Update on the bird recording system in Lincolnshire.One of the roles of the Lincolnshire Bird Club is to produce a county bird report. The 2008 report is in the final stages of production and a publication date will be announced on the LBC Forum soon. In order to produce the 2009 report quicker and smoother we have made a few changes to the recording system, in particular the introduction of an online rare bird verification system.
In order for the annual bird report to be robust and accurate we need to have a system that verifies all description species before they are included in the annual report. For a list of description species please see -
http://www.lincsbirdclub.co.uk/Articles ... t%2009.xls. Over the past year we have received a number of records from various online rare bird systems, and clearly not all these report are accurate. It is therefore very important that we have a systematic approach to verification of ALL rare birds occurring in Lincolnshire prior to the production of the annual report.
The county bird recorder for Lincolnshire is Steve Keightley –
recorder@lincsbirdclub.co.uk. The role of the county bird recorder is to collate reports of bird sightings, be they rarities, breeding birds or simply regular counts from one location. He also acts as a conduit for passing such records to other bird recording bodies, such as the British Birds Rarities Committee and Rare Breeding Birds Panel, etc.. Please bear in mind that the recorder (like everyone working for the Bird Club) is a volunteer, and often has a large number of correspondence to deal with.
Working closely with the bird recorder, is the Lincolnshire rarities committee consisting of the following members; Steve Keightley, Paul French, Steve Botham, Kevin Durose, Bill Sterling and Wayne Gillatt. All description species that occur in Lincolnshire are assessed by this team. A majority decision is required for any species to be accepted or rejected, AND only accepted species are included in the annual LBC bird report.
In order to make the verification process a bit smoother an online system has been developed, and is just starting to work, the online system is administrated by Andrew Chick and Roy Harvey. Neither have any influence over the decision of the rarities panel.
To aid the county recorder and to hopefully speed up the process of gathering records of description species, a number of people have been approached to act as regional recorders. These are Grahame Hopwood (Lincoln Area), John Clarkson (Louth Area), Wayne Gillatt (Scunthorpe Area), Kev Wilson (Gib Point) and Graham Catley (North Lincs Area). The role of the ‘regional recorder’ is to make sure the data that appear in the LBC database is correct so that the verification process can be undertaken as quickly as possible. The regional recorders have no influence over the decision of the rarities panel, BUT if they are unable to gather the required information and advise accordingly, it is unlikely that the record will be accepted. (As you can see we have a number of areas not covered by the regional recorders, if you would like to help out with this process in your area or local patch, please get in touch.)
The LBC Database and Gathering Records in General
All records that are submitted on the LBC Forum and via the online records system are collated by Colin and Shelia Jennings. The amount of work that Colin and Shelia do in gathering these records is outstanding, and should not be underestimated! At the end of each month they produce a spreadsheet that contains all the bird records for that month. The spreadsheet is entered into the LBC database, which is maintained and administered by Jan Eastmead. Full details for this process can be found at
http://www.lincsbirdclub.co.uk/lbc_recordgathering.htm.
So why the changes?
We aim to have a complete and workable database for each year by the end of February the following year. This means that all description birds are verified by that date. We intend to publish a monthly list of species that occurred and require description on the forum, so that everyone has the opportunity to submit their records. We have found that during the production of the 2008 bird report, we had to verify records as the report is being written.
It is probably a good point to say that there is a whole team involved in gathering, producing and verifying bird records in Lincolnshire. I personally am very grateful to the effort and time that the team put in to getting this job done. The LBC runs on volunteers, and without them we would not be able to produce a county bird report or maintain the LBC database!
I am happy to hear any comments, suggestion or thoughts on the verification system or the way the LBC collect its records,
Regards
Andrew P. Chick 

Lincolnshire Bird Club Chairman

Fulbeck, Grantham
Lincs NG32 3LB
chairman@lincsbirdclub.co.uk

http://www.lincsbirdclub.co.uk
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Andrew Chick Website:
http://www.forktail.co.uk/
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