Your welcome

On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 2:13 PM, pat.mary.taylor <pat.mary.taylor at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Tweeters
>
> A White-cheeked Starling has been present in Tofino for the past three
> days on the golf course. The origin is of course debatable and could be an
> escape or ship-assisted. The ABA considers the latter to be "wild" and
> countable. Strange rule when other rules state that those assisted by man
> are not.
>
> A previous record of White-cheeked Starling was previously reported in
> Homer, Alaska but rejected based on unknown provenance. Identification is
> not a question, but provenance obviously is.
>
> *There are specific rules in place to view this bird.* Birders are
> welcome early in the morning before the golfers arrive but must be out by
> 8:30am which gives you about 2 hours. The starling is found on the second
> fairway at the Long Beach Golf Course. It is seen mostly when it lands on
> the fairway to feed. Be sure to park where you do not block the gate. Stay
> off the green entirely and the fairways as much as possible and stay in the
> centre among the trees. The best method appears to be to simply hang out in
> one place and wait. The golf course management is generously giving birders
> an opportunity to see the bird, so I want to stress how important it is to
> adhere to the rules. One violation could ruin it for everyone. There is a
> spot on Grice Bay Rd, about 15 m before the road closure barricades that,
> with a scramble, provides a view of the section of the Long Beach Golf
> Course where the bird was seen. that spot is marked with 5 parallel sticks
> on the road edge.
>
> Evenings may be a possibility but only with a guide and Wednesday and
> Thursday evenings are exempt. The staff has stated that if the greens are
> vacant you are allowed on after asking permission at the office.
>
> The location for the Long Beach Golf Course is 1850 Pacific Rim Hwy,
> Tofino.
>
> Letter from ABA committee member:
> In the 1998 Homer Alaska case, the bird was not accepted by the AK
> Committee, and was never considered by the ABA Checklist Committee. The ABA
> CLC usually (but not always) waits until the local records committees vote
> before it considers a species for the ABA Checklist.
>
> So, to answer the question: a ship assisted bird is absolutely considered
> to be ?wild?, and I have no idea what the ABA CLC will do with this record.
> The only question would be whether or not it is an escaped cage bird.
> That?s particularly difficult to prove, because Tofino (or Alaska) is
> pretty much where you would expect this species to show up in the ABA Area,
> and White-cheeked Starling is one of the species that Pranty and Floyd
> predicted would be recorded in the ABA area in the coming years. <
> http://aba.org/birdersguide/Pranty-ABA-Checklist-Committee-WebExtra.pdf> Also,
> it is commonly seen on ships well off the coast of Japan, heading east.
>
> Keith Taylor
> Victoria BC
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
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