Birds of Britain: The Complete Checklist is Birdwatch’s own definitive checklist of bird species seen in Great Britain until early 2008. Any further changes or additions to this edition of the list will be published here with full taxonomic details.
Overview
This revised second edition of Birds of Britain: the Complete Checklist fully updates the list of birds known to have been recorded in an apparently natural state in Britain in modern times. The first edition, published in April 2006, detailed 595 species, but in the two years since then a remarkable six new species have been recorded. In addition, three other species have been added, two as a result of taxonomic changes, while one has been deleted as a result of new evidence coming to light, and another recategorised as 'unidentified'. As of April 2008, therefore, the total number of species recorded in Britain stands at 603.
There are several other updates in this edition. Ongoing taxonomic studies have brought further changes to the systematic order, and there have been many changes to scientific names and two to English names. The system of codes to indicate the relative status and abundance of each species has been continued from the first edition, with minor updates.
This checklist is designed to be a document for use in the field as well as a work of reference, so note that extinct species are not listed here: Great Auk Pinguinis impennis was last seen in about 1840, and Eskimo Curlew Numenius borealis, now classified as possibly extinct, has not been recorded since 1887 (BOU 1992).
Area covered
In geographic terms this checklist includes all bird species recorded in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and its associated islands, including the Isle of Man, and offshore territorial waters to the 200-mile UK Fishery Limit (except for around Northern Ireland) and corresponding limits around Ireland, as defined and/or modified by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Those species which have occurred only in the island of Ireland - including Northern Ireland, which forms part of the United Kingdom but is not part of Britain - are excluded from the main systematic list, but are detailed separately in an appendix.
Accepted and omitted species
The occurrence of most species in Britain is
straightforward, but in a few instances requires clarification. The British
list as maintained by the Records Committee of the British Ornithologists'
Union (BOURC) details 578 species in Categories A, B and C, but for a variety
of reasons the BOU omits from its main list a number of others we regard as
valid. Detailed accounts are provided in the following pages to explain the
rationale for including those species, as well as taxonomic treatments which
are not currently recognised by the BOU, but which have gained wider acceptance
elsewhere. There is also a short section explaining the reasons for amending,
omitting or reclassifying three other species. In contrast to the BOU list, we
have also deliberately chosen not to use a system of categories - species are either
accepted on the list, or they do not feature at all.
Using the checklist
The systematic section of this checklist can be
used to record up to 12 different personal lists, with spaces above and below
columns on each page to add list titles and/or totals. There is also space at
the end of the main list and in the appendix to write in new species as
appropriate - any such additions and other revisions will be published below (see Updates). In addition, you can now record your sightings in an online version of this
checklist at Bubo Listing - see http://tinyurl.com/2qs6ru.
The first edition of the checklist has featured in the national press – see what The Times newspaper said about it here .
This checklist was published in association with Swarovski Optik.
Return to top
Sample species accounts
At the time of its publication (March 2008), Birds of Britain: the Complete Checklist treated 29 species differently to the British Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee. Accounts of 27 accepted and two amended or omitted species were set out in detail in the checklist: three sample accounts are reproduced here.
New species: Yellow-nosed Albatross
Thalassarche chlororhynchos
(Nests on Tristan da Cunha and Gough Islands in the South
Atlantic (T c chlororhynchos) and on islands in the southern Indian Ocean (T c
carteri), both forms ranging widely in southern oceans outside the breeding
season)
The discovery of a large seabird in a garden at Brean, Somerset, on 29 June 2007
was the first in a series of remarkable events which added this species to the
British list. The bird was taken to an animal rescue centre in nearby Highbridge
where it was taken into care, given a thorough check-up and housed overnight.
