What’s your nemesis bird? (3 Viewers)

[Bewick]

That’s the bird I had as well👍 Good luck with the Siskins. Great little birds.

Welp- sadly that owl might be dead, a long-eared was found dead by a road this morning and it’s most likely the glanford one.

 

[ClarkWGriswold]

Welp- sadly that owl might be dead, a long-eared was found dead by a road this morning and it’s most likely the glanford one.

A sad end if so. A cracker of a bird.

 

[Bewick]

A sad end if so. A cracker of a bird.

I didn’t get it on the hedge- sadly mine was through a scope at the back in the target area… though the view was great and it made my day.

It’s really disappointing that it’s dead but it did a lot for many of us. It was my first long-eared and it was an awesome tick on a trip that didn’t go as well as we were hoping, it also is responsible for 2200 pounds being raised for a bird charity .

 

[Paul Chapman]

What a fouled up system. In Britain there is no onus on observers to submit rarities via the local hierarchy: it's perfectly legitimate to send records directly to BBRC and (should it be relevant) thence to BOURC for consideration of firsts. For that matter BOURC conducts reviews of categorisation of e.g. Cat C species on its own terms and while it will call for records it will decide the category on the data, not the local recorders' opinions. There is thus no connection between the local lists and the content of the national list.

If someone is running a national list they should take on that responsibility in toto.

John

You are not considering the difference in scale between the USA and UK. The USA is 40x bigger: Texas alone is over 2x the size. Not to mention that many vagrants of interest may only be of regional interest. A Mountain Bluebird in Florida I would imagine be a huge deal, but no one would care about that species in say...Wyoming, where they are common.

State committees are effectively equivalent to the BBRC as far as vagrants go. The ABA area is more equivalent to the Western Palearctic. And of course as far as I know Spain, Netherlands, France, etc I assume have there own rarity committees that manage there checklists. And ABA only considers cases when they add a new species (introduced or vagrant) to the checklist. After that occurs, they don't consider any additional records, and it's up to the State. If you see Eastern Crowned Warbler in...say Alaska, the Alaska bird checklist committee is the only one to evaluate it, because it's already on the checklist.

I have long since thought that there are strong parallels for both life and year listing between British & Irish listing and state listing in the States (albeit that I can imagine inland States are less exciting or indeed parallel) and WP listing and ABA listing (including things like outlying Island stays etc).

Category C populations and decisions are random on a WP level.

All the best

Paul

 

[lmans66]

We do have a national list… ABA… but the list does change. I picked up a printed/paper copy ten years ago and use that as my national list . Outdated now but I don’t care. I do not do ebird, as a paper copy allows me to feel more ‘human’. ( personal thing here). Point is though, we do hv national lists

 

[Farnboro John]

We do have a national list… ABA… but the list does change. I picked up a printed/paper copy ten years ago and use that as my national list . Outdated now but I don’t care. I do not do ebird, as a paper copy allows me to feel more ‘human’. ( personal thing here). Point is though, we do hv national lists

To summarise the discussion earlier (and not to restart it, though I have a couple of new questions) although you have a national list it appears that access to it (for a species) is only via state lists; it is apparently not possible for those who maintain the national list to find out that a new population of a species is thriving and add it to the national list unless the relevant state authority has already done so. This appears to me very strange.

I accept completely that for other than the super-rich or hopelessly fanatical, state listing is as far as most US birders can hope to go given the size of the country. That, to my mind, makes it even more curious that state birders do not/cannot pressure the state list authorities to include bird species that meet appropriate criteria for inclusion.

Cheers

John

 

[lmans66]

Many birders do travel… also, I think why state lists do exist, for me, more I go more regional and base the regional from national ones. IE, southwest, Northwest, east coast etc…

I am not sure accuracy of lists as different states view their own ( never gave it thought) but it doesn’t really make a difference to me either. If I find a bird not on my Arizona list, I write it in, as an example.

