Newbie here (1 Viewer)

[Kevin123]

Just need some help / guidelines about recording birds you’ve seen.

being new; one does not want to record wrongly

1) I spotted an interesting bird and couldn’t quite identify and asked a young couple in the hide. I thought sanderling, she with a field guide thought it was a knot. as they say it’s difficult. Can I accept her appraisal?

2) I spotted a lovely small chocolate bird in the undergrowth and when home identified as a chetti’s warbler. I’m still inexperienced and nervous of adding to my list.

what’s etiquette of maintaining a life lis, I may get a variety of answers but would like some views.

 

[delia todd]

Hi Kevin and a warm welcome to you from all the Staff and Moderators. Your list is your own, so what you put on it is really up to you. However, the problem arises if you come into competition (family, friend or more formal on line listing which have rules). In my early days I decided that I'd only put on my list what I identified. If someone told me what a bird was, I'd only list it if I could see the identifying features for myself.

If you have a camera, you can try getting a picture to post on here asking for help, or get a recording, which you can post here too.

I'm sure you will enjoy it here and I look forward to hearing your news.

 

[Kevin123]

Can you point me to the ‘formal’ listing rules

 

[delia todd]

Can you point me to the ‘formal’ listing rules

LOL someone else will do that I'm sure. I don't really follow them. Basically you don't record captive birds or escapees.

 

[Larry Sweetland]

Most birders who are serious about their lists only count birds they were able to identify themselves, even if someone else identified it first and pointed out why it was what it was. Even then you have to be sure yourself that their reasoning was right, as absolutely all birders are capable of making mistakes.

In your case of the Knot, if the people were using a field guide themselves in the hide to identify waders (rather than just producing it in order to explain their reasoning to you) then they were likely to be inexperienced birders themselves. Experienced birders rarely need to check field guides in their home countries.

 

[THE_FERN]

Three are no rules about what to keep on a list: it's up to you.

Some people note only things they see, not things they hear; some only things they photograph, others things they see "well". Some people (on tours especially) write down whatever the guide says uncritically. Others only record birds they find and identify themselves.

There's a choice of taxonomy too. There are at least 5 lists of world birds and they disagree. Some will tell you that the current efforts to unify the major authorities will change things but that's not so. Taxonomy is an art and subjective and so will always change. This disagreement is perhaps most obvious if you travel and compare the names in the area guide (book) to those in a world checklist. They're often very different.

 

[Kits]

Welcome to Birdforum.

 

[01101001]

being new; one does not want to record wrongly

My take on it would be that identifying a bird means being able to confidently exclude all other options that could conceivably occur: so, all breeding, resident and wintering birds (depending on the season), both common and uncommon but not necessarily vagrants. This can be done visually or aurally, the latter usually requiring more care than the former. You can use any and all paper/internet sources, ask others or even use smart sound identification programmes (provided that you put in the effort to verify the ID beyond doubt yourself). Also, you don't count captive birds like chickens in a coop, birds in a zoo, or those exotic ornamental birds that are being fed and have been rendered flightless, as in a park collection. Happy birding!

 

[rkj]

The American Birding Association has rules for people who submit lists to their organization. You can find them here: ABA Recording Rules and Interpretations - American Birding Association. Guidelines for submitting ebird lists can be found here: eBird Best Practices. For you own purposes, you can include whatever you want. I have known birders who, on their personal lists, only include wild birds they have photographed, and others who have counted everything they have seen, including captive birds. As others have said above, the common rule is record birds that you have confidently identified yourself. For a beginning birder I would say enjoy, learn, and do not worry too much about lists.

 

[delia todd]

Hi again Kevin

I remembered who does a list of British Birds, which is the BOU: The British List - British Ornithologists' Union

I was thinking, you might want to record everything you see, remember to also record the where and when too. Then when you've understood the link I've given you, you can start to do a more formal list, perhaps excluding some of the species you saw.

In addition there are all sorts of lists you can keep, Life list, Holiday List, January 1 list, Annual lists. Garden list, Seen from the train list, Local Patch list. You name it, people on here do them. We even had Lock Down Lists, during Covid! Whatever you do, have fun.

There's nothing like your first year, as all the birds will go on your Life List!!!