County Rarities (for which a description is essential)
Full descriptions, when required, should be provided on the County Rarity Form which can be downloaded by clicking here, and guidelines for assessing scarce county bird records are available as a pdf file here. A complete list of county rarities is published in the Bird Report or downloaded by clicking here. Email county rarity descriptions as soon as possible after the sighting to the Rarities Secretary: Jane Turner, Email: rarities
National Rarities
Records of national rarities have to be accepted by the British Birds Rarities Committee (BBRC) before they are accepted for publication in the Bird Report. A list of these species is published in British Birds periodically. To allow time for circulation and approval of the record by the BBRC before the Bird Report is published, descriptions should be sent in as soon as possible after the sighting. E-mail or post national rarity descriptions to the County Recorder: Jane Turner, Email: County Recorder
Rarities Database (spreadsheet)
The Rarities Database collates the descriptions of county rarities submitted to the County Rarities Committee and records the decisions made for each record. On an annual basis the submissions are checked off against the general bird records submitted to the Society. The records of rarities that were not supported by a description are held in in the rarities database for two years with the status "in limbo". For the more regular county rarities these unsupported records will then be removed in order to save space. Hence the unsubmitted records may be incomplete for some species.
A spreadsheet database is used to log all rarity records and monitor progress through to acceptance. The database can be accessed by clicking here. (Link currently unavailable). Unfortunately, we can only make it available as an Excel file to ensure that the user can access different views of the data.
Note that there are two extra tabs added to the worksheet. One describes how to use the drop-down lists for data filtering and the other describes the meaning of the coded entries.
If you find any errors in the data then please contact us.
Full descriptions, when required, should be provided on the County Rarity Form which can be downloaded by clicking here, and guidelines for assessing scarce county bird records are available as a pdf file here. A complete list of county rarities is published in the Bird Report or downloaded by clicking here. Email county rarity descriptions as soon as possible after the sighting to the Rarities Secretary: Jane Turner, Email: rarities
National Rarities
Records of national rarities have to be accepted by the British Birds Rarities Committee (BBRC) before they are accepted for publication in the Bird Report. A list of these species is published in British Birds periodically. To allow time for circulation and approval of the record by the BBRC before the Bird Report is published, descriptions should be sent in as soon as possible after the sighting. E-mail or post national rarity descriptions to the County Recorder: Jane Turner, Email: County Recorder
Rarities Database (spreadsheet)
The Rarities Database collates the descriptions of county rarities submitted to the County Rarities Committee and records the decisions made for each record. On an annual basis the submissions are checked off against the general bird records submitted to the Society. The records of rarities that were not supported by a description are held in in the rarities database for two years with the status "in limbo". For the more regular county rarities these unsupported records will then be removed in order to save space. Hence the unsubmitted records may be incomplete for some species.
A spreadsheet database is used to log all rarity records and monitor progress through to acceptance. The database can be accessed by clicking here. (Link currently unavailable). Unfortunately, we can only make it available as an Excel file to ensure that the user can access different views of the data.
Note that there are two extra tabs added to the worksheet. One describes how to use the drop-down lists for data filtering and the other describes the meaning of the coded entries.
If you find any errors in the data then please contact us.
© All images copyright of the author 2025
Cheshire and Wirral
Ornithological Society
Ornithological Society
Registered Charity No. 702484