Hi all -
Regarding whether the Red-bellied Woodpecker is the 500th species for
Washington, the answer no doubt, is 'it depends.' It depends on
which list you use.

I've played around a lot with the various lists, so I'll throw out my
2 cents here -- big caveat being that I do not possess any authority
or special insight - I've just enjoyed comparing & contrasting the
lists:

According to the Washington Birder list, YES, this is species #500 -
Yay! The WA Birder list is updated pretty rapidly, and benefits in my
opinion by being more acccessible because of these regular updates.
Nevertheless, it is not the official list and differs from the
official list in a few species.

The official WA list is the list maintained by the Washington Bird
Records Committee. The big downside of this list is that it is
frustrating to get timely updates on the status of species being
added [or removed] from the list -- There is an online copy of the
WBRC official list at the wos.org website, but it is out of date. It
lists 480 species on the official list (466 + 9 single-observer
records + an additional 5 species that have not been seen in WA in
the last 50 years). But the list doesn't include several species that
have been accepted by the WBRC, like the Baikal Teal, Temmink's
Stint, Red-necked Stint, Crested Caracara, and others. There are also
a handful of recent potential additions that either have not yet
been voted on, or that haven't yet been publicized as accepted or
rejected. I'm not sure about the rulings on the Common Ringed-Plover
or the Bell's Vireo records, for example.

Once you set aside the time-lag issues inherant in the WBRC list, I
believe there are 4 species where the Washington Birder list and the
WBRC list differ:
Scaled Quail,
Common Moorhen,
Cordilleran Flycatcher
Scarlet Tanager

So, if you make some assumptions about how the voting will go on the
recent possible new state species, I think it would be roughly
accurate to say the Red-bellied Woodpecker might well be the 496th
species on the official WBRC State list. That number may be off by a
couple, but I don't think it is possible yet to say the 'official'
list is up to 500.

OK, that's all!
I'd love to hear any corrections or clarifications from others though --

Best,

Matt Bartels
Seattle, WA



>
>Tweeters,
>Is this possibly WA's 500th state bird species?
>Of course, if it's accepted.
>Very exciting.
>Grace
>
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