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Common Moorhen or Common Gallinule (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter drinkdhmo
- Start date
Julian Thomas
Well-known member
Totally agree with DMW on the names issue. Scientific names are the international language - on Mallorca I once drew a German birder's attention to a Moustached Warbler by citing the scientific name, despite the fact that neither of us could speak the other's language. Attempts to standardize English names are doomed to failure, even (or perhaps especially) within primarily English-speaking countries. And if birders fail to keep up with taxonomic changes within their own areas, then I'm afraid that is their problem - it creates a problem for the likes of eBird, but at a very low level compared to the number of records they must deal with.
In essence, we could create more problems than we solve if we use a sledgehammer to crack a nut, rather than simply deal with a small number of cases as they arise.
In essence, we could create more problems than we solve if we use a sledgehammer to crack a nut, rather than simply deal with a small number of cases as they arise.
chris butterworth
aka The Person Named Above
Just to throw my twopennorth worth into the OP ( having just come back from New York and seen ......... whatever it's called ). You could try Eastern and Western Moorhen but .................... where the hell do you stand on the globe to stop that from being confusing. Common Moorhen ( present throughout the greater part of the world - Europe, Asia and Africa), American Moorhen ( present in the Americas ). Simple, particularly as it's a ( geologically ) relatively recent 'invader' to America.
Chris
Chris
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Mysticete
Well-known member
Moorhen is pretty much a nonstarter for the NA form (I am fine with it, but the members of SACC hate it with the fiery passion of a thousand suns, and it's not a well-loved name by older NA birders. Think "Hedge Accentor").
Common I could see being an issue, especially as the Common Moorhen will soon be on the ABA checklist, from a recent specimen record from Shemya island. There is always the implication that when you throw "common" before a name, that particular bird is the default species anywhere it shows up.
Actually I wonder if maybe the best option might be some form of annotation. If you try to enter a Common Snipe or Common Moorhen into a checklist for a region where they would be exceedingly rare/vagrant, some sort of warning comes up with an explanation of the taxonomic change. Of course when it comes to warnings, many people have a tendency to just click ok through them without reading.
At any rate, as I have mentioned before, I don't really have a horse in this race. Common Gallinule sounds weird to me but only because I started off birding with Common Moorhen. With the spread of ebird however, I think we will start seeing more and more completely new names show up for future bird splits.
Common I could see being an issue, especially as the Common Moorhen will soon be on the ABA checklist, from a recent specimen record from Shemya island. There is always the implication that when you throw "common" before a name, that particular bird is the default species anywhere it shows up.
Actually I wonder if maybe the best option might be some form of annotation. If you try to enter a Common Snipe or Common Moorhen into a checklist for a region where they would be exceedingly rare/vagrant, some sort of warning comes up with an explanation of the taxonomic change. Of course when it comes to warnings, many people have a tendency to just click ok through them without reading.
At any rate, as I have mentioned before, I don't really have a horse in this race. Common Gallinule sounds weird to me but only because I started off birding with Common Moorhen. With the spread of ebird however, I think we will start seeing more and more completely new names show up for future bird splits.
Julian Thomas
Well-known member
Hi Mysticete,
We have the same problem over here with Common Yellowthroat, and real trouble with Common Redpoll - which isn't, of course, as Brit breeders are Lessers, and nominate flammea is usually colloquially called 'Mealy' (and is genuinely rare round here, though more regular in winter further east and north). Remember, we Brits are even more parochial about bird names than in North America, so much so that within our area we don't even bother with modifiers for quite a lot of species (e.g. just Wren), and just as lazy about reading instructions, so I understand the problems you face.
BUBO Listing flags up a species as being a rarity within the listing area chosen, so eBird should be able to do the same. If galeata appears as American Gallinule, and chloropus as Common Gallinule but with a rarity marker against it, I think that should sort it out, barring nigh-on wilful ignorance.
We have the same problem over here with Common Yellowthroat, and real trouble with Common Redpoll - which isn't, of course, as Brit breeders are Lessers, and nominate flammea is usually colloquially called 'Mealy' (and is genuinely rare round here, though more regular in winter further east and north). Remember, we Brits are even more parochial about bird names than in North America, so much so that within our area we don't even bother with modifiers for quite a lot of species (e.g. just Wren), and just as lazy about reading instructions, so I understand the problems you face.
BUBO Listing flags up a species as being a rarity within the listing area chosen, so eBird should be able to do the same. If galeata appears as American Gallinule, and chloropus as Common Gallinule but with a rarity marker against it, I think that should sort it out, barring nigh-on wilful ignorance.
I believe Ebird will do that -- but lots of people have pre-split field guides so are ignorant ...
Niels
Mysticete
Well-known member
Ebird does that, but many birders ignore that function anyway, and so the ebird reviewer has to follow up every report. Just in the last few months we have had discussions on the aba rare bird facebook group about recent reports of Siberian Blue Robin from Wisconsin, Ivory-billed Woodpecker from a suburb of I think Alabama, TWO Rufous-tailed Robins from Colorado, etc. All have been misidentifications. Most people new to birding or who only rarely bird don't seem to have that mental connection that if a bird is only known from 2 records in the Nat Geo guide, and all our from the outer Aleutians, than odds are it shouldn't be the first choice you pick for ID.
locustella
Well-known member
Rare species are suspicious for several reasons, maybe it is better to mark them somehow really.
