[Here's a reformatted copy of Dennis's posting. I've taken out the tabs
and double spaced between paragraphs. I find the double spacing between
paragraphs makes for easier reading in an electronic format. --Dan]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 94 09:46:33 -0700
From: Dennis Paulson <dpaulson at ups.edu>

For those of you who get WOSNEWS, you saw an article I wrote asking for
guesses as to the next 5 species to be added to the Washington list.
Scott Ray raised the interesting question about whether I thought to
include species that may be split off in the near future, for example
Timberline Sparrow (Spizella breweri taverneri) from Brewer's. I was going
to answer Scott directly until I realized the question raised some
thoughts that I wanted to share with tweeters everywhere.

No, I wasn't thinking of splits at all, Scott, but it's certainly a good
point. There is still some question about exactly which birds will be
split--and especially when--and not knowing for sure, I'll leave it for
the future. My personally relevant story is that I saw a Brewer's Sparrow
singing from low conifers on top of Mt. Spokane in 1968, and I sure wish I
had had the ability to tape-record it! I knew nothing about subspecies
differences in Brewer's, but I suspect it was a taverneri that had
wandered over from the Rockies.

Along with this is a feeling I have: with the desire to find rarities so
prevalent among birders combined with the upcoming splits among
populations of birds that look very similar to one another, I dread the
specter of sight records of Timberline Sparrows, Plumbeous Vireos, Eastern
Warbling Vireos, Brown-capped Rosy Finches and others from this region.
There is abundant evidence that this will happen. I already have people
reporting Red Crossbill types to me by number who, on questioning, clearly
know little about how to distinguish them or even what type of call they
should be listening for (crossbills have many other calls that differ from
one another or not, but it is the differences among the flight calls that
are somewhat understood now).

The most obvious sign of this problem is that all golden-plovers
are being reported by species now, which I know is very difficult--no
matter what it says in that new book on NW shorebirds. A comparable
phenomenon is the identification to species of silent fall Empidonax,
which is possible but only with extreme care and, I would add,
considerable experience with *known* individuals (how to get such
experience? a catch 22 if I've ever seen one). A recent report of comparative
distribution and abundance of Pacific-slope and Cordilleran flycatchers
in one part of Washington was by *sight reports,* some of them silent
individuals, and I don't think the two can be told apart in the hand!!
This treatment of birds has no relationship to ornithology any more.

It is of great interest to determine species limits in birds, but it makes
me anxious to know that a lot of splitting will be followed by a lot of
attempts to identify that which is unidentifiable. This is not being done
by ornithologists who are carefully trying to assess the avian diversity
of their county, state or region but instead by birders who appear to be
motivated by an urge to increase their own lists or simply some geographic
occurrence list. I am really concerned by the "list FCber alles" mentality
that runs counter to a goal of accurately documenting the occurrence of
birds (see Bill Tweit's letter in the next WOSNEWS). Birds should be added
to peoples' lists because they have been carefully recorded in a state (or
country or whatever), not recorded from a state because they have been
enthusiastically added to a list!

I can only expound all this as a personal attitude, of course, but I
would hope it was the prevailing attitude among birders. I welcome
comments from others.