Two people break 10,000 species, and on the same day? Can it be? (2 Viewers)

KenM said:

There shouldn’t be anything wrong with “lug’ole” ticks only, particularly if the call was repeated and or heard “clearly”.
Many years ago on a balmy June circa midnight, I opened the back door to put some trash in the bin and heard “wet-my-lips” thrice going North.
I can recall punching the air as it represented not just a garden flyover tick, it was also a “heard” tick.
I duly submitted the record to the local recorder assuming that it would be bounced with no ensuing response, then to my complete surprise the record was included in the following year’s report….along with a second report from another birder further North in the valley.
I’ve often wondered if it would have been given short shrift had it been the only record.😮

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Farnboro John said:

We've done this one before but there are those for whom the ears are the only option. Personally I think that sound can be wrong more ways than a visual identification: poorly heard error, mimicry from another species, some other birder playing a recording. For these reasons I wouldn't want a heard-only on a list but I would note them for completeness.

For finding stuff in the first place (and discarding the fast moving blip in bushes that is always a Great Tit) calls are very useful.

John

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Prestdj said:

so true

years ago at the log call in the porthcressa will wagstaff got to green sandpiper and said 1 heard over the harbour, when it got to starling on the list a guy said 1 by the harbour giving a green sandpiper call

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KenM said:

Hopefully they’ll never master Cuckoo!😮

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kb57 said:

Although famously didn't small boys perfect the call of the cuckoo in order to fool vicars into writing 'Sir, this morning I distinctly heard to call of a cuckoo' letters to The Times?

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Winterdune said:

I ticked Bearded Tit as a patch life tick on call (heard two fly over me in pouring rain - my specs were covered in drops and I didn't get on to them visually). A couple of months later I unticked it as I'd forgotten exactly how they sounded and sort of talked myself out of it. That's the trouble for me - it seems much easier to doubt sound than visuals. But I do record heard-only birds on eBird all the time. I hear things like Green Woodpecker much more than I see them.

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Sangahyando said:

To some extent, this can be remedied by using modern recording equipment, even if it's just a smartphone app. The biggest remaining problem is distant calls for which you'd need specialist equipment, or one-off calls. The latter are a particularly annoying phenomenon...

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Maffong said:

Back to the topic.
Interestingly, Jason Mann's list is now gone from IGoTerra and there's an amended statement that congratulates only Peter on his 10.000 species. I wonder how that happened.

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Jason Mann said:

So what next? Some of this exchange feels a little hostile to me, and it's difficult to manage alongside everything else. I bird for fun and growth, and I've told myself that when it's not fun anymore, I'll stop. I'm considering removing the 500 rarest species from my public list or deleting my account altogether.

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pbjosh said:

His comment that the thread feels a little hostile I found a bit rich. He put his neck out claiming 10k species, and he seemed to be looking for fame and glory a bit.

It was a big claim. Whether he had 10k or not, what he had available to view on iGT was kind of a mess and didn't convince many people. He still hasn't commented (as far as I've seen) on species like Purple-winged Ground-Dove, Cozumel Thrasher, Manipur Bush-Quail, Jerdon's Courser, Fiji Petrel, etc. He wrote his own press release calling himself one of the best birders in the world. Again, to me he seemed to be looking for a bit of fame (nothing wrong with that though the timing was suspect).

But when the questions started coming he posted a political deflection, then played the victim a bit and said he'd take his ball and go home.

At this point, I think I'm not the only one who'd love to see more proof / hear more about it all and see a more careful and believable list. But if that doesn't occur (and it's fully up to Jason of course), I can't help but think that he's pretty well spoiled his name in the birding world and this will blow over pretty rapidly. Maybe it's better for all involved if it just sort of gets forgotten.

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Andy Adcock said:

The best birders I know, are patch listers who rarely leave the UK. In World context, how do you evaluate the claim? My patch listing pals will have every call of the species that could occur, logged in their computer like brains and work, obsessively, the same, few, square kilometres, daily.

