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Introduce species to tick or not to tick. (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter WACCOE
- Start date
liverpool_bob
scarce migrant to yorkshire
Pete Mella
Getting there...
Interesting question... I've ticked red kite even though they were almost definitely Harewood birds, but I definitely see your point.
But where do you draw the line? Do you tick mandarin? Little owl? Pheasant?
Personally? Yes, yes and yes. In certain places and situations, but then I'm neither a serious lister/twitcher or the owner of a particularly large list (my UK life list is still under 200...)
For me, if there's an established population, living wild, for a decent amount of time then they can be counted. That can be said for all three birds you mentioned, as well as dozens of others. Even the pheasant, with a heavily subsidised population has been here since roman times and if left well alone would do fine for itself. Red-Legged Partridge? Sure, tick that too, I guess. It only begins to get dodgy when you tick it somewhere you KNOW the birds have been reared and released.
As for ticking reintroductions, the same arguments apply. It seems slightly mean spirited to not tick a bird cos 3 generations ago a boatload were shipped over from somewhere in eastern Europe and set free. Surely half the point of reintroducing once native species of any animal type is to put back what we once had for the enjoyment of everyone here? Having said that, it'd be stupid to tuen up at the site of a corncrake release, wait for it to be set free and tick it as "wild" the second it's free of the enclosure...
Besides, once you start knocking reintroductions from your list cos they're helped too much by humans, you've got to start to consider knocking off birds who are heavily and unnaturally protected (round the clock nest guarding, provision of special nest sites etc), birds who have spread naturally but only as a result of human interferance (climate change, potentially), or birds who would have, by now, been extinct but for concerted human efforts.
Hmm, longer post than I intended. At the end of the day, tick what you feel comfortable with, and what you can justify. Noone else can really tell you what not to tick. Maybe I'm just trying to justify my own "loose" listing ethics...
chris butterworth
aka The Person Named Above
Interesting you should mention 're-introduced' species, would you count Shore Plover or Kakapo in New Zealand, and, with the schemes in Britain for Osprey, White-tailed Eagle and Common Crane, what would you do if one turned up in your garden. Personally I think if a bird is either scarce enough to warrant re-introduction, or globally rare, such as Mandarin Duck, you can count them.
ovenbird43
Well-known member
I count introduced species that are established and self-sustaining as determined by ABA... European Starling, House Sparrow, Ring-necked Pheaseant, for example. I used not to count them, but my views on the matter changed: like it or not, they are now part of the ecosystem, and ignoring them doesn't change that.
Farnboro John
Well-known member
What about British mammals? To exclude introduced species you would have to sacrifice Rabbit, Brown Hare, Fallow, Sika, Muntjac and Chinese Water Deer (and I have read that even Roe Deer are largely from reintroductions) Brown Rat, Common Vole, Scilly Shrew, American Mink, Eastern Grey Squirrel, Mountain Hare in the Peak District, any reintroduced Water Vole population....... how do you tell a reintroduced European Otter?
Some of these are almost icons of the British countryside. Leave it to the academics to define what is and isn't British.... I can't believe I've just written that!
John
Some of these are almost icons of the British countryside. Leave it to the academics to define what is and isn't British.... I can't believe I've just written that!
John
Nightranger
Senior Moment
Basically, you can tick anything providing you are sure about the status because you can always build sub-lists if your conscience dictates. This subject has been discussed before but it all depends on whether you are going to submit your list for third party approval. Personally, I have never seen my list as anything but fun so there are one or two things on the full list that would raise eyebrows. I would probably never open my list to outside viewers but if I did, I would remove the questionable species.
ColinD
Well-known member
It's not as simple a question as it first seems. First of all you need to define "introduced". Little Owl, Ruddy Duck and Pheasant are introduced - do you count them on your list? Ruddy Duck are quite recent introductions, within the past 50 years or so.
