Welcome to Historical Rare Birds

The following web pages are maintained to share knowledge about historical rare bird records prior to 1950, with county recorders and national bodies. We trust that this archive of these records will be useful to all.

Under the systematic lists are the species accounts for rare bird records prior to 1950, which is the baseline between the two datasets, one of historical records prior to 1950 which are published here, the other during the period 1950-57 where records are added to assist in the period before BBRC started in 1958, to fall in line with European datasets.

Each record for each species has its own published history as an aid to verifying the record. All of this material prior to 1958 was brought to together for the first time with complete references for each record in 1996 when the author, K. A. Naylor published privately, A Reference Manual of Rare Birds in Great Britain and Ireland, and the records therein were adopted by the British Birds Rarities Committee (BBRC) in British Birds 97: 560.

As time passed by the book became outdated, and so with the advent of new material, reviews by certain bodies and the author, it was thought that the cost of producing this information in a second book was now prohibitive for a number of reasons, and so a web site was the best alternative.

In 2021 BBRC decided to further acknowledge this work by adding a link on their British Birds/BBRC site to this site with also a mention in the 2020 rare bird report (see Brit. Birds 114: 571, col. 2).

The author in 2011 became a consultant to the BOURC regarding this material.

This then is an archive of these historical rare bird records.

If you are unable to find what you are looking for there is an excellent Search engine at the bottom of each page. It’s amazing!

The site is maintained by Keith Naylor with technical assistance from Mark Pollitt. We would welcome any comments, suggestions and corrections from our site visitors.

If anyone has a photo of species where we are missing a photo, we would be grateful to receive a copy and permission to use it.

Contact the author by using the email link in the footer below.