Hi all
I'm new here, so apologies if somebody has asked about this before, but I'm wondering if there any generally accepted rules for compiling lists, or if people just do their own thing.
I've been interested in birds all my life, but I've never considered myself to be a proper birder, and have never kept a list. However, as it's a bit slow at work today, I've just tried to put a list together from memory (I can think of about 170 birds off the top of my head, and I haven't done the waders yet because I'm hopeless at telling them apart). I thought the hard part would be trying to think back over the last 36 years, but actually, the hard part is knowing what I am or am not supposed to put in the list.
Examples:
I can remember seeing shearwaters, but I have no idea what sort of shearwaters they were. Should I put a generic thing like 'shearwater' on the list, or should I leave it off until I can I.D. an exact species properly?
Then there's sub-species. I saw Red Grouse in Scotland last year, then Willow Ptarrmigan in Canada a few months later. I though these were 2 different birds, but having now looked at a book, it appears the Red Grouse is just the UK sub-species of the Willow Grouse, which is known as a Willow Ptarmigan in N. America - so should this be one bird on my list or two?
Do people only count wild birds, as opposed to captive ones? How about wild birds that are injured & temporarily in some kind of rescue centre?
I saw a Zebra Finch in my garden in Nottingham, UK as a kid - clearly an escapee, so I assume that doesn't count. Correct?
If escapees & captive birds don't count (which I assume to be the case), then how about the descendants of escapees, say the Ring-necked Parakeets around London? And Muscovy ducks in the UK? I'm not even sure if these are in the same bracket as the parakeets, or if they are a 'proper' British Species.
Your thoughts would be appreciated; I fear the Birding Police may come knocking on my door for some accidental transgression if I'm not careful.
Adrian
Your list, your rules.
Rules only apply if you join a birding association in your area.
Most of them have rules like these
http://www.americanbirding.org/resources/reslistru2.htm