I've always thought that birders generally are very inconsistant when it comes to ticking introduced species. It seems to depend on the species. White-tailed Eagles when they were first re-introduced, wing tagged Red Kites in southern England, escaped Eagle Owls in Lancashire, they all seem acceptable ticks to some people, yet feral populations of Night Herons, feral Pigeons or dodgy looking ducks are not, yet they may be more self sustaining than those which are ticked. It seems to depend on how sexy the species is.
I've always thought that birders generally are very inconsistant when it comes to ticking introduced species. It seems to depend on the species. White-tailed Eagles when they were first re-introduced, wing tagged Red Kites in southern England, escaped Eagle Owls in Lancashire, they all seem acceptable ticks to some people, yet feral populations of Night Herons, feral Pigeons or dodgy looking ducks are not, yet they may be more self sustaining than those which are ticked. It seems to depend on how sexy the species is.
I dont agree. I think there is a surprising amount of consistency about which birds can be ticked, at least here in the UK. The vast majority of birders only tick an introduced bird if it has been accepted as Cat C by the BOU. Self-maintaining population and all that.
Birders therefore predominantly follow the same rules, rules also clearly followed by bird information services, and county bird reports, and pretty much everything else. There are plenty of breeding Black Swans and Monk Parakeets in the UK, but no one ticks them as the BOU has not "ticked" them. In my experience, those that do are usually not really into "listing" in a proper obsessive fashion any way, and are just noting what they have seen.
Consistency rules.
Farnboro John
Well-known member
I don't know many birders who don't count Feral Pigeon. One or two prefer to leave it off their year lists until they see a "proper" one (Rock Dove in Western Isles etc) but as the BOU eventually decided, you can't ignore several million scabby pigeons.
What you CAN'T do of course is count both.
John
What you CAN'T do of course is count both.
John
ColinD
Well-known member
There's a lot of truth in this, but I wonder how many people have the Lancs Eagle Owl on their British list for example. Probably not hardened twitchers, but plenty of other people I bet.
Nightranger
Senior Moment
I don't really have a problem with reintroduced species but I have to confess that I feel distinctly uneasy about unnatural or non-native introductions like ruddy ducks, Canada geese and Mandarins. Little owl is a funny one though because some authorities are dubious aboutthis being a reintroduction in the truest sense. Goshawk is another because the introduced race does not correspond with the race that became extinct in the UK from what I have read. As has been said, what looks at first to be a simple question is actually enormously complex.
I agree with you. I think we are fairly consistent and most use the BOURC as the guide. Consequently Eagle Owl (seen last year for interest purposes) isn't anywhere near my list.
Where I have trouble is re-introduction schemes, and I'm glad I've seen several of the birds now being re-introduced before these schemes take off, (and I'm not saying they are necessarily a wrong thing to do).
So for example, if I needed Osprey for life, personally I wouldn't tick a bird on a nest at Rutland Water, but would tick an Osprey on the Norfolk coast heading towards Leicestershire!
We are mad aren't we - or I am at any rate!
rob stoff
Well-known member
how so? I thought it was an introduction rather than an re-introduction, any evidence that these have occurred here in the (relatively recent) past, if so why did they become extinct?
Rob
Pete Mella
Getting there...
I think there were some subfossil remains found that suggest that they have lived in Britain in the past. Can anyone confirm this?
John Hague
aka The Drunkbirder
I wouldn't even bother looking up at the Rutland Water birds, they're merely there out of vanity and not because they're previously extinct in the area. The evidence for past breeding is unproven in the area as we have to remember RW is only about 30 years old.
There is however a genuine Scottish ringed bird paired up in the county so we'll tick her!
This seems like a rather hard line to me. Ospreys were well recorded as a breeding bird in England generally, even if there are no fossilised nests or the like in the Rutland area. They were therefore a general part of the ecosystem of lakes in England, so would have lived at Rutland Water if there had been a Rutland Water. The purpose of reintroductions is to restore the ecosystem to what it should be, and the ecosystem of a big lake in central England should have Ospreys. Given how slowly the blighters are repopulating the isles from the north, reintroduction makes some sense.
