>From Russell Rogers, Seattle, rrogers at halcyon.com

Dennis Paulson said: "This shows the problems that happen again and again
when rare-bird reports are published in American Birds or WOSNEWS or any
other local journal, then the bird-record committee rejects them.....I'm
all for not publishing records of rare birds until the relevant committee
has reviewed them, but I think I'm in a teeny-tiny minority".

As the compiler of the Washington Field Notes (WFN), I feel compelled to
respond to Dennis's comments about publishing sightings in forums like
WFN and Audubon Field Notes (AFN). Naturally, I disagree with the
position that sightings should not be published, for many reasons.

First a little clarification of what it is that I put into print. My
column as well as Audubon Field Notes publishes *sightings and reports*.
The paper in the December 1994 issue of Washington Birds, "First Report
of the Washington Bird Records Committee" published *records*. There is a
big difference between the two. *Sightings and reports* are merely that,
sightings and reports, while *records* have gone through some systematic
process of evaluation.

Michael Price said: "Depends ... on who's publishing and how high his or
her journalistic standards in regard to publishing unconfirmed material"

I could not agree more. The way that I see myself is simply as a reporter
or compiler; I take reports from people and I try to make sure that I
then report what is credible. If a report lacks details, I try to follow
up and get the details. If I can't get details, or if the details that I
get are lacking, I will not put it in my column, and believe me, there
are many sightings that don't make the cut. There are some sightings that
I feel are valid and which the observer did everything that we (the
birding community) have asked of them in reporting a sighting (i.e.,
written report, photos, ect.) which I include in my column that I am
pretty sure will not get accepted by the records committee. As a
reporter, it would be against my "journalistic integrity" to exclude
these reports from my column. Why? Because I feel that the our birding
community has the right to know.

Doing this serves the purpose of communication amongst birders. Even if
the sighting is not accepted, maybe some researcher down the road will
collect all of the unconfirmed records and look at them and notice a
pattern in the reports. Then target a time of year and location to look
for this given bird, find it, photograph it, report it, and in the end
get it accepted. Things like that have happened in real life.

Michael Price also said: "Part of the problem is that, for a number of
reasons, RBC's are usually extremely slow in their deliberations. The
period between sighting and RBC acceptance, particularly after a couple
of rounds of a controversial/equivocal description is sometimes as long
as much more than a year".

My only comment is that "a year" is a bit of an under estimate in my
experience. Lets go back to the paper that I mentioned earlier in the
December 1994 issue of _Washington Birds_, "First Report of the
Washington Bird Records Committee". The Washington Bird Records Committee
(BRC) started reviewing reports in 1989, this "first report" came out a
five years later.

Before the BRC, AFN and American Birds (AB) severed as the only form of
communication amongst birders! Where else were people to find out about
what went on at that time. Sure it has some rough edges, but for vast
majority of sightings, they are correct as printed. When I moved to
Washington in 1992. I was shocked at how little was published on bird
life in the state. One of the first things that I did was to obtain
copies of all of the Washington regional reports in AFN and AB and read
them. They are virtually the only accessible record of what went on
during that time.

There are other publications of course, but they are few and far between.
In 1976, Mattocks, Hunn and Wahl published a review of Washington's
avifauna in _Western Birds_ . This was a very brief overview of records
between 1953, when Jewett et. al. was published, 1976. As far as I know,
there was nothing "official" printed between 1976 and the "First Report
of the Washington Bird Records Committee".

Let me set up an hypothetical situation, let us say that things were the
way Dennis would like, that is to say, that no sightings and reports are
to be printed until they were reviewed and accepted by a BRC. That would
mean that all of the birds mentioned in the first report of the RBC,
between 1976, when Mattocks et. al. was published, and 1994 , would not
be found anywhere in any publication. All of these records would have
been siting in a file cabinet waiting for review. Not mentioned or talked
about by anyone.

Now, lets use the example of Dennis's shorebird book, published in 1993.
If things were the way Dennis would like, there would be no records of
Curlew Sandpiper listed for Washington after 1976. Simply because none of
that information would have been available to anyone until 1994. However,
there are four records listed in Dennis's book in that period. For the
sake of argument, lets say that the records prior to the inception of the
BRC, were okay, because there simply were no other place for the to go,
other than AFN and AB. This leaves a record from Ocean Shores from 1990.
That record, under Dennis's system, should not be included in his book,
because he would not know about it.

This could situation could be stretched even further, that is that
Dennis, being the lucky guy that he is, sits on the BRC, and has access
to that information that has been suppressed from the public. If the
system of not printing things until accepted and published were in place,
Dennis would be guilty of a conflict of interest and a breech of ethics,
by printing that record. Don't get me wrong here, this is not a
indictment of Dennis, is intended to illustrate an example of what could
go wrong.

In the same line of argument, lets use me as an example. I am working on
a overhaul of the _Birds of Washington_, an important book (well, that is
what I am shooting for any how).I don't sit on the BRC. None the less, I
consider it vital for me to know about all of the reports reported in the
40+ years since Jewett was published, wether they are right or wrong. It
is up to me to make sure that all the reports cited in the book are
valid. I can't go around an expect that just because it was in print, it
must be true, and as a result, my work will be good. Any writer or
researcher that dose that is at fault, not the reporter of the bird or
the compiler of the column. They were only reporting what seemed to be
true at that time.

Another problem that I see with not printing sightings until a BRC passes
judgment on it, is the assumption that all BRC are competent,
knowledgeable entities that look at these reports in an unbiased and
scientific way. I think that the birding community in Washington State is
lucky to have a committee that dose a pretty good job at evaluating
reports. However, in some states, the BRC simply sucks. Also, in some
states there is so much bickering between members of the committee that
some good records get tossed out because of some body's silly pride.
These reports should be printed for discussion and review outside of the
records committee. Why should the members of the BRC be the only ones to
have that information? Are there not also competent birders outside of
the committee?

Say for example an expert on Wood Sandpipers moved to Louisiana, or
better yet, let us use Dennis as the expert here (since in reality, he
is). Lets say Dennis moved to Louisiana, and saw the report of Wood
Sandpiper in AB. Heck, to hell with moving there, lets say that Dennis
simply gets all fired up over this reported Wood Sandpiper and this whole
discussion, writes to the Louisiana BRC for the original report, points
out to the BRC that it is indeed a Wood Sandpiper because the BRC
committee over looked some recently discovered field mark. The BRC then
reviews the report for a second time and BOOM!!! There you have it.
Justice is done!

The last point that I would like to make for printing sightings is that
it makes the observer of the bird feel really good that something they
saw was good enough for print. I recall a story that George Mikish Sutton
(famous bird illustrator) told about seeing a late fall warbler (I forget
which one) as a young boy. He wrote to Louis Agassiz Fuertes (an even
more famous bird illustrator) and told him of his sighting. Fuertes
encouraged the young George to send his sighting in to _Bird Lore_
magazine. George was reluctant at first, thinking how could anything that
a young boy saw be of any interest to anyone. In the end, he decided to
send the sighting off to the editor of the magazine, which was Frank M.
Chapman (a famous American Ornithologist). When young George got the next
issue of the magazine and saw that his observation was noted by famous
Frank Chapman as being "an exceptionally late sighting", he was filled
with pride and joy in knowing that he had contributed something important
to our knowledge of birds. He later said that it was one of the most
important things that swayed him down the path which he followed for the
rest of his life.

Russell Rogers
4510 Glenn Way SW
Seattle, Washington 98116
(206) 935-6280
rrogers at halcyon.com