Dear Ontbirds subscribers,
The annual meeting of the Ontario Bird Records Committee (OBRC) was held on 8 April 2018. At this meeting, the following changes were made (effective 1 January 2018): 1. White Wagtail has been added to the Ontario list. This individual was of the yarrellii subspecies (Pied Wagtail), representing only the second documented record for this subspecies in North America. White Wagtail is also new to the South Review Zone and thus added to the South Review List. 2. Thayer's Gull has been removed from the Ontario checklist, as it was lumped with Iceland Gull by the American Ornithological Society. With the addition of White Wagtail and subtraction of Thayer's Gull, the Ontario checklist remains at 496 species. 2. Swainson’s Hawk has been removed from the South Review List, effective 1 January 2018 3. Solitary Sandpiper (cinnamomea) has been added to the Subspecies Review List, effective 1 January 2018 4. Hoary Redpoll (hornemanni) has been removed from the Subspecies Review List, effective 1 January 2018 This year’s OBRC meeting minutes, as well as the updated Operating Guidelines, are available on the OFO website, here: http://ofo.ca/site/Obrc Past annual reports are available online at: http://ofo.ca/site/page/view/obrc.annualreports At this meeting the 3 year terms as voting OBRC members for Ken Burrell and Tim Lucas ended. The OBRC has elected Amanda Guercio and Barbara Charlton to 3 year terms going forward. The committee would like to thank all OFO members who took the time to submit nominations. I was re-elected to the chairperson role, while the remaining voting members are Donald Sutherland, Paul Pratt, Bill Lamond and Blake Mann. Mark Peck will continue as the non-voting Royal Ontario Museum Liaison. On behalf of the rest of the committee, I would like to thank Ken Burrell and Tim Lucas for their excellent service on the OBRC. Mike Burrell will continue as Secretary, while Barb Charlton and Ken Burrell will serve as Assistants to the Secretary. I would also like to take this opportunity to remind the Ontario birding community to submit your documentation of birds on the OBRC Review Lists as soon as possible – this facilitates timely voting by the committee and helps ensure the process goes as smoothly as possible. It also helps ensure your memory is fresh when writing the reports. Please don't assume others have documented a bird - the more reports we have on file, the more complete the record will be now and in the future. An online form is available at http://ofo.ca/site/Obrcreport but the OBRC accepts submissions in any form (send them to the OBRC secretary (obrcsecretary at gmail.com). Guidelines for submitting reports are available at http://ofo.ca/site/page/view/obrc.guidelines . If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me or any of the other OBRC members. Josh Vandermeulen OBRC Chair joshvandermeulen at live.ca _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists (OFO) - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to birdalert@ontbirds.ca For information about ONTBIRDS including how to unsubscribe visit http://www.ofo.ca/site/page/view/information.ontbirdssetup Posting guidelines can be found at http://www.ofo.ca/site/page/view/information.ontbirdsguide Visit the OFO Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/OntarioFieldOrnithologists
