What is a "British" bird?

[Adam Cheeseman]

Originally Posted by faz

Aren’t they all European birds at the end of the day?

No, because then we'd have to pay the EU to look at them.

[Adam Cheeseman]

Originally Posted by King Edward

Again, it comes down to the purpose of the classification. If it's for regular birding/twitching then the species on the overseas territories are probably irrelevant, while the (very) rare vagrants may or may not be relevant depending on your level of fanaticism.

For conservation though it should be the other way around, with the overseas species given more attention than they receive at present. I remember reading somewhere that unfortunately the overseas territories fell through the funding gaps - ineligible for a lot of UK/EU funding due to not being actually part of the UK, and also ineligible for a lot of the international aid that might be given to e.g. small island nations since these are British territories rather than foreign.

Commonwealth funding?

Cheers,

Adam

[RoyW]

Originally Posted by KentYeti

Back to the poll. I'm very pleased to see "self sustaining population" has moved up to number 2. And as my definition of self sustaining is being able to feed myself etc, I feel a bit more relexed about my position at present.

Hmm. I'm sure that there is another very important aspect for a self sustaining population as well as the individuals being able to feed themselves!
Remember that the poll is multiple choice, so each point does not need to stand on its own.

The 'self sustaining' choice was only meant to apply to introduced species when I put the poll together, but it could be applied to all (so breeding, wintering or passage species, whether wild or introduced, would be considered British if their populations at any time of year were normally maintained at a certain level - this would exclude most vagrants and scarce passage migrants, which don't have a regular 'population' at any time).

Originally Posted by htcdude

I've concluded there is no clear cut definition of what a British Bird truly is

You won't get any disagreement from me!

Originally Posted by htcdude

I bet most of them speak Bird-English too

Is that similar to "pidgin English"?




Five votes now for "Who cares, I'm not a twitcher". I very nearly also included "Who cares, I'm a twitcher" in the choices - twitchers don't tend to care how a bird is defined other than whether it is treated as a "full species", and whether it has occurred in a "tickable" situation in their recording area (usually Britain or Britain and Ireland for UK based twitchers).