Hi Tweets,

Hal Opperman writes:

>E.) [replaces A, B, C, and D]. The book was already 95% of the way through
>the production process when the BC records committee reached its decision,
>and there was no way NGS would stop the presses, at great cost, to
>accommodate so trivial a change.

So trivial that the mere mention of the damn thing incites flames for days.
Well, rug-weavers the world around deliberately leave a small flaw in their
carpets reasoning that only God is capable of perfection. And Heaven forfend
that the mighty National Geographic Society would stop its presses for such
a trivial purpose as ensuring accuracy--I'm properly chastised for having
the thought.

>Anyway, the editors are absolutely correct in saying that a Xantus's
>Hummingbird reached British Columbia. Even the BC records committee does
>not dispute that.

Well, this member of the committee may disagree on the bird's acceptability
to the BC List, but certainly I can stipulate that whether it flew here as a
vagrant or was carried here in someone's back pocket as a good-luck piece,
it did reach BC. Somehow.

>The only other "fact" we know for sure is that two
>persons, who happen to be members of that committee, doubt that the bird
>could have reached the province unassisted.

Or are very uncertain that it did so; ex officio, I'm uncertain about how it
got here (as a Greek chorus might say, "He doesn't know! He doesn't know! He
doesn't know!"), but personally, I allow myself to doubt it got here
unassisted: fine-point difference, but I try to keep the two separate.

>That kind of information has
>no place in a field guide of continental scope.

Sorry, but I have to dispute this remark: the fact that this species was not
accepted to the BC List is of utmost importance unless the National G is now
in the business of telling Canada &/or its provinces their committees'
decisions mean nothing if the G decides so.

>Think of it. First, a group of intelligent, skilled, knowledgeable, and
>dedicated people carefully and conscienciously review the factual evidence
>about the specific identity of such-and-such rare bird, and reach a
>decision in the best traditions of the scientific method.

So far, accurate.

>Second, this
>same group, putting on dark glasses and wizard hats, turns its attention to
>pronouncing on how the bird may have got to where it was seen, this time in
>the total absence of empirical evidence. What a transformation! The
>committee in its second role reminds me of a bunch of theologians sitting
>in a chapter-house somewhere in Europe in about the 12th century, solemnly
>debating on the mechanics of the impregnation of the Virgin Mary.

Sorry, must have missed that meeting, Hal---too busy thinking about possible
natural and artificial means of transport. Very unfair, if entertaining,
reconstruction, actually; besides, most other rarities committees
*routinely* make this kind of decision of not accepting a species to a
country, state, county or provincial list by putting it into a 'Further Data
Needed' pending category when there's uncertainty and/or positive doubt of
provenance. And they do it without the region's listers covering them like
ugly on a bear. I'm really baffled why the BC committee has been so singled
out for such spitefully inane criticism for doing its job properly. Sorry,
but I---and, I hope, my fellow committee-members---won't rubberstamp for
anyone, no matter how much he or she wants a species' tick on a checklist.

You know, folks, I have learned a very hard lesson in all this. When Gerry
Patterson asked why the BC committee had not accepted the bird for inclusion
to the BC List in spite of an iron-clad identification, I first thought,
hey, here's my chance to do a courtesy by explaining my decision as one of
those two people who thought long and hard about it and voted for rejection
(since at the time the voting rules permitted only pass/fail; the 'Pending'
category was brought in belatedly), and to provide a sort-of public service
working look for people into what is normally a closed, opaque,
bureaucratically secretive and usually grotesquely slow process (speaking of
seriously slow and unresponsive, I've been trying unsuccessfully for two
years to find out if the Washington State committee ever accepted my
Thick-billed Murre sighting--which they were quick enough to want when I
think it was Gene Hunn heard of the sighting--of a few years ago, but no one
there can be bothered to answer by letter, email or phone call, though
everything they need to reach me is on file. Hal, you know some of those
guys, could you find out from that loose-lips-sink-ships lot and email me
the answer privately, please? Two years is an awful long time to find out
'yes' or 'no' when I'm just an email away. It was my observation, so I have
a personal interest in the matter). By usual rarities-committee process,
Gerry would *never* have learned the answer to her question.

If I had known in advance the sheer brutal nastiness which awaited such a
well-meaning act (no good deed goes unpunished), the ill-feelings, the
malignant near-slanders, the deliberately gross distortions, the personal
spitefulness, the mean-spiritedness, the intellectual dishonesties, I would
have kept my mouth tightly clamped. I was really unprepared for the naked
resentment which ensued from not rolling over and playing dead for twitchers
and voting for acceptance (I still wouldn't change my vote). In my naivete,
I had hoped to be doing a public service by making transparent and public a
hitherto closed process--and no one can close a process to the world better
than a group of birders; Chinese bureaucrats have been known to weep with
envy when told of how slow, inefficient and unresponsive the average
rarities committee is. Such touching innocence.

I will not repeat the mistake. Now I *know* why rarity committees tell you
squat, and you'll be getting the same from me from now on.

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
mprice at mindlink.net