But what if there was a Prothonotary Warbler in Moosonee

 

This was yelled at me a good 3-4 times during my first presentation on some ideas of how to improve the OBRC (which is not public)... I'm not sure any of my response was actually processed, but I tried... 

To be honest, I know my response didn't really sink in, because 4-5 other people brought it up to me, even months afterwards... ("He kept saying, but what if there was a Prothonotary Warbler in Moosonee")... 

For context - Ontario is a big place. When our BRC was formed, the province was split into 2 review zones, the "North" and the "South" ... Eventually the north was split again, leaving 3 review areas, and a goofy looking provincial list: 

For further context, my proposal was: just have a single province-wide review list for the OBRC annual report. The rarest of the rare, anywhere in Ontario. Stop accepting Pectoral Sandpipers as Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, stop accepting Peregrine Falcons as Mississippi Kites, stop providing random pointless stats in the annual report, stop rejecting anything slightly difficult or interesting. 

Spend more time on the most interesting bird records. Put the effort in and provide valuable insights in the annual report. Something the community could learn from. 

But what if a Prothonotary Warbler showed up in Moosonee?! It was a rebuttal that had a simple premise. There would be some pretty cool bird observations, someday, that would fall through the cracks and not appear in the annual report. 

So let's get into it. 

To start, it wasn't a great example. Prothonotary Warbler has a well documented history of northward wandering, with multiple records on James Bay in Ontario. There are records from Labrador. Records from backyard bird baths in north-central Quebec. 

A Cerulean Warbler in Moosonee would be way more interesting. Alas, here's what my plan would have done to address this. 

1. The record isn't "lost" by missing out on the annual report. In 1981, a cool observation would become functionally inaccessible if it wasn't published (which is what made a BRC annual report so great). In 2026, it can appear in peer-reviewed online databases within seconds, including photos. 

2. The sighting can still get published. It doesn't take 7 experts, 3 rounds of voting, and 13+ months of elapsed time to reach our provincial journal. If that Cerulean Warbler showed up in Moosonee, the updated BRC process would have encouraged members to work with observers to proactively get the sighting published as a stand alone note. A full piece on a specific bird observation, even if it's a fairly mundane encounter, is WAY more information than what appears in an OBRC annual report. It also opens the door for further discussion or learning, such as the added commentary in the linked OROR piece. 

3. As hinted earlier, the OBRC (or other BRC's) aren't exactly firing on all cylinders when it comes to accepting or rejecting observations that are ACTUALLY notable on that higher, province-wide level...  

Overall, seeing the force of the "all change is bad" crowd was one heck of a learning experience. People in favour of the change would often say "we just need to find a way to better explain it to them". 

In reality, there seemed to be no amount of logic, discussion, reasoning, or time that could really convince a "change is bad" person into thinking that change, might not be all that bad. 

Likewise, some people just seemed incapable of picturing how a new process would work, no matter how many times or ways it was explained. Aphantasia, but for new ideas or concepts, I guess? 

The sad part is, smaller journals seem to be dying out (see Michigan, and now Illinois to some degree). I haven't talked to anyone in years who cares that much about North American Birds. I hoped to get our own Ontario Birds journal off of the ventilator with this approach, but the lack of support from the OBRC and the OFO board to improve, makes it seem like an impossible task. 

I'm not sure writing blog posts will help either? But it's a slightly cathartic 10 minutes to put this in writing. Maybe someday, somehow, the idea that "doing something of value again" might catch hold, vs. the "change is bad" or "everything has to stay the same, because nostalgia" response that has taken hold.