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The Wiltshire Hawk Owl and a plea for caution in the rejection of historical records
... Harrop (2010) fasste jüngst die Ergebnisse der Revision von zehn historischen Sperbereulen-Meldungen durch das British Ornithologists' Union Records Committee (BOURC) zusammen, mit dem Ergebnis, dass nur vier für akzeptabel gehalten wurden. An der Begründung für die Beurteilung einer bestimmten Meldung entzündete sich darauf eine intensive Debatte, bei der der Kommission von namhaften Ornithologen ein Mangel an Sorgfalt und korrekter Forschung vorgeworfen und schließlich der Umgang mit historischen Nachweisen -auch vor dem Hintergrund vereinzelten Betruges -grundsätzlich diskutiert wurde (Combridge et al. 2010, 2011, Harrop 2011, Harrop et al. 2012, McGhie 2012). ...
The first reports on the occurrence of Northern Hawk-Owls in Germany were published by J. M. BECHSTEIN, A. C. SIEMSSEN and M. B. BORKHAUSEN in the last decade of the 18th Century. The descriptions of the collected birds are unique and in addition BECHSTEIN delivered a copper engraving of a mounted individual which confirm one of these records. The first dated record is from April 1790 and the characters of the bird were described by B. MEYER in 1809 in detail. Until the winter of 2013/14 a total of 171 records of 179 Northern Hawk-Owls were published for Germany. 102 records refer to birds shot, most of them (72 %) in the 19th century. In parallel, an exciting process both of systematic classification of the Northern Hawk-Owl and of the binomial and German naming of the species took place, in which mainly the work of B. MEYER, J. F. NAUMANN , C. L. and A. E. BREHM and finally E. HARTERT provided important impulses. LINNÆUS’ Surnia ulula as a scientific name was used for the first time in German literature in 1866 by A. E. BREHM, but did not accomplish finally until c. 1910. In case of the German name “Sperbereule” (“Sparrowhawk-Owl”), mentioned for the first time in 1773, alternatives were still in use until about 1900.
In 1929 the last Northern Hawk-Owl was shot in Germany. Of approximately 56 birds explicitly announced as transferred into a collection, at least 14 specimens still exist in museums, including the oldest one from 1820 in the American Museum for Natural History.
The Northern Hawk Owl is a rare vagrant in Germany. However, there have been periods in which the species was recorded annually and in some winters it was according to historical sources reported to be regionally not even rare, especially in eastern Germany and in irruption years, which are unfortunately only fragmentarily documented because of low observation coverage. Nevertheless, it is apparent that the frequency of the irruptions as well as the number of birds which reached Germany has decreased considerably in the long term. Therefore the invasion in the winter 2013/14 has not been the strongest ever as the data might suggest at first glance, but the best documented. The records of Northern Hawk-Owls are distributed over almost the entire area of Germany, but more than twice as many records derived from the northern half of the country (north of 51° N latitude) compared to the southern half. Regarding the all-time phenology in Germany, the occurrence started with a few records in early September and became more pronounced from early October onwards. Longer stays occurred from late October onwards, indicating the build-up of a “winter population”. Numbers of Northern Hawk-Owls strikingly peaked in mid-December (median of first day individuals: 9th December). After that the number of birds only temporarily present decreased until the end of January, and overwintering birds disappeared until the end of March. Last birds were recorded by mid April. Beyond, the paper summarizes the data obtained in Germany on behavior, food, resting duration, habitat selection, etc. and discusses the results against the background of the situation in the regular breeding and wintering areas of Northern Hawk-Owl.
... Several of these decisions have been followed by protests (e.g. Bourne 2009, Combridge 2008, Combridge & Wiseman 2009, Combridge et al. 2010. Although it is understandable in the interests of stability that long-standing records should not be overturned without good reason, in cases where the accumulated evidence of fraud has become substantial there is little merit in remaining in denial. ...
There is a tendency to see examples of fraud in ornithology as rare aberrations. This paper outlines some known and suspected historical examples of fraud, and argues that fraud of one kind or another has occurred more or less consistently, if uncommonly, in ornithology. Although most of the examples discussed are from Britain, it is likely that similar examples could be found in the archives of many nations. It is also likely that small-scale fraud continues today and is something that the ornithological community should be aware of. In particular, this has implications for the level of proof required by those assessing records of rarities.
As a consequence of a recent review by BOURC, there are now just four accepted British records of the Hawk Owl Surnia ulula. A bird of the North American race S. u. caparoch, found in an exhausted state on board a ship off the coast of Cornwall in March 1830, remains the first acceptable British record. The other three records, two of which date from the late nineteenth century, involve the nominate race, which breeds in Scandinavia.The only recent record refers to a bird in Shetland in September 1983, and this Hawk Owl remains on Category A of the British List. A summary of racial identification and ageing is presented, and taxonomy, distribution and irruptions are discussed briefly.
Forty-five years ago, the Scarlet Grosbeak Carpodacus erythrinus was one of those birds that (supposedly) you had to go to Fair Isle to see. It was there, on 13th September 1951, that I visually devoured my first dumpy, oddly amorphous but beady-eyed example, as it clumped about in the same crop as an immature Black-headed Bunting Emberiza melanocephala. Both were presented to me by the late Professor Maury Meiklejohn, with the nerve-wracking enjoinder 'I can see the rosefinch's bill and wingbars, Ian, but you will have to help with the bunting. I need to know its rump and vent colours. I'm colour blind.' That night, the late Ken Williamson commented 'Grosbeaks are classic drift migrants' and I remember, too, some discussion between him and the other senior observers concerning the (then still unusual) cross-Baltic movements to Sweden in spring. Not for a moment, however, did they consider that the species would one day breed in Britain. In 1992, when the Common Rosefinch, as it is now called, bred successfully at Flamborough Head, East Yorkshire and on the Suffolk coast, its addition to the regular breeding birds of Britain seemed imminent. No such event has ensued. Since the late 1970s, the number of British and Irish records has grown so noticeably in spring that this trend, and particularly the 1992 influx, are likely to be associated with the much-increased breeding population of southern Fenno-Scandia. The most recent expansion of range from the Low Countries to northern France may, however, be a better platform for permanent colonisation than periodic mass crossings of the North Sea. In the meantime, the bird still shows the rather enigmatic behaviour that has for 127 years characterised its British history, which is here re-examined in the light of its westward spread across Europe.