numbers (beating Minsmere) of all RSPB reserves so I imagine the wardens have learned to be justifiably cautious.