Surfbirds News

Changes to the British List

The following changes have been made.

Western Sandpiper Calidris mauri (Cabanis)

One, adult, Tresco, Isles of Scilly, 19 August 1969; sight record, photographed (British Birds 63: 277, 71: 500, 78: 546) becomes the first British record, following rejection of the occurrence of one at Fair Isle, Shetland, 28 May to 3 June 1956 (trapped) as identification was no longer considered safe (British Birds 98: 356–364).

Spotted Sandpiper Actitis macularius (Linnaeus)

The rejection of the record from North Yorkshire, Whitby, 29 March 1849 as a ‘Tadcaster rarity’ led to a reassessment of subsequent records to establish the first acceptable British record. The first record is now Cornwall, Loe Bar, near Helston, 14 June 1924 (British Birds 18: 167). Records rejected through insufficient documentation are Fiddler's Ferry, Cheshire (1863), Sheerness, Kent (1863), two, Eastbourne, East Sussex (1866), Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire (c. 1899) and Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex (1908).

Long-billed Murrelet Brachyramphus perdix (Pallas)

Add to Category A. Juvenile, Dawlish, Devon, 7–14 November 2006 (sight record, photographed). Birding World 19: 457–464.

Monotypic. Breeds eastern Asia from Sea of Okhotsk, Sakhalin Island, southern Kurile Islands to Hokkaido and east coast of Kamchatka. Winters mainly in southern part of breeding range and around coasts of Japan.

Long-billed Murrelet, Devon, copyright Paul Bowyer

Chestnut-eared Bunting Emberiza fucata fucata Pallas

Add to Category A. First-winter, probable male, Fair Isle, Shetland, 15–20 October 2004 (sight record, photographed, trapped) (Birding World 17: 415–419).

Polytypic. Breeds from Japan through Korean Peninsula, China, Himalayas, Nepal, Kashmir and Pakistan. Winters from southern Japan, through China to Thailand.

Chestnut-eared Bunting, Fair Isle, copyright Adrian Webb

British List totals

With the addition of Long-billed Murrelet and Chestnut-eared Bunting to Category A, the British List now stands at 574 species. Species in Category D and E form no part of the British List.

Category Total
A 554
B 10
C 10
Total 574

The following have also been considered.

Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava

As part of a review of Yellow Wagtail taxa, the Kent 1908 record of putative White-headed Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava leucocephala was re-examined. This breeding record from Wittersham, Kent, June 1908 was reviewed by the BOU List Committee in 1949 as M. f. beema together with five other specimen records of beema. All six were considered to be M. f. flava (Ibis 1950: 140, BOU Checklist 4th edn, 1952), though leucocephala remained in the 5th Checklist (1971), 6th Checklist (1992) and 7th Checklist (2006) on the basis of the Kent record.

It was confirmed that this record was unacceptable and leucocephala is therefore removed from the British List.

Category F Sub-committee

The inaugural meeting of the Category F Sub-committee (CFSC) was held at The Natural History Museum, Tring, on 18 January 2007 and attended by R.Y. McGowan (BOURC Chairman) and S.P. Dudley (BOU Senior Administrator), Dr J. Cooper (Natural History Museum), Dr J. Stewart (University College London) and Dr D. Yalden (University of Manchester); Professor T. O’Connor (University of York) is also a member of the Sub-committee.

The role of the CFSC and the establishment of Category F will complement the existing categories of the British List by providing a historical record of the occurrence of bird species in Britain from 1800 ad back to 700 000 bp. Category F definitions were discussed and subcategory time periods agreed as follows:

F1 – Records of bird species recorded between c. 18 000 bp (before present) to 1800

F1.1 1500–1800 Post Medieval

F1.2 1100–1500 Medieval

F1.3 400–1100 Anglo-Norman

F1.4 0–400 Roman

F1.5 c. 3500 bp – 0 Iron Age

F1.6 c. 4500 – c. 3500 bp Bronze Age

F1.7 c. 6000 – c. 4500 bp Neolithic

F1.8 c. 11 000 – c. 6000 bp Mesolithic

F1.9 c. 18 000 – c. 11 000 bp Late Glacial

F2 – Records of bird species recorded earlier than 16 000 bp, back to c. 700 000 bp

F3 – Specimens or records of uncertain species or date

Each of the above can be further subdivided to denote (a) fossil or bone specimen and (b) documentary only records, e.g.

F1.1a = A fossil or bone specimen record from between 16 000 bp and 1800 ad

F1.1b = A documentary-only record from between 16 000 bp and 1800 ad

It was agreed that fossil and bone specimen records should be differentiated, as should references in the literature not supported by a fossil or bone specimens (i.e. documentary only).

The Sub-committee has a huge task with an already known expanse of records and data to consider for many species. The Sub-committee will summarize its recommendations for Category F in their own reports published in Ibis. The Records Committee will then consider these for formal acceptance for the British List.

Correction to British Sea Limits

Following legislative changes (Law of the Sea Convention) that were recently drawn to the Committee's attention, the British Sea Limits have been redefined, necessitating an alteration to the figure shown in the British List (Ibis 148: 527). The correct limit west of Rockall is a line 200 miles west of St Kilda. The sea area boundaries of Sole, Fitzroy (formerly Finisterre), Plymouth and Biscay have also been redrawn following changes made to these.

English names of British birds

The BOU has for many years followed the preliminary recommendations of the International Ornithological Congress (IOC) in its use of standardized (international use) English names of species on the British List. It was accepted that, once the IOC had published its definitive list, the BOU would review its use of English bird names.

With the publication last year of the IOC's recommendations in Birds of the World: Recommended English Names (Gill & Wright, 2006, A&C Black) BOU Committees and Council initiated a review of the use of standardized English names across all BOU activities (The British List, Ibis, publications, etc.). The review concluded that the BOU would adopt the Gill & Wright English names, as recommended by BOURC, with the following provisions:

(1) In respect of The British List and publications relating to the List, the BOU will always use both the vernacular English name familiar to British birdwatchers alongside the Gill & Wright standard (international-use) English name. This is a policy we have used for the last two editions of the List (see BOU 2006 The British List: A Checklist of Birds of Britain (7th edition). Ibis 148: 526–563, http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1474-919X.2006.00603.x)

(2) Following existing BOU policy, for all BOU publications, the BOU will differ from Gill & Wright in not using a capitalized letter for a name following a hyphen, e.g. the BOU will use Hawk-owl and not Hawk-Owl.

In respect of The British List this takes immediate effect (see http://www.bou.org.uk). Implementation by Ibis and other BOU publications will take place in due course.