Overview Sample species accounts Updates Ordering information

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.

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.

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. 

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).