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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

2017 Western Palearctic Big Year (2 Viewers)

Paul Chapman said:
Andy

An excellent report on most of the bits that are in the WP illustrating exactly how many eastern 'vagrants' are resident and gettable:-

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=328781

All the best
Click to expand...

Cheers Paul, will check that out tomorrow.

Already read it, a great trip!

The only thing to say to anyone planning similar is that due to the unstable nature of the Russian Ruble folowing the Ukraine invasion is that it is now longer traded in the UK and would have to be sourced on arrival, it's also dropped to R70 = £1. Previous to the Ukranian situation it had been R49 = £1 so still good.


A
 
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Paul Chapman said:
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=328781
Click to expand...

In the Urals sometimes the biggest challenge is finding on which side of the WP boundary you are! Other birders mentioned it, too. They struggled with their GPS, and Russian guides were not always helpful or certain themselves.

The list of breeding species already looks more like eastern Asia than Europe. If somebody seriously plans to re-draw the borders of WP basing on the actual avifauna (which is nonsense, as I mentioned before), then the border would be better moved west into the European part of Russia.
 
jurek said:
In the Urals sometimes the biggest challenge is finding on which side of the WP boundary you are! Other birders mentioned it, too. They struggled with their GPS, and Russian guides were not always helpful or certain themselves.
Click to expand...
In the northern & central Urals, the crest line of the range - it shouldn't be too difficult to determine? Ask the guides if the streams flow into the Ob (= Asia), or into the Pechora or Volga (= Europe). At the south end, it is the Ural River. There's a short stretch from the headwaters of the Ural to the ridge line where it might be tricky.

jurek said:
The list of breeding species already looks more like eastern Asia than Europe. If somebody seriously plans to re-draw the borders of WP basing on the actual avifauna (which is nonsense, as I mentioned before), then the border would be better moved west into the European part of Russia.
Click to expand...
But lots of European birds also breed east of the Urals (e.g. Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, for two of many), so that argument works both ways ;)
 
Nutcracker said:
But lots of European birds also breed east of the Urals (e.g. Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, for two of many), so that argument works both ways ;)
Click to expand...

Yes, as I posted before the border should be far more east (= the Yenisei river in central Siberia) from a biogeographical point of view!

And if you read the complete species list of the linked trip report you find more than 3/4 WP bird species - so the Urals are really (!) WP.
 
jurek said:
In the Urals sometimes the biggest challenge is finding on which side of the WP boundary you are! Other birders mentioned it, too. They struggled with their GPS, and Russian guides were not always helpful or certain themselves.

The list of breeding species already looks more like eastern Asia than Europe. If somebody seriously plans to re-draw the borders of WP basing on the actual avifauna (which is nonsense, as I mentioned before), then the border would be better moved west into the European part of Russia.
Click to expand...

The Urals can be a very odd place:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident
 
Pied Crow at Tarfaya, Morocco

Paul Chapman said:
Thoughts...........

Pied Crow - the breeding birds did not flourish - though there is one currently in Morocco seen intermittently for a year - http://www.magornitho.org/2016/03/corvus-albus-mhamid/ - I'd probably keep in Category 7
Click to expand...

A Pied Crow observed today at about 30 km north-east of Tarfaya by Prof. Abdeljebbar Qninba. Let’s hope it can hang around during the next few weeks.
 
So 143 species:-
Category 1 - 97 out of 323 species
Category 2 - 31 out of 229 species
Category 3 - 10 out of 122 species (new Sociable Plover & Richard's Pipit)
Category 5 - 5 out of 51 species (new Pacific Golden-plover)

My categorisations of Lesser Crested Tern (Category 2) & Sociable Plover (Category 3) feel a bit mean...

http://www.bigyearwp.com/index.php/igoterra-ticks/

All the best
 
I'm finally done with that subspecies master list for the WP. I'm 100% certain there are some mistakes in it.
At least the comments section is often outdated or uncomplete, but I think it gives a good overview in most cases.

I might make my own scoring system for WP birds in the near future with more clearly defined rules for rarity status assigments. However Paul's list will be a great help to achieve this and maybe it proves to be better than what I have currently in my head. The general idea for this can be found on the cesond page of the sheet. It will be more of an approach like that used by ABA, scoring the frequency of occurence of the birds rather than Pauls 'gettability' scores

Maffong
 

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Maffong said:
I'm finally done with that subspecies master list for the WP. I'm 100% certain there are some mistakes in it.
At least the comments section is often outdated or uncomplete, but I think it gives a good overview in most cases.

