Vetting of Year-lists (Version 3) by Steve Webb

This page was written well before the BUBO listing website came on to the scene which has addreessed many of the points below.

Year-listing, taken to its extreme level, is very expensive. Most certainly it could cost well over £5,000 for the year, so it is a big commitment in money and time. With this sort of commitment it is important that a good vetting system is in place so that all genuine and honest people get recognition of their hard work. Without it, many birders in the future will be put off going for a big year-list.

When birders are trying for a particular record (e.g. year or month lists) their list needs to be monitored on a regular basis. One way of doing this is to put their growing list on the www on, say, a weekly/fortnightly basis giving details of dates, times, any witnesses and any video/digi-scoping evidence of their sightings. This would enable other birders to check these claims whilst they are still fresh in their minds. It should also a contain a log history of each time their list was re-submitted. Perhaps a body like Surfbirds could run this, especially as they already hold many total list numbers sent in by listers.

Putting out this information soon after the event would also help to reduce the practice of birds being invented for the list later in the year, when events cannot be clearly remembered by other birders. Perhaps Surfbirds/whoever could also run a feedback webpage on their website so that other birders could record their comments about the lists. Alternatively, birders could contact a committee member.

When Steve Webb did his 1980 year-list of 329 BOU species, he ended up with nearly 40 witnesses. Sometimes it was rather embarrassing for Steve to ask a stranger if they would mind being cited as a witness, but then there was no alternative. Details of his list can be found via the "S. Webb 1980 BOU" button. However, now there is an alternative and birders can do what Adrian Webb did which was video/ digi-scoping evidence of the birds.

I believe these lists will also need to be vetted by a listing committee. After all, the BOURC/BBRC/IRBC committees vet rarity descriptions, so why not a committee for vetting lists! To prevent conflict of interests this new committee should not consist of any current year-listers. Provided listers adhere to the rules to something like those suggested on this webpage, the committee’s amount of work would be minimal. At the end of the year the final lists would be submitted to the committee to be vetted and approved. If listers do not wish to participate in such a scheme that is fine, provided they realise they would not be able to claim an important record. It does not necessarily mean they are cheating, but it does mean their list will not receive any official recognition. This is similar to rare bird records not being submitted to the BBRC.

This committee could also set the standards for which species require details of their sightings. For example, including rare birds, scarce migrants, and other difficult birds like Hawfinch, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, and Jack Snipe. The committee would need to decide which birds are wild, and hence countable. Of course it can use much of the information from other bird rarity committees.

It is understandable that the BOURC and IRBC committee’s take an almost 100% certain stance of a bird being wild before it obtains a Category A status. However this new committee could decide on more of a probability approach for acceptance of birds e.g. Category A – over 90% probability of being wild birds and Category D – 70% to 90% probability, etc. These acceptance criteria could also be reflected in the voting system. So for example, if on the committee there were 9 people who were voting positively for a rarity, and one member was against a particular bird being wild, that bird would obtain Category A (i.e. 9 out of 10 votes for) whereas 3 against (i.e. 7 out of 10 for) would mean Category D. This committee could also publish on their website the latest recognised lists and birders league tables (provided they obtained prior permission from the relevant birders).

Life-listing