page_title: British Birds Rarities Committee
section_title: Re-reviews
hierarchical_section_title: British Birds Rarities Committee / Record reviews / Re-reviews
caption_attribution_description: English: Greenish Warbler Phylloscopus trochiloides in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India.
context_page_description: The British Birds Rarities Committee, established in 1959, is the national bird rarities committee for Britain. It assesses claimed sightings of bird species that are rarely seen in Britain, based on descriptions, photographs and video recordings submitted by observers. Its findings are published in an annual report in the journal British Birds.
  The BBRC covers around 280 species whose annually recorded sightings in Britain fall below a threshold deemed to signify rarity. Since the establishment of the committee, some previously included species have become more common—or at least better recorded; this has resulted in their removal from the committee's list and their reclassification as "scarce migrants".
  The committee has a chairman, a secretary, and ten voting members, and is supported by others who serve in an advisory capacity. Since its inception, a total of 69 people have served on the committee as assessors.
context_section_description: From time to time, BBRC has re-reviewed records that it previously accepted, to ensure they are acceptable in the light of improved knowledge of the species in question. These reviews are carried out on a species-by-species basis. Old World warblers have proved particularly in need of re-review. A review of greenish warbler records was initiated in 1983. The purpose of this review was to establish whether records, particular those in late autumn and winter, of drab grey Phylloscopus warblers, which had previously been accepted as greenish warbler, were in fact this species, or were common chiffchaffs of the Siberian race tristis. 48 records between 1958 and 1970 were examined. Of these, 20 were rejected. A review of Arctic warbler records was begun in 1991, with the aim of determining whether any greenish warblers had been mistakenly accepted as Arctics. The review was completed in 1994, although as of 2009, the results had not been published.
  A review of spectacled warbler records was initiated in 1984. This review resulted in the species being removed from the British list; of the three accepted records, one, at Spurn, Yorkshire in 1968, was re-identified as a first-year female subalpine warbler, while descriptions of the other two, at Porthgwarra, Cornwall in October 1969 and on Fair Isle in June 1979, were not considered sufficiently watertight to permit their continued acceptance. Spectacled warbler has since been re-added to the British list following an individual at Filey, Yorkshire in 1992, and there have been further subsequent records. In the late 1990s, BBRC reviewed some of the accepted records of moustached warbler, and concluded that one, from Sussex in 1979, was unacceptable, but that one other, from Buckinghamshire in 1965, should stand. Two further records, from Hampshire in 1951 and Kent in 1952, were reviewed as part of the 1950–1957 review (see below), and found to be unacceptable. Following these rejections, the Buckinghamshire record, and the remaining record, a breeding pair in Cambridgeshire in 1946, previously accepted as Britain's first, were scrutinised by the BOURC and found to be unacceptable, leading to the removal of moustached warbler from the British list; it has not re-occurred.
  A review of olivaceous warbler records commenced in 1986, and continued through the 1990s. The results of this review were published in 1999: six of the previously accepted records were rejected as not meeting modern identification standards. In 2003, following the split of olivaceous warbler into two species, the accepted records were all reviewed again to ascertain which of the two they were—all nine proved to be eastern olivaceous warblers. Following the split of Bonelli's warbler into two species, the committee reviewed all the 121 accepted records, and concluded that 51 were western and two were eastern; for the remainder, not enough evidence was available to make a firm decision. The committee had previously stated that it would regard as western Bonelli's warbler all except proven eastern Bonelli's warblers, however, this announcement rescinded that decision. In 2003–04, all desert warbler records were reviewed, and it was concluded that all were referable to the newly split Asian desert warbler, rather than African desert warbler.
  A review of American and Pacific golden plover records was begun in 1991, with the purpose of evaluating whether any individuals previously accepted as "either American or Pacific" could now be definitely assigned to one species or the other (and vice versa). The results (a small decrease in the number of accepted American golden plovers, and a small increase in the number of accepted Pacifics) were published in the committee's report for 1996, with a comment that a detailed paper on the subject was being prepared, although as of 2009, this has not been published. A review of isabelline shrike records commenced in 1986. This review, the results of which were published in 1989, established a racial identification for a number of adult isabelline shrikes previously accepted to sp
caption: Greenish warbler, a species with a history of misidentification
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