British Birds Rarities Committee - Role and Status

Role and Status

The "Rarity Records Committee" (as it was originally known) was established in 1959 by the editors of the journal British Birds. Its original purpose was to provide a means whereby uniform assessment standards could be applied to all rare bird records across Britain. Prior to the establishment of the Committee, records were assessed by local bird recording organisations using varying standards. The most recent statement of the British Birds Rarities Committee's role is given in Bradshaw, Harvey and Steele (2004):

BBRC aims to maintain an accurate database of the occurrence of rare taxa in Britain, in order to enable individuals or organisations to assess the current status of, and any changes in, the patterns of occurrence and distribution of these taxa in Britain.

Contradictory information has been published on the exact nature of the Committee's status. On its website, BBRC describes itself as the "official adjudicator of rare bird records in Britain" (although it does not say on what basis it has this status). In Birders: Tales of a Tribe, author Mark Cocker erroneously describes the Committee as a "statutory vetting body" (i.e. one established by an Act of Parliament). BBRC's constitution states that it "has no automatic or legal expectation that birders submit records".

The Committee does not assess records of birds from Ireland; that task is carried out by the Irish Rare Birds Committee, which publishes its decisions in Irish Birds. Records of IRBC-assessed rarities were included in BBRC annual reports for many years, although this ceased in 2002 at the request of IRBC. Although the British Ornithologists' Union Records Committee does not regard records from the Isle of Man as contributing towards their British list, BBRC does include records from there in its totals. BBRC has had an ongoing sponsor in the German optical equipment manufacturer Carl Zeiss since 1983.