General Statement of Purpose:
(This is the official checklist of the birds of Utah as viewed by the Utah Bird Record Committee)

The UBRC checklist is meant to be a list of the birds that the Committee has documented in the state of Utah with "Codes" that give a general idea of the time of year that they are present in the state  (status codes), and how likely you are to find them when you're in the appropriate habitat and season (abundance codes).  In additions we indicate which species we would like to receive sight records for, so we can continue documenting the species of this list.

The procedure we followed to update the checklist so that the codes reflect the present activity of the birds in the state.

Since we passed the new code definitions for the checklist, we've been trying to implement them in our checklist update.  We've learned some things in the process, that we can report, so that we can create an appropriate checklist as of "Fall 2026:"
  - The new wording for the Accidental and Occasional codes should be changed from "in a ten year period" to "in the last ten years" (to be more clear) and the Accidental code should be simplified (basically leaving out "less than 3 in the past 30 years"  (which basically restates the frequency before and after this phrase).  (Other suggestions are welcomed).
  - The definition of the "Extirpated" didn't fit the proposed species suggested to be in that group.  Even after several attempts to redefine the term, we couldn't find an appropriate definition that would provide a clear and meaningful designation of this group.  It looks like the definition of Accidental ("Not expected and out of normal range") would fit  this group better).  An example is Inca Dove.  I asked Google about the normal range (so you know it's all true! - JOKE), and it told me that the range has actually been expanding, except for the northern edge, because of cold sensitivity, and eBird indicates that there have been a couple of sighting in SE Utah, (2017 (SJ. Co. and 2014 in Grand Co.), so "O" might be suggested according to this..  I think "A(13)" might be a better indication of what to expect , for Utah, presently, instead of "E"   (See the "notes" below)
  - The definition of "Irruptive" was also problematic.  There was a group 6 or 7 birds that were mentioned as possible members of this group, but a definition that would fit, to make this a cohesive group with a clear meaning, was hard to find.  (It might be better to use the "non-irruptive codes" for these species to avoid confusion). ((See the "notes" below)

Moving forward:
     After we cleared up the code definitions (see above),  we have made a composite checklist (Checklist with suggestions and input), which shows the proposed changes to the checklist and give everyone on the committee a chance to add their suggestions and comments.  Where there are different suggestions we can use a voting form to get the opinions of the committee as to which codes we should use for our checklist.

     Here's our suggestion for the new checklist with an updated code system and also suggestions for individual codes. Vernon and I have checked the eBird Bar Charts for the year range of 2016 to 2026 (data for an updated version - the suggestions by Bryant fit the eBird date very well), and also applied the new codes that have a "documented sightings" number as part of the definition and used suggestions from other committee members who have participated in the project .  Your suggestions and comment are always welcomed and needed for producing the UBRC checklist of Utah birds.
Latest draft of checklist

 Three possible options to consider on how to proceed:
  1 - Review the checklist and add suggestion and comments so we can make appropriate changes.
  2- Make a check list with only the names of the species and an indication of which species we'd like to review.  .(A lot of records committees have gone for this option)
  3- Just use the old checklist until we can get enough volunteers to form a checklist subcommittee to comply with the bylaws. 

When applied to the suggestions for "Irruptive species, the definitions didn't seem to make much sense - they didn't seem to fit.  We asked for an appropriate definition, that fits the species that have been proposed, but only the three above have been offered. Bryant responded that the species he suggested were definitely "irruptive," but didn't proposed another definition, and resigned from the checklist subcommittee since an additional volunteer was not found.
In examining the prospects of having "IP" or "IW" code, we decided that the "present codes" would offer more useful information ("UP" and "RW" for example), and chose to use those instead of having an "Irruptive" code for our proposed checklist..
 

Code Definitions tried: for Extirpated:
  - "No longer present in Utah"
  - "Formerly nesting species that has not nested in Utah for at least 30 years  and is no longer present"
  - "No longer present in Utah OR not nesting any longer for more than 3 years (or some other number that would be appropriate)"
 

     The use of the eBird data, mostly in using the bar charts for the species of Utah, probably increased the abundance of quite a few species.  This could be due to interpretation of the bars on the chart, or because of the increased input from all of the regular birders that use eBird, or the actual increase in birds that are now in Utah compared to the time of the last checklist update. (This is a good issue to think about in our future checklist updates).