First of the AOU pending proposals up (1 Viewer)

Mysticete · Feb 25, 2009

although, mostly very dissapointing

The Tanager shifting around has been delayed; it failed to pass due to procedural grounds. Which I guess explains why there was so much redundancy between the first and second proposal this year.

Savannah Sparrow split also went down in flames. No armchair lifers for me this year, unless proposal D comes to the rescue (I had seen 3 of the 4 proposed splits).

The AOU also accepted some BOU name changes, but not others (Common Starling, Common Kestrel, Ringed Plover, and Common Blackbird in; Eurasian Bullfinch, Eurasian Coot, and Common Chaffinch stay). I kinda of don't like the latter precedent; Most of these are not primarily ABA birds, and so we really shouldn't have a say in there common name, unless perhaps some sort of split or merger happens which we accept and the BOU doesn't.

On the plus side, birders will no longer be laden with the clumsy "sharp-tailed" part of a sparrow's name. Proposals to switch over to Nelson's Sparrow and Saltmarsh Sparrow passed.

link here
http://www.aou.org/committees/nacc/proposals/2008_A_votes_web.php3#2008-A-8

Mysticete · Feb 25, 2009

actually, there is an error there, in that Common Kestrel did not pass as well. Also the results for proposal B are posted, but no commentary yet (just the fail/pass besides the name)

Snapdragyn · Feb 25, 2009

I'm not sure why the kestrel name change is listed on the AOU site as not having passed. By my count, it passed by 1 vote.

Mysticete · Feb 25, 2009

that is what I was wondering, but they need 2/3 vote to pass? Did the number of yes votes add up to that? I didn't double check

Kind of surprised I didn't see more comments on the BOU name changes...would have thought the unevenness of the decisions would have cause more dissension here

Richard Klim · Feb 25, 2009

Charadrius dubius

Mysticete said:
Kind of surprised I didn't see more comments on the BOU name changes...would have thought the unevenness of the decisions would have cause more dissension here

I find it difficult to get very excercised about the pros and cons of prefixes such as 'Common' or 'Eurasian'.

But one amusing case is AOU NACC's vote to 'follow BOU' in using the name 'Little Plover' rather than 'Little Ringed Plover' for Charadrius dubius. For several years BOU did indeed change the official name to 'Little Plover', although it was never adopted in everyday use by British birders. But in April 2007, the BOURC 35th Report announced a change in policy to (generally) follow IOC's recommended English names, and 'Little Ringed Plover' was quietly reinstated as the English name for C dubius in the British List.

So we now have a situation where 'Little Ringed Plover' is used by IOC, BirdLife International, Cornell/Clements, Dickinson 2003 (H&M3), HBW, BWP, AERC, BOU, Dutch Birding, OSME, African Bird Club & OBC; while AOU has uniquely voted to use 'Little Plover'.

A rather 'dubi(o)us' decision. It'll be interesting to see if it's retracted before publication of the 50th Supplement (2009)...

Richard

Mysticete · Feb 25, 2009

On the other hand, I have seen debates on this subforum rage about hyphen use, so I never really know what is going to antagonize or irritate some birders

tyrannulet · Feb 25, 2009

I am glad that they did not change the Gyrfalcon to Gyr Falcon as well as not changing the name of Rhinoceros Auklet

*also glad that Eurasian Coot stayed as such and did not change to Common Coot

fugl · Feb 25, 2009

An enjoyable thread, the chaos resulting from senseless tinkering with common names always making for amusing reading. That being said, I have to admit that getting rid of "sharp-tailed" is a change I can live with.

tyrannulet · Feb 25, 2009

Yeah, I look forward to the amusing comments what will come from the changes.

I agree fugl, it will be something I can deal with =)

Mysticete · Feb 25, 2009

Nelson's Sparrow is definitely better than Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrow. Saltmarsh Sparrow is kind of blah, and perhaps too similar to Seaside Sparrow, but at least a much shorter name.

tyrannulet · Feb 25, 2009

Compared to Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow it is an improvement, at least we are headed in the right direction with it, in my opinion. :t:

Oh to comment to your first post where you said we should not have a say in the name. I agree when there is no bird here the name can be confused with. With the bullfinch/chaffinch(though to not be confused with the blue chaffinch I agree) and others like that, we should go with them. But when it comes to say the coot, it would be SO confusing to say Common Coot and someone think of the American Coot. A good point was brought up by one of the committee members that most other Coots in the world is named by where it is from, so I think the Eurasian Coot should be name as thus, to show where it is from (given the similarity to our coot). /rant

Gentoo · Feb 26, 2009

The long names never bothered me much so for the sparrows I don't care too much. AOU already changed Graylag to Greylag. Not a huge leap as both spellings gray/grey are excepted in American English with the former being more common.

I agree with the coot name change for the reasons already stated. Common Starling is good. The only descriptive name that would fit the Kestrel would be Old World Kestrel, old world being a term that is no longer used. I personally have never used Common Ringed Plover, it's always been Ringed Plover in my world.

