As the current operator of the Vancouver RBA I should provide you with some
background on this.

A possible Great Knot was first reported to the Vancouver RBA by a very
excited Rick Toochin on the afternoon of Jan 12. Rick and his brother Mike
and one other very good birder had seen the bird. Mike has seen this
species in Australia. As I understand it, they were reasonably confidant
in the ID but waited until they could consult their shorebird texts at home
before confirming the sighting Monday evening. The RBA tape had already
been updated when the confirmation was confirmed. I spoke with Rick on
Tuesday evening and he told me the observers were confidant they had seen a
Great Knot.

Unfortunately, not being an expert birder, I did not realize this was a
mega-rarity and so did not provide daily updates on the tape.

My apologies for this lack of service. Also, my apologies to those of you
who might have travelled here in vain looking for the bird.

As there is no job description for an RBA operator, I'm figuring much of
this out as I go along. Ain't on-the-job training grand! I'll try to
learn from my mistakes and improve.

As a result of Michael Price's comment that this was a Canadian First, I
asked Jack Bowling how you know if a sighting was a BC, Canadian, North
American or 'South of Alaska' first. He indicated BC Checklist for BC,
Tony White's quarterly Birdlist newsletter for Canada and ABA Field Notes
for America. Anyone have other suggestions or know of Internet sources for
this info?

Incidentally, do any the local birders on Tweeters subscribe to Tony
White's newsletter or ABA Field Notes?

John Chandler
Alandale Training Corporation
Richmond, BC, Canada
Phone: 604-274-8777
email: chandler at uniserve.com