Mandt's Guillemot added to British list

08/03/2020

The British Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee (BOURC) has added Mandt's Guillemot – a subspecies of Black Guillemot – to the British list.

The record behind this addition involves the bird at the River Witham mouth at Cut End, Lincolnshire, from 7-10 December 2017. 

Mandt's Guillemot breeds from north-east Canada to Svalbard to northern Siberia and northern Alaska. Published material indicates that this form can be distinguished from other subspecies of Black Guillemot – in non-breeding plumage it is paler, having an almost entirely white head, lacking both a dark loral spot and dark ear coverts. Mandt's Guillemot also shows an all-white rump, scapulars and wing coverts.

The individual in Lincolnshire showed these features and, furthermore, the probability of the bird being an escape from captivity was judged to be minimal. Mandt's Guillemot candidates have been observed in Iceland, the Faroe Islands and The Netherlands, too

Mandt's Guillemot thus has been accepted onto Category A. The British list remains at 621 species (Category A = 603; Category B = 8; Category C = 10).

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BOU accepts Richardson's Cackling Goose

14/03/2019

The British Ornithologists' Union Records Committee (BOURC) has added 'Richardson's Cackling Goose', the hutchinsii subspecies of Cackling Goose, to its British list.

The addition is based on the well-documented occurrence of a bird with Pink-footed Geese at Holkham Freshmarsh, Norfolk, from 6-23 February 1999.

After many years of debate some clarity about the taxonomic relationships, identification and distribution of the North American 'white-cheeked' geese of the genus Branta has been achieved (North American Birds 62, 344-360, British Birds 109: 677-684). This allowed for the acceptance of Cackling Goose to the BOU's British list in March 2016. However, at that time, it was felt that the first British record, from Lancashire in November 1976, could not be conclusively identified to subspecies.

Following this decision, a number of candidates were considered by BOURC for subspecies-level acceptance, resulting in a unanimous decision that the Holkham Freshmarsh individual from February 1999 showed features consistent with the subspecies B h hutchinsii. Furthermore, there was no evidence of a captive origin, with the bird seen in a flock of Pink-footed Geese, a plausible carrier species for a vagrant crossing the Atlantic. Thus the record and subspecies was accepted to Category A.

Richardson's Cackling Goose breeds in north and central Canada and Greenland, migrating to winter in Texas, USA and Mexico.

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Mediterranean visitor is a birding milestone for Britain

06:00, 23 FEB 2016

BY ANDREW FORGRAVE

Bird Notes columnist Julian Hughes of RSPB Conwy reveals what birds have been spotted in the past week and where to go birding in the coming days

Many birders keep lists: the birds they’ve seen in their lifetime; birds seen in Britain, or in their home county; and some keep a “year-list” too.

The keeper of the British List, on which all these are based, is the British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU), a panel of experts who assess the sightings.

Last week, the BOU heralded a numeric milestone, with admission of the 600th species to the British List.

The Yelkouan Shearwater breeds on seacliffs in the eastern Mediterranean and winters in the Black Sea.

A few fly west into the Atlantic, and one of these birds was spotted off the south coast of Devon.

This is a possible visitor to North Wales, so seabird enthusiasts should gen up on the finer points of their identification before next autumn.

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