Map showing the area covered by the 'Hastings Rarities Affair'

To accept the findings of Nelder, Nicholson and Ferguson-Lees is to accept that a systematic deception was carried out for a period of over 30 years, which managed to avoid detection despite the scrutiny of the most able and respected ornithologists of the day. Any doubts expressed at the time seemed to have originated with experts from outside the area.

It is clear from the records that many specimens were examined in the flesh by independent experts. One who was still alive in 1962, and an Honorary Editor of ‘British Birds’ himself, Dr N. F. Ticehurst, flatly denied any possibility of deception in the case of birds of which he had knowledge, which included many of the rarest.
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Bristow and the Hastings Rarities Affair by Dr James Harrison, 1968

Part of the authors’ argument relies on the assumption that the behaviour of birds and the essential nature of the habitat remained constant throughout the period from 1895 to 1954. Dr James M. Harrison commented on the changes in the area in his book ‘Bristow and the Hastings Rarities Affair’. Also, the striking rapidity with which the overall pattern of bird occurrences can change, is detailed by Michael Shrubb in his book ‘The Birds of Sussex’. The status of different species can show marked fluctuations within even a few years.

The Hastings Rarities undoubtedly contained a number of perfectly good records. It is now almost impossible to disentangle fact from fiction, which means the only way forward is to remove all the material from the record.
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