Appearing in good health the next day, it was released at Brean Down and flew
strongly off towards Wales - without its true identity being appreciated by its
rescuers. Only subsequently did this become clear, and full details and photos
of this remarkable episode were published in Birdwatch 182: 66-67. What was
surely the same bird was subsequently seen inland at Carsington Water,
Derbyshire, briefly on 2 July, and next day it was present at Manor Farm
Fishing Lakes near Messingham, Lincolnshire, where it remained overnight;
photographs confirming this bird as the same individual in Somerset and an
account of the discovery were published in Birdwatch 183: 64-65. Presumably the
same bird was then reported on 8 July at Malmö, Sweden, where it was last seen
flying inland! A different individual had been seen intermittently off the
coast of northern Norway from 28 June-8 July 2007.
By coincidence, the first British claim of this species also came from Lincolnshire,
from the River Trent at Stockwith, near Gainsborough, in 1836, but the skin was
subsequently lost and the record rejected by the BOURC. A more recent record,
of a nominate race adult Yellow-nosed Albatross 35 miles south of The Lizard,
Cornwall, on 29 April 1985, was published in Sea Swallow 42: 63-65, but was
eventually withdrawn by the observer from consideration by the Rarities
Committee and the BOURC in "frustration at the eight years of delay and
indecision, NOT because [the observer] has any doubts about the correctness of
the identification; he was himself formerly a member of their seabird
panel" (Sea Swallow 43: 3).
This 'mollymawk' is sometimes treated as two species, Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross
T chlororhynchos and Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross T carteri, but we follow the
traditional treatment maintained by Clements (2007) and other authorities.
Adult Atlantic can be separated from adult Indian by its greyer head and larger
black eye patch, but younger birds are often regarded as inseparable. However,
Tony Pym has commented (in litt) that, based on the key feature of the culmen
plate broadening above the nostrils, the Brean bird "is, without doubt, an
Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross".
Accepted species: Booted Eagle
Aquila pennatus
(Breeds in France, Iberia and north-west Africa, and from
eastern Europe and the Balkans east to north-west India, Central Asia and
Siberia, with isolated populations in southern Africa; winters locally in the Mediterranean
region, widespread in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia)
A series of Booted
Eagle sightings in Ireland and Britain at various localities between 5 March
1999 and 22 June 2000 led to the species being placed in Category D of their
lists by the Irish Rare Birds Committee, the Northern Ireland Birdwatchers'
Association Records Committee and the BOU. This decision was based on the bird's heavily abraded plumage, the very early
arrival date, the long sea crossing implied by its arrival in Ireland, the long
stay within the British Isles contrasting with the short stay of most vagrant
raptors, and the fact that, although rare, the species is not unknown in
captivity (Ibis 145: 178-183).
All records were effectively taken to relate to the same individual as,
"in the absence of photographic evidence, the three Kent records and the
single Orkney record could not be proved to be different birds from the long-staying
feather-damaged bird". However, this is apparently not the case with at
least the first Kent record, at St Margaret's Bay on 28 September 1999, as the field sketch and description indicate
no feather damage on the wings or tail; that bird was also aged by one of the
observers as a juvenile (Wrathall 2004) rather than an individual in its second
autumn, as necessitated by the single-bird theory. These factors would appear
to make this individual, at least, a better candidate for Category A
acceptance. It is worth noting that, at its closest point, the breeding range
of Booted Eagle is not more than 150 miles from St Margaret's Bay - closer than
the sightings of the wandering bird in south-west England.
It has been established from photographic evidence that the records from Ireland
in 1999 and those subsequently in south-west England involve the same
individual. However, it remains to be confirmed that the reports from
south-east England and Scotland in spring 2000 definitely also relate to this
bird; they may do, but equally they may not, and again the sketch and
description of the Orkney individual in June 2000 do not show any detail
linking it with the original sightings. If this is the case, it is conceivable
that two or even three individuals could have been involved.
The initial discovery date of the juvenile in Ireland in February 1999, while
early for a vagrant, is not troubling for a species whose spring migration
period extends from early March to late May (Forsman 1999). However, it is also
conceivable that the bird may have arrived the previous autumn. Its protracted
stay over two winters was also used to cast doubt on its provenance, but the
species has become more numerous in winter in the Mediterranean region with,
for example, "some hundreds" present in recent winters in Italy (per
A Corso) and increases also reported from France and Spain (per P-A Crochet and
A Paterson).
