World Yearlist Record Attempt (3 Viewers)

[dalat]

I used to work hours like that when I had a morgtgage to pay and my job was nowhere near as much fun!!

Andy, if you worked 14 h every day for 344 days in a row without a rest except in airports and planes, then this is very remarkable indeed

For the Sri Lanka White-eye, I know nothing about this bird and Sri Lanka, but ebird shows a few other records in the same location where Noah reported it.

 

[Paul Chapman]

I think that in many places on this tour, he's been at the mercy of guides and has perhaps been a little too happy to accept ID's fed to him?

Don't want to question his ability as a birder, I'm sure he's competent but there are several families where ID is problematic to say the least e.g the African Pipits which can be almost impossible without the call and some Leaf Warblers

With Brian here and don't want to pour scorn on his achievement but I've looked askance at a few of his records.

Perhaps he simply hasn't had time to review some of his sightings and may revise them retrospctively?

I'm sure there are plenty of well intentioned errors in my trip reports as well btw!

Andy

Not really noticed much evidence of that myself in the blogs and of course, the Sichuan Birding credentials on the leaf warblers proved impeccable. Occasional comments about nature of views and whether they are good enough, vocalisations, etc suggest otherwise? I wonder what the average error rate is on a 5,500 list?

All the best

 

[Paul Chapman]

He's posted his ebird checklists for today and he's headed north and got some fantastic species, including Red-necked Crake and Noisy Pitta (both heard only), Sarus Crane, White-browed Robin and Lovely Fairywren. I'm not sure exactly how many additions it will be. It will be interesting to see if he carries on north tomorrow up towards Cape York!

What is truly amazing is that his first checklist of the day states that he started at 5.50am, and his last states that he finished at 8.10pm. That is over 14 hours of birding!!! How does he have the energy??!!

It really is a fascinating bit of kit:-

http://ebird.org/ebird/pnw/region/aut/activity

Another WP species has fallen today - and one that is my biggest British miss. :storm: Oh well another 22 years maybe.

All the best

 

[Mysticete]

Sports metaphors tend to fly over my head, especially sports that barely exist in this country (lol).

anyway I am not necessarily speaking about things on the scale of a little wind or weather, but things that could radically alter list totals.

Take access for instance. In the ABA area, the assumption for quite a long time was that Sandy Komito's 1998 big year record was unbeatable. Not because he was such an awesome or resourceful birder (Although he was), but because access to Attu was almost completely shut down a few years after his attempt, which in turn meant the best hotspot for Old World vagrants in North America was out of reach for new attempts. Really the record was only surpassed recently because the unofficial ABA rules state you can't modify your year list because of taxonomic changes subsequent to the year of your attempt, plus the increase in introduced species on the checklist since 1998. Effectively the record was beaten because Neil Hayden was able to take advantage of a lot of easy splits and introduced species that compensated for reduction in vagrants he had access to.

So I could see how some country becoming unstable could influence future attempts. Imagine if Ecuador was off the playing field for a big year? or Peru? that's a big wad of birds whose lost may be difficult to compensate with rejiggering the itinerary.

Anyway my main point was: someone manipulating time change to add some extra birding hours is not in the long run going to be that major of a variable in comparing years.

 

[Andy Adcock]

I wonder what the average error rate is on a 5,500 list?

Within certain groups I think it may be surprsingly high when no vocal confrimation is had.

Andy

 

[Andy Adcock]

Andy, if you worked 14 h every day for 344 days in a row without a rest except in airports and planes, then this is very remarkable indeed

Try raisng kids, buying a car and paying a mortgage on one income, people do it through neccessity

For the Sri Lanka White-eye, I know nothing about this bird and Sri Lanka, but ebird shows a few other records in the same location where Noah reported it.

Are they themselves reliable reports?

Andy

 

[dalat]

Are they themselves reliable reports?

No idea. But if you doubt, you're contesting the reports of several people now, not just Noah's. Noah reported both Oriental and Sri Lanka White-eye there, so I'd assume that he had a close look at the bird before writing it down.