Funny…. One thing to note.. for years Hawaii birds were not included in any national list, but birds found in Attu Islands of Alaska were, even though the Attu Islands close to Asia. So many oddities . That is why is just worry more so about my list, and my way of ticking off species or sub species ( as much movement within).

 

[Paul Chapman]

In case of interest:-

ABA Area Introduced Species - American Birding Association

www.aba.org

 

[raymie]

In case of interest:-

ABA Area Introduced Species - American Birding Association

www.aba.org

Yes, I do know of that list - there are many populations that have been established for decades that aren't on it.

 

[RubidiumRubecula]

My greatest nemesis was a Chiffchaff. Probably the most common warbler in my area but I couldn't get a nice picture of one for a very long time.
Nowadays it's probably a Crossbill, I've seen all sorts of birds feeding on coniferous trees except them!

 

[Dortmundbirder]

A "wild" Lesser White-fronted Goose probably. Only saw birds of doubtful origin or straight from the reintroducing program yet.
Otherwise Western Subalpine Warbler has managed to evade me, including dips by only a couple of minutes.

 

[stuartvine]

Ring Ouzel, the damn things migrate to avoid me, no matter where I am or what season it is.

 

[opisska]

This is the kind of question which I can easily answer because my wife, of course, has a table named "bird nemesises" From the looks of it, it's WP birds - which makes sense because we do not really have targets outside of WP, we take everything as it goes.

Interestingly, most of them are marked as obsolete, because we eventually found them. The list of "former nemesises" includes:

• merlin
• asian desert warbler
• spotted sandgrouse
• red-wattled lapwing (remains a half-nemesis because I have not seen it)
• little bunting
• northern hawk-owl
• great grey owl
• ural owl
• rosy starling
• ring-billed gull
• lesser white-fronted goose

All of these are birds that we have spent days looking for on multiple occasions until we finally got them.

The current list has only:

• african desert warbler
• long-billed dowitcher
• syrian serin
• dupont's lark

I think in particular the dowitchers are on to us because everytime we attempt to twitch it, that particular individual leaves for good. I think they must be well organized. Syrian serin is simply a mystery to me - people report them over the winter, we search the sites high and low, but they are never there.

 

[Stu57]

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and the Jack Snipe and Ring Ouzel.

I live In Somerset UK and just haven't been able to crack these three yet.

 

[hookem2010]

Swing and miss again on Scott's oriole last week at one of the few known breeding locations in the area. I might have to sneak away briefly without the baby on Father's Day for another attempt. Otherwise, barring an unlikely vagrant, my next lifer opportunity will be when my longspur nemeses return in the winter.

 

[Andy Lakin]

Little Owl is .my nemesis bird on my local patch. My patch propee is a minutes walk from the garden I have had a couple of calling birds in the middle of the night sat out of view on my back fence, but never managed to find one in the day. There are lots of promising looking trees etc and I have had all the common owls numerous times so very surprising really.

 

[opisska]

I've never seen a Little Owl in a tree. I'd look more on roofs, poles, walls etc...

 

[chowchilla]

Until today I would have said European Golden Oriole. Today, at Carreg Ddu gardens, I heard an unmistakeable sound and told myself it wasn't a bird I've heard hundreds of times before: Olive-backed Oriole, during my time in Australia.

I don't tick 'heard-only's', so finally seeing this species after four failed attempts on Scilly last year was an unexpected delight!

 

[KC Foggin]

Like chowchilla, I only count birds that I get a picture of.

 

[Telephoto Paul]

For a long time it was sparrow hawk; everyone seems to get to watch them in their garden munching on a pigeon, while I only saw them as the briefest blur. However recently after parking my car on some farm land, one landed metres from the car and sat for five minutes. But it still got me by landing in spot where I couldn't take a photo without the distortion of the windscreen.

Currently I'd say Bitten; I keep going to places they're meant to show but never for me.