Its appearance in Ireland, implying a long sea crossing, was cited as problematic,
but as the bird subsequently appeared in England this is not valid. In any
event, Booted Eagles are capable of long flights over open water (contra
BOURC), and the species regularly migrates across the 80-mile-wide Sicilian
Channel between Tunisia and Italy (Snow and Perrins 1998), with a minimum of
150 counted between February and June 2005 (per A Corso). A vagrant even
reached Madeira in January 2008, a journey involving a minimum sea crossing of
more than 400 miles.
The species' potential for vagrancy is best demonstrated by a juvenile male off
the south coast of Iceland on Heimay, Vestmannaeyjar, on 30 October 1972, a
record accepted into Category A of the Icelandic list (Nielsen and Björnsson
1992) and one which would have involved a far longer sea crossing. This bird
was collected and its plumage found to be soaked with Fulmar oil; had it survived,
it is easy to speculate that this juvenile in poor condition might have
attempted to overwinter. Damage to the flight feathers of the Irish juvenile
was cited as a sign of captive origin but other causes, such as damage on board
a ship or natural damage caused by stooping into trees and rank vegetation,
could be an equally plausible explanation. Dismissing the bird as an escape
belies the fact that it is extremely rare in captivity - only three known
captive British juveniles were all accounted for (per S Webb) and, more to the
point, none was known in Ireland. Surely a more likely scenario is that, like
the Short-toed Eagle Circaetus gallicus that arrived on Scilly in October 1999,
the bird crossed the sea from France or Spain in autumn 1998 and wintered in
Ireland before spending its remaining immature years gradually heading back
towards the Continent.
It is also worth noting that the BOURC assertion that "there have been no other
reports of Booted Eagle in Britain and Ireland before or since" is incorrect:
unsubmitted reports include a bird at Porthgwarra, Cornwall, on 4 September 1975
(Palmer 2000) which was seen briefly by an experienced observer.
Omitted species: Red-necked Nightjar
Caprimulgus ruficollis
(Breeds in Iberia and in north-west Africa from Morocco east to Tunisia; some winter in Morocco, but main non-breeding range is Mali, perhaps also Ghana and Ivory Coast)
The sole accepted British record of this species is of a bird reported to have been shot on 5 October 1856 at Killingworth, near Newcastle Upon Tyne, Northumberland (Palmer 2000). It was said to have been acquired from a game dealer’s shop the next day by John Hancock of Newcastle, and skinned and mounted. The report was not published immediately “as the specimen differed from an existing skin reportedly obtained in Hungary and held in his collection” (Palmer 2000). The fact that Hancock apparently already held a skin of this species from Hungary is odd, and perhaps damning, as Red-necked Nightjar does not occur there; it may be that the origins of one or both specimens have been confused. The Killingworth bird was sexed as a male and originally said to be of the north-west African subspecies desertorum (Palmer 2000), but was recently considered more likely to be nominate ruficollis by Cleere (2001). The late date and northerly location for an extralimital occurrence of this species are not unique; one was found dead at Skagen, Jutland, Denmark, on 4 October 1991. However, there are no other records north of southern France and, in view of possible confusion concerning skins of this species in the Hancock collection, the Northumberland bird is best regarded as unsafe.
Return to top
Updates
Updates to this checklist will be published in due course.
Please contact
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
with any suggested changes or corrections.
Return to top
Ordering information
Copies of Birds of Britain: the Complete Checklist by Dominic Mitchell and Keith Vinicombe (2006) can be ordered from Solo Publishing Ltd, The Chocolate Factory, 5 Clarendon Road, London N22 6XJ (tel: 020 8881 0550; fax: 020 8881 0990). The price is £3 per copy (post-free in the UK; add £1 p&p per checklist for overseas orders); payment may be made by cheque (payable to ‘Solo Publishing Ltd’) or by credit or debit card (minimum order value of £10).
Return to top
|