Assessment process

How the voting is carried out

Records are categorised as either to be voted on by all ten members or by just five members – the latter known as a Motorway vote. Very rare species are sent to All, whilst less rare will go to the respective North or South Motorway team depending on the location of the sighting. The North/South divide is roughly from north Wales across to the Humber. More detail is given in Section 5.3 of our Constitution.

All voting is done electronically. The Secretary creates a PDF file of all information related to each submission (description, photos, sketches, sound recordings etc.) and a batch voting sheet typically comprising 5 records. On every record Members give their vote (OK or Not Proven), their experience of the taxon involved (seen Many, Some or Very few/none) and whether they saw the bird. Optionally they comment on its age & sex, and they can also put any comment that can help other voters.

Note that the process takes place via a shared web-space (private & protected of course) but it means that members can comment, maybe not make their vote, and then come back later to complete things. This means the assessment is interactive rather than ‘serial’ and we believe this greatly improves the decision making process.

Communicating the outcome of voting

We currently do this in two main ways. The first and most immediate way is that we use Twitter to advise ‘everyone’ (i.e. those using Twitter) of each completed assessment. It simply gives the submission reference number, outcome (accepted or not proven), species, location and first date.

The second way is via a Work-in-Progress file – known as the WIP file. This shows all the records that have been received by BBRC and their current status. We try to keep this updated about three or four times a year BUT it is a time-consuming process to post this file, so that regularity may sometimes drift. Remember members are either doing this work entirely voluntarily or with only a small remuneration so sometimes personal lives do take precedence.

If there is a particularly difficult assessment, and one where the outcome then ends up Not Proven, we may choose to inform the original submitters of the outcome before publicly giving this detail by either Twitter or the WIP file.

Annual cycle of events

The year can be thought to begin with the publication of the Annual Report in British Birds magazine. It comes out in the October issue, and publishes all records for the preceding year, and any belated records for earlier years. For example, in October 2014 the report was for ‘Rare Birds in Great Britain in 2013’. Soon after that a Work-in-Progress sheet will be put on the BBRC website to show all the remaining records still at BBRC. It includes those received for the current year (2014 in this example) and those which are still circulating from earlier years.

Submissions are received throughout the year, although any coming in after April/May of the next year will be struggling to get into the next report. Throughout the year records are being circulated electronically to the Committee for voting. Every three or four months an updated Work-in-Progress file is put on the BBRC website where you can find a complete list of those received and any completed outcomes.

A first pass of the report is done as early as April/May the following year! Around May/June about 50 species are selected that will have a comment included in the Annual Report. These are then allocated to the voting members who each write around four or five species accounts. Around July/August a draft report (of records only) is sent to County Recorders for them to check. At the same time the full report is beginning to be assembled, mainly by the BBRC Secretary and the Editor of British Birds. They add things like photos and field sketches that complement the report, and an Introduction is written by the BBRC Chair. The October issue of British Birds is then printed in late September and published and posted out in early October.

Length of record assessment

Typically, around three months, but it varies widely. At certain times of year, the voting members (none of whom are paid, remember) will be busy – often leading bird tour groups. Then they also have holidays, take time out at Christmas & New Year, even go out birding in spring and autumn! The Secretary also tries to batch up records so that the same or similar species can be grouped & assessed together – maybe related to an influx in the year. Whilst well documented records can be very quick, others may ‘linger’ maybe with members waiting until one of team who has experience of the species, has commented on the record. So , six months or longer can easily happen.

Also, if voting is split then a re-circulation will be triggered –see Section 5.4 of our Constitution which gives more details. That can slow things down considerably.