The Massachusetts Avian Records Committee (MARC) was formed in 1989 for the purposes of evaluating, analyzing, archiving and sharing evidence supporting current and historical records of birds rare to the Commonwealth.
Current MARC Members:
Marshall Iliff (Chair)
Nick Block
Wayne Petersen
Lisa Schibley
Jim Sweeney
Larry Therrien
Jeremiah Trimble
Liam Waters
Maili Waters
Sebastian Jones is Secretary and the person to contact with submissions and questions.
We hope this website will be a valuable resource to fellow enthusiasts of bird distribution, as well as a fun place to rehash great finds and twitches or to catch up on what you’ve missed. And we’d love to inspire you to find and document some more rare birds—and let us know when you do!
Latest Posts
- Say’s Phoebe
- West coast vagrants
- Hammond’s Flycatcher in Worcester Co.
- 2021 Meeting
- 2020 meeting
- 2019 Meeting
- 2018 Meeting
- Black-backed Oriole decision
- 2017 Meeting
- Common Greenshank discovery
A special thank-you to the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program of MassWildlife for providing the funding to maintain this website. The NHESP plays a most critical role in the conservation of hundreds of non-game species and the habitats in which they live, throughout Massachusetts.
Data collection policy
MARC’s goal is to collect, archive and share information and analysis regarding rare birds in Massachusetts. We seek out information from publicly available sources, such as Massbird and websites, including photo-sharing sites and blogs. We also depend on members of the vast birding community to submit photos, sketches, videos, audio clips, field notes, analysis and other information about rare-bird observations, and indeed encourage submissions even where information about a particular record is publicly available. We may publish the information submitted or otherwise collected on MARC’s website or in other publications, such as our Annual Report published in Bird Observer or any print or electronic publication MARC may choose to publish. For accepted records, we credit the source of the information whenever possible. We generally do not identify the observers of or publish evidence related to records that MARC has not accepted. All submissions should be made by contacting the MARC Secretary.