A bird rarities committee or bird records committee is a

committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...

which exists to validate records of rare

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

s in a particular country or region. Many countries have national rarities committees; in some areas, such as Europe, coverage is near-complete at a national level. European national committees are all members of the

Association of European Rarities Committees The Association of European Rarities Committees is a co-ordinating and liaison body for the bird rarities committees of Europe and other nearby countries. It was created in 1993 at a meeting of European rarities committees on the German island o ...

. Some countries have committees covering more localised areas - e.g. in the United States, most states have their own state records committee, and in Britain, each county has its own county records committee. A records committee differs from a list committee in that the latter just compile a list of the species found in an area, and do not typically assess every individual record of the rare species.

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See also