5/ An example is the recent hot news from the Dearne Valley via www.doncasterbirding.co.uk

If this Wood Duck turned up in The Western Isles would it garner attention?

Be interesting to know what is best practise for rarities committees with regards to this sticky topic?

4/ But there’s a big grey area! Ruddy Shelduck may well erupt into NW Europe when drought displaces them from the e breeding grounds but as I understand it this is a bird often kept in captivity.

A Snow or Ross’s Goose hanging around with Pink-footed Geese may well be wild…

3/ I recall a Danish Baikal Teal shot by hunters and later proved to have originated in the core breeding range by stable isotope analysis.

How can one definitely establish vagrancy without such rigorous standards? Why not apply the same standards to every assessment?

2/ A flock of Lesser Scaup or Ring-necked Duck appearing on some Cornish reservoir in the wake of a huge Atlantic depression that has displaced many Yank passerines on these shores at the same time I would deem genuine.

But an individual on some Midlands reservoir in the bleak midwinter? Unsure.