Hi Tweeters and Inland NW Birders -

Last weekend, the Washington Bird Records Committee [WBRC] met at the Slater Museum to consider the latest round of reports.

137 reports were reviewed and voted on [110 new reports, 27 reconsiderations]:

114 reports were accepted, 21 not accepted and 2 deferred for later consideration.

4 species new to the official Washington State list were added and one removed from the to the list based on these votes for a net gain of 3 species: Wilson's Plover & Eastern Meadowlark were added outright, and Scripps's Murrelet & Guadalupe Murrelet resulted from the recent split of the Xantus's Murrelet. The state list now stands at 505 species with these additions.

In addition, the committee removed the following species from the review list: Lesser Black-backed Gull, Northern Hawk Owl & Tropical Kingbird [along with Tropical/Couch's Kingbird]

Given the recent split of Xantus's Murrelet into two species, the Committee reviewed all previously accepted Xantus's records to determine which could be assigned to one of the new species and which would be left as "Scripps's/Guadalupe."


The results of this round's votes can be found at the following link on the WOS website:
http://wos.org/wbrcoct2012.html

The revised official state list and the revised list of 'review species' are available here:

State checklist [with the taxonomic order updated through the AOU's '53rd supplement' in 2012]
http://wos.org/checklist2011.html
Review List:

http://wos.org/checklist2011.html



I welcome any questions about the status of past decisions or any new report submissions,

Matt Bartels
Secretary, WBRC
Seattle, WA