Species requiring a description
To enable us to present our reports with complete accuracy, contributors are reminded that records of certain species must be supported by descriptions taken in the field or as soon as possible after the sighting – preferably before reference to textbooks.
National and county rarities, considered by the British Birds Rarities Committee (BBRC) and the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union (YNU) Reports Committee respectively, must be described. Forms can be obtained from any YNU vice-county recorder or the YNU website. It would help both the YOC Recorder and the YNU if descriptions were submitted as soon as possible after the sighting. Please copy the YOC Recorder () into any submission you make to the YNU or BBRC to ensure no records are missed.
Click on the buttons to get to the BBRC and/or YNU websites for information on the latest lists:
YOC Description Species
Additionally, contributors are asked to provide details to the YOC Recorder () by email or using the Rare and Scarce species form for species/subspecies listed here:
| Brent Goose – all races (except Black Brant, which is YNU) Tundra Bean Goose (Greenland) White-fronted Goose Bewick’s Swan Garganey (away from LDV) Red-crested Pochard Scaup Eider Velvet Scoter Long-tailed Duck Red-breasted Merganser Nightjar Turtle Dove Corncrake (away from LDV needs to go to YNU) Spotted Crake (away from LDV needs to go to YNU) Crane Red-necked Grebe Slavonian Grebe Black-necked Grebe Dotterel Bar-tailed Godwit Knot Curlew Sandpiper Temminck’s Stint Sanderling Purple Sandpiper Little Stint Grey Phalarope Spotted Redshank Kittiwake Little Gull Mediterranean Gull Caspian Gull Yellow-legged Gull | Sandwich Tern Little Tern Arctic Tern Black Tern Great Skua Pomarine Skua Arctic Skua Long-tailed Skua Little Auk Guillemot Razorbill Puffin Red-throated Diver Black-throated Diver Great Northern Diver Storm-petrel Leach’s Petrel Fulmar Manx Shearwater White Stork Gannet Shag Spoonbill Bittern Cattle Egret Great Egret Osprey Goshawk+ Hen Harrier Long-eared Owl Short-eared Owl Bee-eater Wryneck Lesser Spotted Woodpecker Ring-necked Parakeet | Red-backed Shrike Hooded Crow Raven Willow Tit Bearded Tit Woodlark (away from the main sites) Shore Lark Cetti’s Warbler Wood Warbler Yellow-browed Warbler Siberian Chiffchaff Icterine Warbler Barred Warbler Firecrest Ring Ouzel Red-breasted Flycatcher Pied Flycatcher Black Redstart Dipper Yellow Wagtail (‘Blue-headed’ race and ‘Channel’ hybrid) Richard’s Pipit Water Pipit + Rock Pipit + Hawfinch Common Rosefinch Twite Common (“Mealy”) Redpoll Lapland Bunting Snow Bunting |
Furthermore, the Recorder may ask contributors to provide some supporting evidence for some species not listed in the files, taking into account such factors as observer experience, out-of-season occurrences and unusual or difficult plumages, etc. This will be at the Recorder’s discretion and the list of species requiring descriptions is under constant review. Note that if photographs showing key identification features are submitted of these species a field description may not be required (as long as details such as location, date, observer, etc. accompany the photographs).