"Countability" of exotics is a recurring topic of discussion among birders and the question is complicated by the differing attitudes of the organizations interested in birds. In general, "countability" is an issue of interest only to the American Birding Association. The American Ornithologists' Union keeps a checklist for scientific purposes of birds that regularly occur in a designated area of interest to them. The aims of that list are to provide a reference of the distribution and taxonomy of the birds in that area and to standardize their names, both scientific and vernacular. As Ned Keller points out, the goals of the OBRC are similar. The ABA, however, is not a scientifc organization. The aims of the AOU do not suffice to settle questions of interest to listers; therefore, ABA publishes its own checklist. Briefly, the ABA Listing Rules Committee says you can count wild, unrestrained birds found in the ABA area (which is incidentally NOT the same as the AOU area) if they are on the ABA checklist. Whether the bird is on the ABA checklist is the purview of the ABA Checklist Committee. There are a number of rules governing the criteria for inclusion in the ABA checklist and the process for including or demoting species. The question of exotics is one of the thorniest the committee deals with. The criteria governing the "establishment" of exotics can be found in its entirety here: http://www.aba.org/checklist/exotics.html The time requirement referred to by Ned Keller is 15 years, but just because a species hangs around for 15 years does not make it _ipso facto_ "established". Furthermore, once a species is "established," it is not perpetually so. In at least two cases (Black Francolin and Crested Mynah), the populations eventually failed. The ruling of the checklist committee was that these failures were proof positive that the species was never "established" and ABA listers were ordered to remove them from their lists. Removing the Crested Mynah was a particularly contentious issue. After all, the bird had been a part of the urban ecosystem in Vancouver for more than a century. Is it then realistic to pretend that the bird never existed? What if in the far future, starlings die out in North America. We may be ordered to disregard a species whose introduction had profound effects on the distribution and population levels of many "native" species. Does that seem right? And what about my California Condor, seen in 1982 before all the wild condors were "retrieved?" By logical extension, I suppose it could be argued that every bird is "introduced." It is just that some were "introduced" much longer ago. And eventually, all species die out. Does the extinction in the wild of the California Condor invalidate my experience of this magnificent bird? I think not. Of course, this is only a matter of interest for records submitted to the ABA for inclusion in their annual list of listers. You personally are entitled to count whatever you want: bats, B-52s, whatever. On a trip to Panama in 2007, my step-daughter and I stumbled across a Harpy Eagle on Pipeline Road. The bird was almost surely an escapee from a captive breeding project, but that didn't dilute the thrill of my encounter with it in the least. That bird is definitely on my list. When I submit my list totals to ABA (a nasty habit it seem I cannot break, much harder than quitting smoking), I'll just subtract one. Cheers, Bob -- Robert D Powell Congress Farm Research Institute Wilmington, OH, USA [log in to unmask] http://rdp1710.wordpress.com Nulla dies sine aves ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]