Hey gang,
There are an exotic species here in Santa Barbara, NUTMEG MANNAKIN that I have seen sporadically over the past year or so. Today was the first time I had seen them in this calendar year. Should we have this as an added species on our list? I think it should be added, given the fact that it is a sustained population here, and a breeding bird. But, I wouldn't feel bad if any of you guys had strong opposing opinions. What do you think? If it is added, I would put it under Kevin's Flamingo's as an "additional specie"
love,
Bilbo Bloggins
Matt - if it were my call alone, I would put it somewhere else on the spreadsheet (next to the Lesser Flamingos) and not count it toward our official number. We should probably remove the flamingos, and only count the ABA birds.
ReplyDeleteThere is a big difference between the mannikins and flamingos, however. While the mannikins have breeding populations in Southern California, the lesser flamingos were almost certainly escapees. I could see this as an argument to count the mannikins (although not the flamingos). After all, we count old world species such as House Sparrow or Spotted Dove.
I say that if it is a unique species and we can ID it, it should count.
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