Date: 6/12/25 12:13 pm From: Paul Conover via groups.io <zoiseaux...> Subject: [labird] LBRC website updates
Labird,
With summer here, I've been able to spend some time working on
LBRC stuff. Some of the updates are:
All reviewed records have been added to the Photo and Record
Gallery page. In other words, if you're wondering how many records of
Eurasian Wigeon there are for the state, you can flip to that page and
the records are up to date as of the 2024 Newsletter. A reminder that
several species (Long-tailed Duck, Broad-billed Hummingbird, Sargasso
Shearwater, Gray Kingbird, Black-whiskered Vireo) were removed from the
Review List at the Spring Meeting.
Also, thanks to the efforts of the LOS, I've had a new scanner
to work with to scan older paper records. That job will be ongoing for a
long time to come, but I've gotten a small start on it and established a
routine that seems to work. Some of the records I've scanned were not
accepted, which brings up the next topic:
Should Unaccepted records be posted online? LBRC Bylaws say
they shouldn't, but in my mind, even unaccepted records are valuable. In
my experience, when records don't get accepted, it's because they didn't
quite rise to the threshold, not because they were obviously wrong. Many
of my records have failed to make the cut, but it's usually because I
didn't get pictures, or see an important mark, or couldn't remove the
possibility of a look-alike species, not because I made an
embarrassingly bad ID. That's true of most unaccepted records; the
records are totally plausible, but they don't remove plausible doubt.
Many observers continue to have faith in their own records and
would love their unaccepted reports to be visible where others can see
them for themselves. I'm one of them. I don't think the committee "got
them wrong." Instead, I think that some part of the report might be
useful for others to see, whether it's the date, the fieldmarks, or
whatever. And, importantly, some keen observer might note something that
everyone else has missed, or might be aware of some new fieldmark that
would cause a second look at the report.
So, if you're good with having your unaccepted reports posted,
or if you absolutely hate the idea, please let me know.
In other news, I've also tried to clean up the LBRC website,
including updating the homepage for continuity with the LOS homepage. If
you notice any errors or display issues, please alert me asap so I can
work on them.