To have a brain which is capable of learning, retaining and recalling bird calls, is a gift, I remember well, an American Buff-bellied Pipit on Scilly which was called, initially on it's call as it flew over, by the birding savant, Paul Holt. It was subsequently found and I was lucky enough to see it myself. What makes someone 'one of the best birders in the World'? It sure as hell is not having an endless amount of time and money or having a job which sends you all over the World. Neither, is the obsessive, relentless drive, shown by some in the field, a drive which deprives them of sleep and leaves them exhausted at the end of the day. None of those things, I suggest, make you 'one of the best'.

What does however, put you 'up there'? The best birders I've met, all have incredible eyes which find birds in the field which others just would not.
Eyesight travels, it can be employed wherever you are and if you're lucky enough to be gifted with the ability to learn calls too, then you're in the elite group. The local guides, all over the World, to me, are the best, far better than the wealthy punters who pay for their services. Some of the guides I've used, have had super powers, their eyes are just incredible, and, they know the calls.

So, don't look at any published lists to find this accolade, look in the villages of Africa, Asia, Papua New Guinea.......................................not sure where Paul Holt lives

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DMW said:

In the spirit of fairness, I think Peter Kaestner would also need to provide provenance for some of the records listed in this thread for them to be completely credible. Zapata Rail is obviously one. Dusky Tetraka was heavily strung for years at Masoala, and has only very recently been "re-discovered". There's no record on eBird of him having twitched it since, so there has to be a significant question mark here. It would be disappointing if he did tick it at Masoala in good faith and didn't remove it from his list.

Shelley's Crimsonwing is another eyebrow raiser. I recall a friend telling me that the highly regarded SW Ugandan guide Alfred Twinomujini had only ever seen it once.

Buff-breasted Button Quail is an interesting one, with near Night Parrot levels of Aussie intrigue and acrimony over it's continued existence. I think you would need to bring your A-game to convince skeptics over having it on your list!

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Peter Kaestner said:

Thanks for your comments on my records. The Zapata Rail and Jambandu Indigobird were both removed from eBird in the last couple of years through a review process (Robert Payne actually reviewed my indigobird evidence) -- but I forgot to take them off iGoTerra. I've fixed it. The tetraka I saw in 1977 when there was considerably more habitat and many more birds in Madagascar. I do not have any proof, but I have no reason to doubt my ID. I've never been to Masoala. (As a general rule, I do try to search out rare birds that I had seen years ago to 'sanitize' the sighting. Shelly's Crimsonwing I saw on the west slope of the Ruwenzori Mountains in 1976. I actually got all four crimsonwings on a five-day ascent of the mountain from the Zaire (Congo) side. On the buttonquail, coincidentally, I just ran into Josh Bergamark YESTERDAY in Manila and he gave me information that caused me to realize that my observation could not be good, due to changes in the known range and morphology of the bird. I deleted it.

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Andy Adcock said:

The best birders I know, are patch listers who rarely leave the UK. In World context, how do you evaluate the claim? My patch listing pals will have every call of the species that could occur, logged in their computer like brains and work, obsessively, the same, few, square kilometres, daily.

To have a brain which is capable of learning, retaining and recalling bird calls, is a gift, I remember well, an American Buff-bellied Pipit on Scilly which was called, initially on it's call as it flew over, by the birding savant, Paul Holt. It was subsequently found and I was lucky enough to see it myself. What makes someone 'one of the best birders in the World'? It sure as hell is not having an endless amount of time and money or having a job which sends you all over the World. Neither, is the obsessive, relentless drive, shown by some in the field, a drive which deprives them of sleep and leaves them exhausted at the end of the day. None of those things, I suggest, make you 'one of the best'.

What does however, put you 'up there'? The best birders I've met, all have incredible eyes which find birds in the field which others just would not.
Eyesight travels, it can be employed wherever you are and if you're lucky enough to be gifted with the ability to learn calls too, then you're in the elite group. The local guides, all over the World, to me, are the best, far better than the wealthy punters who pay for their services. Some of the guides I've used, have had super powers, their eyes are just incredible, and, they know the calls.

So, don't look at any published lists to find this accolade, look in the villages of Africa, Asia, Papua New Guinea.......................................not sure where Paul Holt lives

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