Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 19:28:15 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Katrina Knight Subject: Re: What "counts" on your life list? In-Reply-To: <3A8878FC.322FA862@mindspring.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed On 06:59 PM 2/12/01 Laura M. Appelbaum wrote: >What "counts" on your life list? The short answer is "whatever you want to count". The longer answer is that if you are going to submit your list to any of the various organizations that keep track of lists, you need to obey that organization's rules. Many birders submit their lists to the American Birding Association, whose rules say that in order to be counted, a bird must be: 1. within the prescribed area and time period when observed; 2. a species currently accepted by the ABA Checklist Committee for lists within its area, by the AOU Checklist for lists outside the ABA area and within the AOU area, and by Clements for all other areas; 3. alive, wild, and unrestrained for at least 24 hours when observed; 4. identified by the lister, and 5. observed under conditions that conformed to the ABA Code of Ethics. For more information about the ABA, listing rules and the code of ethics, take a look at their web site: http://www.americanbirding.org/. >Obviously, a bird you see in the field for the first time counts. Not necessarily. It can depend on the circumstances. For the ABA's purposes, the bird must not have been recently released and must be an established species, not a cage bird or other escapee. For example, the Trumpet Swans that are now showing up on the east coast are mostly from re-introduction programs. They aren't countable because they aren't considered 'wild'. Some people only count birds that they've identified on their own, not birds that they've seen but that other people identify. > But what about a species that you haven't seen "in the wild" but > have seen "in real life" at a raptor >rehabilitation center say, or someplace like Horsehead Island? How >about the Guam rail, now extinct in the wild due to the accidental >introduction of brown tree snakes to the island, but which I saw >poking >around in an enclosure at the San Diego Zoo? Neither of these would count by any birding organization's rules. -- Katrina Knight kknight@epix.net Reading, PA ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================