PROCEEDINGS OF THE

MINNESOTA

ORNITHOLOGICAL

RECORDS COMMITTEE

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

As is now customary, a semi-annual

summary of M.O.R.C. activities and

votes, is to be published in the Spring and

Fall issues of The Loon. Before listing the

July-December voting results, there were

decisions made at two meetings during this

period that may be of interest.

August 14, 1982 meeting: 1) A recog-

nizable and preserved tape recording of a

bird's call is now considered as valid as a

specimen or photo for admitting a species

to the Aa list (e.g., Black Rail and Chuck-

will's-widow are now on the Aa rather than

the Ab list)'; 2) A species may be placed

on the Casual list without a specimen/

photo/tape record, if there are enough ac-

ceptable sight records (e.g., California

Gull); 3) By majority vote the Chukar is

now considered an Extirpated species on

the list (the minority voted to drop the

Chukar entirely from the new list since it

was an introduced, rather than native

species, which disappeared); 4) Several

other species had their status changed on

the new Minnesota checklist after discus-

sion - these will not be listed here since

the checklist is included with this issue; 5)

For casual/regular species voted on and re-

circulated, the second vote must be 5-2 or

better for the record to be accepted (for-

merly a 4-3 vote was considered accept-

able)- the M.O.R.C. voting formula now

stands as follows:

Vote

7-0

6-1

5-2

4-3

3-4

2-5

1-6

0-7

Reg . IC a s u a l s

Acceptable

Recirculate*

Unacceptable

Accidentals (a)

Acceptable

Recirculate*

Unacceptable

Accidentals (b)

Acceptable

Recirculate*

Unacceptable

*If a record of a regular/casual species is recirculated for a second vote, a vote of 5-2

or better is Acceptable, 4-3 or lower is Unacceptable; second vote of 6-1 or better is

Acceptable for an Aa species, 5-2 or lower is Unacceptable; and second vote of 7-0 is

Acceptable for Ab species, 6-1 or lower is Unacceptable.

December 4, 1982 meeting: 1) The

"Great-tailed Grackle" reported June 19,

1982 at Black Dog L., Dakota Co. was

discussed, and the majority voted to in-

elude it on the Minnesota list as Great-

tailed/Boat-tailed Grackle Quiscalus

mexicanuslmajor, since most felt that Boat-

tailed Grackle was not entirely ruled out in

the details; 2) The problem of intermediate

or hybrid Snow/Ross' Geese was dis-

cussed, and by consensus, all previously

Acceptable Ross' Goose records were reaf-

firmed or reclassified as follows:

-Acceptable: October 1964-January 1965

photograph record from Rochester, De-

cember 1965-January 1966 photograph

record from Howard Lake, November-

December 1962 sight record from

Round Lake, and October 1979 speci-

men record from Kittson Co.; Unaccept-

Spring 1983