And he also recorded it in Sinharaja two days later. HWB alive: "sometimes as low as c. 450 m in SW (e.g. Sinharaja)"

 

[James Lowther]

within the last few posts on this thread we've seen Noah's sightings called into question, his failure to observe some non-existent "rules" about time zones criticised, and his staying power in birding dawn-til-dusk day-in-day-out while also travelling tens of thousands of miles dismissed out-of-hand

all by the same person

Andy, how about some positivity?

James

 

[Andy Adcock]

within the last few posts on this thread we've seen Noah's sightings called into question, his failure to observe some non-existent "rules" about time zones criticised, and his staying power in birding dawn-til-dusk day-in-day-out while also travelling tens of thousands of miles dismissed out-of-hand

all by the same person

Andy, how about some positivity?

James

I responded firstly to Brian's comment re the White-eye and added to Pauls query regarding percentage of errors in such a big list. If you are saying that Noah's list will be error free....?

Secondly my comments re longevity were intended to be tongue in cheek.

As for 'non existent' rules, if the term 'record' is to be applied, surely criteria have to be the same?

Andy

 

[dalat]

89 new birds in first two days in Australia: https://www.audubon.org/news/the-species-list

 

[Andy Adcock]

13.9 daily for 6K


Andy

 

[Maffong]

Seems like he has now somehow managed to add further days to his Big Year: 2x Day 343. I wonder if that's allowed

He's down to less than 14 birds/day. I think he might achieve it!

Cheers Maffong

 

[Paul Chapman]

Seems like he has now somehow managed to add further days to his Big Year: 2x Day 343. I wonder if that's allowed

He's down to less than 14 birds/day. I think he might achieve it!

Cheers Maffong

I wonder when the drop off will start? That said 55 additions in a day and less than 300 to 6,000 is a massive step towards that goal. B

All the best

 

[Andy Adcock]

How many HO's in total Paul?

Andy

 

[fugl]

Surely, the best outcome of the present endeavor isn't 6000+ but the high 5900s (5999 would be perfect!). Otherwise there'll be nothing of numerological import for the next guy to shoot at.

 

[Paul Chapman]

How many HO's in total Paul?

Andy

I've just been playing in e-bird which is a fascinating and remarkably versatile database:-

http://ebird.org/ebird/pnw/top100?locInfo.regionType=custom&locInfo.regionCode=sa&year=2015

I suspect the answer lies in there if you can access all of Noah's checklists which I doubt I can do even if I had the patience.

All the best

 

[Stuart Goodwin]

I think that in many places on this tour, he's been at the mercy of guides and has perhaps been a little too happy to accept ID's fed to him?

Don't want to question his ability as a birder, I'm sure he's competent but there are several families where ID is problematic to say the least e.g the African Pipits which can be almost impossible without the call and some Leaf Warblers

With Brian here and don't want to pour scorn on his achievement but I've looked askance at a few of his records.

Perhaps he simply hasn't had time to review some of his sightings and may revise them retrospctively?

I'm sure there are plenty of well intentioned errors in my trip reports as well btw!

Andy

Noah must be confident/ happy with the sightings as he is publishing his sightings for all those interested on read and judge. It seems that he has removed some birds from the list.

Ultimately its him and his conscience as to whether he ticks a bird.

I am enjoy following his adventure and think it will be a close run thing to achieve the 6,000.

How about a follow on year to mop up the remaining 4,000+?

Regards

 

[Andy Adcock]

Can I ask anyone.....what are the limitations of his sponsorship, are there ANY financial constraints imposed on this endeavour?

Not for me to be critical, just to know.

Andy

 

[timsg80]

One of the birds so far (Red-necked Crake) was not on my list of c.330 feasible additions he could get in Australia, though I hadn't counted on him travelling right up to the very north. Assuming he does this, there'll be about a dozen more birds to get up there that I didn't include. Obviously he'll slow down considerably over the next few days as he's nearly cleaned up on the common and widespread Aussie birds and also a considerable number of the northern specialities he'll see around Darwin, however certainly when he gets to Perth and even Sydney, it will increase rapidly again. Certainly including heard-only is a great advantage with many of Australia's birds, but I guess this is countered by him using Clement's over IOC- this will deprive him of quite a few ticks!! Does anyone know which taxonomy the guy doing this next year will be using??

 

[Nohatch]

Does anyone know which taxonomy the guy doing this next year will be using??

Sightings will go onto Observado.org which uses IOC taxonomy