BUBO Listing News

Ever seen a Pied Kingfisher? How about Semi-collared Flycatcher? Or perhaps Dark Chanting Goshawk? After the success of BUBO Listing for British and Irish listing, BUBO has set its sights wider. It is now possible to enter your Western Palearctic (WP) lists on BUBO Listing and, as with other lists, to compare them with those of other listers. To enter your WP List simply log in to BUBO Listing, select 'Create New List', choose the region 'Western Palearctic' and away you go. For ease of use, if you already have a British list entered onto BUBO Listing, you can use this as a base for your WP List, saving a large proportion of the record entry.

As with listing in Britain and Ireland, the question of which species are countable is not clear-cut. The approach of BUBO Listing is to allow lists based on published 'authorities', rather than determining our own base-lists. For the WP region, we have initially allowed two different base-lists, one more conservative and one more progressive. The AERC (Association of European Rarities Committees) list is more 'official', although it has not been updated for several years. (BUBO Listing has added several 'provisional' species as a result, in the expectation that the AERC list will be updated in due course.) The UK400 Club's Western Palearctic list is more up-to-date. It takes a more progressive view on splitting and is more open-minded on the subject of potential escapes, although the rationale behind the inclusion of individual species is not published.

These two authorities were chosen partly because they represent two extremes, and partly because they were readily available. It is likely that further WP authorities may be introduced in due course. Both lists can be used via the 'Create New List' facility, and the base-lists for AERC and UK400 Club, plus background information about these lists and authorities, can be viewed via the Checklists menu item at the top of each page.

One feature of BUBO Listing is that details of 'sensitive records' (especially locations of rare breeding species) can readily be hidden from general view. British records are regularly reviewed to check that such information is not appearing in the public domain. Clearly, given the greater size of the WP, it will be more difficult for assessment of which details should or should not be kept hidden. It is important, therefore, that listers use great discretion and do not reveal detailed locations of nesting sites for rare breeders. Moreover, if other listers notice information on the site that they feel should not be made public, they should Contact Us immediately.