Rare Birds Committees come up with a set of standards and reporting criteria. Submitted reports are then judged based on those. The committee can provide the useful function of pointing out identification problems, or bringing up questions of origin.

It is important to remember that decisions of Rare Bird Committees are simply based on their standards, and do NOT mean that the species was correctly or incorrectly identified, or whether or not the bird in question was wild.

Most of us who have seen rarities have had at least some of our reports rejected by committees. My advice is to not take the decisions personally. Committee members are doing their best, but it is not humanly possible to consistently come up with "right answer".

Michael G. Shepard
Program Manager
VGI Vision Foundation
5325 Cordova Bay Road, Suite 211
Victoria, B.C. V8Y 2L3
(250) 658-4844 phone
(250) 658-0084 fax
mgs at vgivision.com
http://www.visionfoundation.org