Update on Rare Bird Reports

[Nick]

Dear all,

Many many thanks on behalf on EBRC for all your Rare Bird Reports – fantastic work everyone!

Apologies on my part for the delay in processing these RBRs. In my defence, it soon became apparent that it would make sense to wait until the end of the ‘seabird season’ before tackling the large number of reports of pelagic species from April–July this year. Waiting until the end of the season allows the Committee to assess records of species like the rare shearwaters in light of the pattern of occurrence over the whole spring/summer, making it easier to come up with a sensible estimate of the number of individuals involved and their comparative rarity (Flesh-footed Shearwater being a prime example).

I can only blame other commitments for the delay in tackling the autumn/winter/spring reports of non-seabirds though - sorry!

On the positive side, the very high standard of photography evident in many recent RBRs should make it very easy for the Committee to make quick assessments on the forthcoming batch of records. I will make another announcement as soon as these assessments are available.

In the meantime, it will be really appreciated if everyone could have a skim through the following notes on preparing RBRs – just a few pointers that will greatly assist the processing of records:

Submissions

• Please name files in the following format: yyyy_dd-mm_Species_Name e.g. 2011_01-07_Cory’s_Shearwater [this makes it quicker to rename files in the standard EBRC format]

• Please use the latest version of the RBR form

• Please delete any unused white space / boxes from the form – including ‘ghost’ pages at the end of the report [this saves paper if Committee members choose to print the report, as well as making it easier to establish that we’ve got all the information you meant to submit - an extra blank page at the end makes it look like there's something missing]

Images

• When pasting images into Word documents, please crop and resize the images first if at all possible – but please don’t edit them in any other way. It is rarely necessary to have an image greater than about 500 x 400 pixels in a Word document (and you can always add the phrase “original images are available on request”)

• Where appropriate, please limit your images to the most useful 4 – 5 shots of an individual bird. If you have a large number of images that you think might be useful, you can always add the phrase “more images are available on request”. In general ‘easy’ species (e.g. Black Stork, White-throated Kingfisher, Spur-winged Lapwing etc) only usually need one image to support the ID

By following these 2 bits of guidance on images in RBRs, you will help to minimise hard drive usage and file sizes, increasing the speed/ease with which the EBRC can circulate reports online (as well as hopefully saving yourself a bit of time when you have multiple images).


Once again, thank you very much indeed for taking the time to make Rare Bird Report submissions and we look forward to continuing to receive them.

Nick Moran
EBRC Secretary