[TN-Bird] Re: Countability (Hooded Crane & otherwise)
- From: Kevin Breault <Kevin.Breault@xxxxxxxx>
- To: "hyla514@xxxxxxxxx" <hyla514@xxxxxxxxx>, tn-bird <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:29:56 +0000
Daniel is quite right. Thus, the ABA rules are simply for reasons of
comparability for those who are members and want to report their lists. If that
is your situation you must follow the ABA rules, no question. If you are not
reporting your lists to the ABA you can put anything you want on your personal
lists, Hooded Crane, Aplomado Falcon (not countable by the ABA but counted by
Komito and Vanderpoel in their Big Years), reptiles (I assume not on a bird
list), and of course you can have all kiinds of lists not used by the ABA, dead
birds, birds identified on TV, birds banded, birds that have nested on my
little mountain in Williamson Co., birds seen out my home office window, birds
identified while grading papers, etc. I have a small list of birds that are not
countable in terms of the ABA. They are not included in the totals I send to
the ABA but nevertheless I keep them on a personal list. I don't always like
the decisions (or lack of decisions!), by the ABA concerning some birds (mainly
of some introduced birds in FL), but we should follow the rules as anyone would
as a member of any group.
Kevin Breault
Brentwood, TN
________________________________
From: tn-bird-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [tn-bird-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] on behalf of
Daniel Estabrooks [hyla514@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2011 10:02 PM
To: tn-bird
Subject: [TN-Bird] Countability (Hooded Crane & otherwise)
Let me preface this by saying that I was a hardcore ticker from the age of 7 or
8 (no kidding) until about high school, when I essentially stopped birding for
about13 years and put my life list on hold at about 350 or so. In the meantime,
I developed an interest in reptiles and amphibians and started keeping a life
list of them as well. In the field of recreational herping, there's nothing
like the AOU or ABA that sets an official taxonomy and official rules of what
you can and can't count. (There are some organizations like SSAR, but there's
no consensus as to whether their guidelines should be followed or not.) It's
essentially up to individuals' discretion. Is that introduced Burmese Python
that you saw in south Florida countable? Well, it is if you think it should be.
About a year ago, I was still missing a lot of common eastern birds (I grew up
in New Mexico), and it occurred to me that I could probably get to at least 400
with very little effort, so that was the impetus for me to get back into
birding. I apologize for boring everyone with my life story, but I feel like I
need to explain where I've come from before making this iconoclastic and
blasphemous comment: I get a little put off sometimes by the religious
adherence to ABA counting rules by a lot of birders. I understand that it helps
to have standardization, but I see nothing wrong with keeping two versions of
my life list - an official ABA list in case I ever need it for a competition or
something, and my own personal list. (The only difference between the two is
that my personal list has Whooping Crane on it from Hiwassee. LOL...) I have my
own standards for whether a bird is considered wild and countable, and they
differ slightly from the ABA standards, and I see nothing wrong with it if I'm
keeping a list purely for my own personal amusement. Sometimes I think there's
a temptation to make birding more competitive and less fun (though I certainly
don't think those two things are mutually exclusive), and I just try to stay
more on the "fun" side of it :-)
Daniel
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