Irish Rare Birds Committee Tracker

A clean, simplified tracking of the many failures of Europe's worst Rare Bird Committee.

If you remember one thing, remember this. 

These are THEIR targets. THEIR commitments. This is what THEY said they would achieve.

Watch these counters climb!

Everyone now accepts that the IRBC Provisional List system has essentially failed. They carried out a sneaky wording change during their website overhaul, altering the original system description from "Monthly Provisional List" to "regular" updates. And anyone with the ability to count can see it has been anything but regular.

TIME SINCE LAST IRBC PROVISIONAL LIST

The Irish list updates require interpretation. Hence the caveat "accurate". It's been a long time since anyone could say they have been 100% accurate. The baseline here is, per online sources, an update supposedly made in 2014. I don't have that to hand (and suspect there was no update then, and probably goes further back), so am giving the benefit of the doubt here. Which is very generous and magnanimous of me really. I'm proud of myself there. 

Everything they have put out since...and it's not been much, has had some errors associated with it. Even the unannounced update from June 2026. Remember, it's supposed to be updated after the publication of each Irish Rare Bird Report.

Time Since Last Accurate Update To Irish List

The "New Rarity Appendices" were first put out on April 3rd 2025, a direct consequence of me having highlighted that their reports were a mess, omitting species present in what few provisional lists they had produced, with zero rhyme or reason. They said they had all been removed from consideration at that time...if you believe that you need your head examined. 🤣

These appendices were not accurate at the time of initial publication. I let them in on one, obvious error, the omission of Red-Eyed Vireo as a rarity (which they finally cottoned on to after months of me taking the piss) providing an update in October 2025, with that species being the only change. There's other mistakes in there for those willing to look. 😉 You could argue that the appendices have not been accurate since the 00s and their constant chopping of Green Winged Teal and Red-Necked Grebe etc on and off the list ever few years, but let's take this 2025 date as a baseline. They currently do not match their own Irish List.

Time Since Accurate Update Of Irish Rarity Appendices And finally, let's look at the amount of time they have deliberately omitted rarities, including photographed rarities, which emerged through the Band group from their reports. Their 2022 report emerged in January 2025. A 2023 interim report emerged subsequently with the same issues. Have Des Higgins and Joe Hobbs resigned yet? Consider this a tracker for both.

  Time Of Rarities Deliberately Being Omitted From IRBC Reports

We probably don't need a tracker for hearing what the "Standards of Identification" the IRBC supposedly require for rarity acceptance... because they will never say, will they? That's at over 20 years that one. 🤣