About

The NIRBC manages the records of birds in Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland Rare Birds Committee (NIRBC) consists of the following members:

NI Bird Recorder: George Gordon
Secretary: Ian Graham
Rarity Committee Members: Oscar Campbell, Chris Murphy, Neal Warnock and Wilton Farrelly.

Advice from experts is also taken to assist with rarities assessment.

NIRBC welcomes submissions from any observer of any rare species observed in Northern Ireland requiring a description (see: https://nirbc.blogspot.co.uk/p/rarity-descriptions.html)  before they are admitted to the official record. We endeavour to circulate and assess records rapidly and consistently and will publish decisions here in a timely manner. However, we can only work with the information that we receive so please submit supporting evidence for your own finds and, if you have observed a bird listed here () that is flagged as lacking supporting information for assessment, please consider providing evidence yourself so that the record can be added to the official record.

We would like to be able to provide as complete as possible a list of rarities and significant records for Northern Ireland. To this end, whilst we generally prefer a submission of a record (via the form at  https://nirbc.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page_25.html  or an email NIRBComm@gmail.com) from the finder and / or any observer of a species requiring a description, we are prepared to assess any record that comes in to the public domain, for example as a photograph on the NIBA \ NIBirds blog (www.nibirds.blogspot.co.uk), Irish Birding (www.irishbirding.com) or a photograph on any other website, Twitter, Facebook or bird news service. Like all formally submitted records, all such photographs will be archived for posterity. 
Where you see next to a record, 'per NIRBC' this is a record passed to the NIRBC where it was picked up from a public forum / website, submitted anonymously or a record where the observer has asked not to have their name publicly associated with it on the NIRBC website.
 
You can submit supporting information, pictures or web links on any of these, at any time to the email address: NIRBComm@gmail.com

We also welcome submissions of evidence from any observers who have seen any rarities, even if you were not the original finder. Please therefore feel free to provide any information and contribute to the record database for NI.

As with any record considered by the committee, re-assessment is always a possibility in the light of additional evidence being received.

Committee Membership:

The NIRBC is keen to develop rotation of Committee members. If you feel that you could contribute to the work of the committee or work as a member, we would be pleased to hear from you. Committee members are expected to be experienced in bird identification, have birded in Northern Ireland and had a previous experience in record submission. Members of the committee need not have to currently reside in Northern Ireland.

All committee members work voluntarily and believe that it is essential to maintain a clear record of rare species that have occurred in NI. We welcome comments and suggestions as to how we conduct our work and, if you wish to query anything not made clear on this website, please get in touch via NIRBComm@gmail.com

For records in the Republic of Ireland, please refer to: http://www.irbc.ie/index.php