I might make my own scoring system for WP birds in the near future with more clearly defined rules for rarity status assigments. However Paul's list will be a great help to achieve this and maybe it proves to be better than what I have currently in my head. The general idea for this can be found on the cesond page of the sheet. It will be more of an approach like that used by ABA, scoring the frequency of occurence of the birds rather than Pauls 'gettability' scores

Maffong
Click to expand...

Given the state of subspecies I would be shocked if there wasn't mistakes in it :p
 
Paul Chapman said:
Does he back it up with any population data or sightings?

I recall a single juvenile last year at Oued Jenna but no reports from the 2015 location of Bir Anzarane and Eric Didner did not have any at the traditional location of Choum in Mauritania despite several at other locations.

All the best
Click to expand...

Here is the latest sighting:
http://observado.org/waarneming/view/133533776

I am far from sure, but I guess this is a sighting within an organized bird tour by Banc D'Arguin (http://www.bancdarguin.nl/), or it has to be a private tour (2 other Dutch observers had the Sparrow there on the same day).
Numbers are by default 1 in the observado app, so I guess (lots of guessing) there can be more sparrows.
 
Maffong said:
I'm finally done with that subspecies master list for the WP. I'm 100% certain there are some mistakes in it.
At least the comments section is often outdated or uncomplete, but I think it gives a good overview in most cases.

...

Maffong
Click to expand...

Very impressive work. A couple of comments:

-Change "Latin name" to "Scientific name"

-Maybe split the comments column into three columns: Range, Status in WP and Comments?

-Northern Harrier: Has occurred multiple times in Britain and Ireland in addition to the Azores record mentioned.

-White-winged Scoter: Has occurred in e.g. Ireland as well. As with Northern Harrier, best described as vagrant to WP.

-Northern Flicker: Also recorded in Ireland and Azores.
 
Maffong - excellent stuff. On a handheld and it deserves a proper look when I get a chance. I note that the 'Rarity Statuses' haven't been amended for the update eg Pacific Golden-plover (Category 5). Hooded Merganser also appeared wrong. I like the idea of regionalising to get a better idea of status and will be interested to see how it works in practice. Simply flicking through I noticed mongolus Lesser Sand-plover needed to be added as does leschenaultii Greater Sand-plover.

Temmie - the Sparrow looks like Oued Jenna or thereabouts again?

All the best
 
Maffong said:
I'm finally done with that subspecies master list for the WP. I'm 100% certain there are some mistakes in it.
Click to expand...

Captain_of_Crunch said:
Very impressive work. A couple of comments:

-Change "Latin name" to "Scientific name"

-Maybe split the comments column into three columns: Range, Status in WP and Comments?

-Northern Harrier: Has occurred multiple times in Britain and Ireland in addition to the Azores record mentioned.

-White-winged Scoter: Has occurred in e.g. Ireland as well. As with Northern Harrier, best described as vagrant to WP.

-Northern Flicker: Also recorded in Ireland and Azores.
Click to expand...

Also:

- Swan Goose: "f. domestica" is not a valid scientific name - change to 'Domesticated breeds feral in Germany' in the comments

- Columba livia: Rock Dove

- Picus canus: Grey-headed Woodpecker ;)

- Chaffinch: 'Coelebs-group' should be in green, and 'Canariensis-group' in orange (not the other way round!)

- Lesser Redpoll: should perhaps be on an orange 'disputed' line? Ditto other redpoll taxa??

- Scottish Crossbill: should perhaps be on an orange 'disputed' line?

Will look through more later.
 
Maffong said:
I'm finally done with that subspecies master list for the WP. I'm 100% certain there are some mistakes in it.
At least the comments section is often outdated or uncomplete, but I think it gives a good overview in most cases.

I might make my own scoring system for WP birds in the near future with more clearly defined rules for rarity status assigments. However Paul's list will be a great help to achieve this and maybe it proves to be better than what I have currently in my head. The general idea for this can be found on the cesond page of the sheet. It will be more of an approach like that used by ABA, scoring the frequency of occurence of the birds rather than Pauls 'gettability' scores

Maffong
Click to expand...

Should Isabelline Shrike not be split?

B
 

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