In response to several postings, I'll add the following to what I wrote on
this subject previously.

One of the things we discuss repeatedly in our Washington Bird Records
Committee meetings is the difficulty of monitoring bird observations on a
local scale. With the increase in interest in birding has come a huge
number of reports of species just a bit (or more than a bit) unlikely at
that place or that time. Unquestionably, some of them are valid records,
but which? Often they are submitted by people with whom various compilers
are unfamiliar, and reputation, for better or worse, does count for
something.

Because of limitations of time or energy, many of these reports are never
put under close scrutiny, and, even among the experts, there's a lot of
disagreement about whether such reports should be (a) included in the
record (and published) as such without such scrutiny, (b) judged just as
critically as a new state record would be judged, with the accompanying
reliance on photos, detailed written descriptions, corroboration by more
than one observer, etc.; or (c) ignored for lack of further supporting
evidence. Unfortunately, no such decisions have been made, so reports such
as the recently mentioned boreal chickadee and grasshopper sparrow remain
in limbo. It actually boils down to how liberal or conservative (read
"easy-going or hard-assed") a given record compiler is, I think!

Dennis Paulson, Director phone 206-756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 206-756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416