The Rarity Tree

Slaty-backed Gull is a large, dark-mantled species of the north-eastern Palearctic coast. It breeds or is resident in an area covering some 5.08 million square kilometres and has a Red List status of 'Least Concern'. Globally speaking, Slaty-backed Gull is a common bird. In Britain though, it is a colossal rarity. There has been just the one.

I was keen to illustrate this post with a real-life example of a stonking rarity, and the 2011 Slaty-Backed Gull which Dominic Mitchell discovered at Rainham fits the bill nicely. I would be the first to admit to entertaining fantasies of outrageous rarity finds, and imagine I have that in common with a good percentage of birders. Rarities - their discovery, identification and worship - consume a phenomenal amount of our collective attention. This, I would argue, is probably to the detriment of far more deserving recipients. I shall now try to explain why...

An essential reference for this post has been Dominic's BB paper...

Published in British Birds 110 - July 2017, pp 205-213

Thursday, 13th January 2011
I can only imagine how Dominic must have felt when first setting eyes on this bird. Having previously encountered the species abroad, he knew instantly what it was. Or should I say, what it probably was. The inevitable adrenalin rush must have been tempered somewhat by the pressing need to clinch the identification, and Dominic managed a few photos. That evening, a couple of expert contacts provided positive feedback, but reinforced the need to get photos of the spread wing-tip.

Friday, 14th January
More sightings, including by other observers, and definitive wing-tip photos captured.

Saturday, 15th January
Massive twitch. Upwards of 1200 line the entire perimeter fence of the Rainham landfill site. Several claims, but no mass sightings.

Aftermath
Much online discussion about the bird's identification. I remember all this. Were the upperparts actually too pale for a pure Slaty-backed? Was it in fact a hybrid? And so on. Correspondence with observers familiar with the species provides positive feedback. Eventually the BBRC sits to evaluate the record submission and deems the bird correctly identified. As a potentially new bird for Britain, the BOURC now has its say. Eventually it gives the thumbs-up, and six years and five months after its first appearance at Rainham, Dominic's Slaty-backed Gull has its moment in the BB limelight, all eight-and-a-half pages of it.

If you follow the manufacturing process from raw ingredient to finished product, that first-for-Britain Slaty-backed Gull was a mighty labour-intensive affair. I'm sure a great deal of work went into ruling out the hybrid possibility and compiling a watertight description. Next, ten eminently qualified BBRC members then had the responsibility of confirming that the identification was sound. Next, the BOURC. As keepers of the British List, BOURC members have the unenviable task of making sure that a taxon not previously recorded in Britain has a valid claim to that hallowed ground, particularly if it's looking for a spot in category A.

And what about all those birders who went to try and see it? I can genuinely claim to be a gull fan, but I wonder how many of the 1200+ on the first Saturday were gleefully pressed against the fence of a stinking landfill site because of their love of gulls? I wonder how many had to go twice? Or more?

I shudder to think how many man-hours were expended on that Slaty-backed Gull. A single, wandering, out-of-range, globally common bird.

At this point I want to be clear. I am not aiming to knock any of this. I am merely trying to highlight the extent to which our British birding culture venerates rarity. In effect this frequently results in the relatively trivial being elevated to a status akin to iconic. When you stop and think about it, there is something almost Python-esque going on here. And the whole infrastructure of British birding is involved, in fact is geared towards it. Witness the monetising of rare bird information; the many pages of birding publications devoted to rarities, including a whole issue of British Birds each year; the very existence of the BBRC and BOURC. And collectively we lap it up, encourage it, perpetuate it.

One might legitimately ask, 'So what?'

Well, the upshot of this amazingly skewed focus upon rarity worship is an almost instinctive resistance to any suggestion that it might be a little unhealthy. So when a few birders - in the context of a world in which climate change appears to be causing us a few issues - quite reasonably question pursuit of the high-carbon birding which rarities often encourage, they don't get much in the way of mainstream backing. I'm thinking of stuff like this, and this, for example. Laudable stuff, if you ask me.

There is a whole wood requiring attention, but the rarity tree is kind of getting in the way of seeing it, perhaps...?