HOUSE SPARROW

Proceedings of the Minnesota Ornithological

Records Committee

Kim R. Eckert, M.O.R.C. Secretary

At its annual meeting December 4,

1984, two decisions were made which will

affect our voting procedures. First, if a

Committee member is the observer invol-

ved in a record voted on, that observer will

no longer vote on that record, but be re-

placed by an alternate. Renner Anderson,

Don Bolduc and Terry Savaloja were

named to this list of alternates initially,

others will probably be added to the list in

the future, and it will be up to the Chair-

man which alternate will be chosen to vote

on a record.

Second, a new voting prodedure was es-

tablished for records which involve possi-

ble escaped or released exotics: 1) the re-

cord will be voted on as usual, taking into

account only whether or not the species

was correctly identified; 2) if identification

is acceptable, research will then be done

regarding the likelihood of the bird's

"wildness"; 3) that information will then be

circulated and voted on - if an Accidental

species, a 7-0 vote in favor of wild means

Acceptable on the A(a) or A(b) list, a vote

of 6-1, 5-2, or 4-3 means Acceptable on

the A(c) list (for a definition of the

categories of Accidental species, see the

"Checklist of Minnesota Birds" published

as a supplement to the March 1983 (The

34 The Loon Vol. 57