eBird Checklist Rejected for Containing 'Statistically Implausible' Number of Species

The eBird review system has flagged and rejected a checklist submitted by amateur birder Graham Lister, who reported observing 73 bird species during a 20-minute walk through the car park of a Tesco supermarket in Swindon. The checklist, submitted at 11:47 AM on Saturday, includes species ranging from the common (house sparrow, woodpigeon) to the improbable (golden eagle, corncrake) to the geographically impossible (emperor penguin, kiwi, resplendent quetzal). 'The system flagged it immediately,' said the regional eBird reviewer. 'We get optimistic checklists. We get misidentified checklists. We do not typically get checklists that include a flightless bird from New Zealand observed in the car park of a Tesco in Wiltshire. That required a conversation.' Lister, when contacted, defended his checklist. 'I have excellent hearing,' he said. 'I identified many of the species by call. The car park has excellent acoustics — the sound bounces off the building and I picked up things that a less experienced birder would miss.' The reviewer pointed out that emperor penguins do not vocalize in a way that could be confused with any British species, and that the kiwi is nocturnal and lives exclusively in New Zealand. Lister responded that he was 'open to the possibility of vagrants.' 'A vagrant is a bird that has strayed from its normal range,' the reviewer explained. 'It is not a kiwi in Swindon. That would not be a vagrant. That would be an escape from a zoo, and the nearest zoo with kiwis is in London, which is 80 miles away.' Lister's checklist has been removed. He has submitted a revised version listing 14 species, which the reviewer describes as 'more consistent with the habitat and the observer's apparent skill level.' Lister has described the revision as 'a conservative estimate that doesn't reflect the full richness of the Tesco car park ecosystem.'