I wonder if we in the USA would ever adopt unique names for falcons and drop the falcon name from most species as it is in Europe; Peregrine, Lanner, Saker, Hobby etc. We do it with most ducks. Probably wouldn't work with the Prairie Falcon though unless it's name was changed entirely. The standardization of English names is getting closer and closer. Greater Scaup, Winter Wren and Common Goldeneye are already used more. In America we now have Long-Tailed Duck and Europe has a Lapland Longspur.

What does everyone think of the split of Carduelis?

Mysticete · Feb 26, 2009

Thinking back on it, common is normally a pretty horrible name in most bird names (although well suited to the starling, where it is pretty much the common starling over most of the world)

In daily parlance, how many American birders actually say Peregrine Falcon and not just Peregrine. I have never heard of this causing confusion, and if they did decide to drop the "falcon" part of the name, it would be no different from say Merlin. Although this to me is sort of a issue of semantics, much like the hyphen and Greylag versus Graylag situation, since it really doesn't change anything when your out in the field calling out a bird.

tyrannulet · Feb 26, 2009

The splitting is rather interesting, I read through it and find it slightly confusing but interesting at the same time.

Yeah, I rarely say Peregrine Falcon and use Peregrine almost all the time.

I agree Mysticete, Common is a horrible name for most birds since in most cases they are either not common or are only found in certain areas. And I agree gentoo, I use Ringed Plover and not Common Ringed Plover.

Hugh H · Feb 26, 2009

One comment though about the name Winter Wren while becoming more commonly used seems to me to be an extremely stupid name in most of the regions it occurs especially as a breeding bird. Though having said that I'm not sure what the alternative name could be.

Hugh

Xenospiza · Feb 26, 2009

I think keeping different names for birds occurring both in the Old and New World is sensible if they are identifiably different: e.g. Hen Harrier vs. Northern Harrier.

The American "Pacific" and "Taiga" Winter Wren should be split from the Old World form anyway... (I'm not in favor of keeping the Taiga & Eurasian forms together). Winter Wren is a good name for the very migratory Taiga form, so I could live with:
Pacific Wren
Winter Wren
Eurasian Wren
There is some evidence that the latter could be split as well, but that's probably taking it a bit too far: as the only wren in Eurasia, the name would make sense. Europeans could just drop the Eurasian in everyday usage, like with Wigeon etc.
If you're not in favor of splitting, and in favor of a single name, "Northern Wren" (which we can also drop, like in Pintail, Wheatear) would make most sense.

For birds that do not show differences keeping different names is not such a good idea unless you have to deal with a "Common" bird that will be rarer than a local "Not-common" variety. Common Yellowthroat is not a problem in Europe, but Common Loon [even if the Loon is replaced by "Diver"] is!

Gentoo · Feb 26, 2009

Hugh H said:
One comment though about the name Winter Wren while becoming more commonly used seems to me to be an extremely stupid name in most of the regions it occurs especially as a breeding bird. Though having said that I'm not sure what the alternative name could be.

Hugh

Common Wren

JK. Northern Wren would be the most fitting name if a little bland. It's the one species found across the northern hemisphere and this is usually the reasoning for adding northern to the names of many birds. Having said that, I prefer Northern Raven to Common Raven but only Peterson has ever used that. I agree that common is just not a good name to apply to birds. We can keep the name loon but perhaps call the "common" one the Great Northern Loon. It's actually called that in my European bird book.

I was just playing around with the falcon thing but I could see the AOU considering something like that once they get bored and need something else to screw with.

tyrannulet · Feb 26, 2009

I could live with the names Pacific and Winter Wren, along with the Eurasian Wren (though they would still use Wren since... what other Wren would they be referring to? 3

)

Though why can't we keep Common Loon and have them change? They seem to be getting all of the names change to what they use

Hugh H · Feb 26, 2009

tyrannulet said:
I could live with the names Pacific and Winter Wren, along with the Eurasian Wren (though they would still use Wren since... what other Wren would they be referring to? 3)

Though why can't we keep Common Loon and have them change? They seem to be getting all of the names change to what they use

I agree with the Wren but while I admit Great Northern Diver/Loon is a bit of a mouth full, off the top of my head I think Red Throat's are usually commoner on this side of the Atlantic.
What about Great Grey and Northern Shrike? Surely they're seperate species?
Also from what I know we're the ones who have been changing names to match (well at least until recently) Mew Gull, Loons instead of Divers (though I don't mind), the aforementioned Winter Wren, longspurs etc etc.
Also I don't think you'll get us to use the name jaeger, especially parsitic

Farnboro John · Feb 27, 2009

tyrannulet said:
Though why can't we keep Common Loon and have them change? They seem to be getting all of the names change to what they use

That's because we were here first. If you want American names with priority I think you'll have to start genning up on your Cheyenne natural history terms!

John

First of the AOU pending proposals up (1 Viewer)

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