Changes to the British List (17 Sep 2018)
Little Auk Alle alle polaris collected as a tideline corpse near Lerwick, Shetland, January 1956. Now at Bolton Museum, Lancashire. © Robert Y McGowan, National Museums Scotland
The British Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee (BOURC) has added the following subspecies to the British List:
Little Auk Alle alle polaris
Female, adult, near Lerwick, Mainland, Shetland, 19 January 1956 (specimen; Bolton Museum, INV:19160).
Examination of museum specimens confirmed that this 1956 individual had biometrics, particularly wing-length, that identified it to the subspecies from the eastern edge of the global breeding range.
Alle alle polaris breeds from Frans Josef Land (Russia) to St. Lawrence Island (Alaska), and winters in the Barents Sea.
Further details of this record will be published as part of the BOURC’s 50th report due to be published in Ibis in October 2019.
The British List remains at 616 species (Category A = 598; Category B = 8; Category C = 10).
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