Snapdragyn
Well-known member
They are marked, though. Rarities don't even show up on the basic checklist for an area (you have to tick 'show rarities'), THEN you get a confirmation message when you enter a rare sighting (something like 'Blue-breasted Whatsis is an excellent sighting! Can you confirm it?').
chris butterworth
aka The Person Named Above
Fair enough. If SACC don't like it then I can live with that ( o
). So, can we have Black Vulture and Purple Gallinule back, please It's more of a case of only looking at 'your' part of the world ( We in the UK are notorious for that :eek!: ). The more I travel the more I tend to look at a species global distribution. The idea that the epithet " Common " is a no-no because of a single vagrant turning up outside it's usual range strikes me as being wrong, on a global scale, for many species.
Chris
BTW. What does SACC think of Common Black Hawk? o
C
DMW
Well-known member
Doesn't the word "common" in fact have two meanings - it can mean numerically abundant; or usual / typical. While often a fine distinction, it does mean there are situations where common birds are not at all common.
Where I live, Common Gull is the fifth, or possibly even sixth, most numerous gull. We've all managed to live with this without losing any sleep.
And Chris, did we ever give Black Vulture away? I've still yet to hear anybody talking about Monk Vulture in the real world. Perhaps our friends across the Pond might like to yield on this one and rename their rather horrible bird Mostly-black Storky-Raptory thing?
Where I live, Common Gull is the fifth, or possibly even sixth, most numerous gull. We've all managed to live with this without losing any sleep.
And Chris, did we ever give Black Vulture away? I've still yet to hear anybody talking about Monk Vulture in the real world. Perhaps our friends across the Pond might like to yield on this one and rename their rather horrible bird Mostly-black Storky-Raptory thing?
It was been said previously in BF discussions that common can have a third meaning: belonging on the commons, so found on grassy areas around villages; I would expect most of those would have had a pond as well (to provide water for the cattle or sheep).
Niels
Niels
DMW
Well-known member
Yes, this is true and is supposedly the origin of "Common" in Common Gull (which is almost invariably seen on beaches where I live, and rarely if ever on common land), but I don't think this usage has much relevance to the modern-day creation of modifiers.
The objection to using Common Moorhen as a name is, I believe, based on the question of relative abundance, and my point was that you could validly call a bird "Common" without it being (numerically) common.
The objection to using Common Moorhen as a name is, I believe, based on the question of relative abundance, and my point was that you could validly call a bird "Common" without it being (numerically) common.
As I have read this and other threads, one important aspect of the arguments is one I always liked: if a species is split, then both daughter species should have new common names. It is bad enough that the scientific name by definition stays the same, if the common name also stays the same, then it is completely impossible to know if a person is writing about the old all inclusive species or the new less encompassing.
Niels
Niels
Snapdragyn
Well-known member
Fair enough. If SACC don't like it then I can live with that ( o
Certainly I'd be willing to part w/ the vulture - I've often felt all of the NW vultures should be renamed condors anyway as a readily available & distictive group name (so perhaps 'Least Condor'?).
I think Porphyrio should be 'Swamphen', however, & we can just send the contentious 'Gallinule' out to pasture for both genera.
Julian Thomas
Well-known member
Swamp-hen is of course now the preferred name for Old World members of Porphyrio, though using it for the whole genus would reintroduce the same problems that helped lead to it being adopted as such, now that Porphryula has been subsumed into Porphyrio. Europeans who have just got our head around referring to P. martinica as just 'Purple Gallinule' rather than 'American Purple Gallinule' would then have to start using 'American Purple Swamp-hen', which sort of defeats the object.
In a global context, 'Gallinule' is preferable to 'Moorhen', much though I like the latter. Moorhen is potentially confusing even within Britain, as G. chloropus is not a natural inhabitant of upland moorland, but instead the low-lying grass 'moors' so common in my part of the world, intersected by drainage ditches (or 'rhynes') which provide perfect habitat for our 'Moorhen'.
Niels, as ever, drags us back to the original question, but while I can see his point, I still disagree. For academics and amateur birders interested in these issues, it is easy enough to distinguish it is Species A sensu lato or sensu stricto that is being discussed, both from the date of the paper and the geographical area. For the amateur birder not interested in taxonomic matters (other than perhaps for listing purposes), the global context is only going to arise a very few times, and keeping the 'local' common name will be far less disruptive than inventing a new common name that no-one has previously used.
All the best,
Julian
In a global context, 'Gallinule' is preferable to 'Moorhen', much though I like the latter. Moorhen is potentially confusing even within Britain, as G. chloropus is not a natural inhabitant of upland moorland, but instead the low-lying grass 'moors' so common in my part of the world, intersected by drainage ditches (or 'rhynes') which provide perfect habitat for our 'Moorhen'.
Niels, as ever, drags us back to the original question, but while I can see his point, I still disagree. For academics and amateur birders interested in these issues, it is easy enough to distinguish it is Species A sensu lato or sensu stricto that is being discussed, both from the date of the paper and the geographical area. For the amateur birder not interested in taxonomic matters (other than perhaps for listing purposes), the global context is only going to arise a very few times, and keeping the 'local' common name will be far less disruptive than inventing a new common name that no-one has previously used.
All the best,
Julian
chris butterworth
aka The Person Named Above
Thanks Julian. Too often it's spelled Swamphen - which, to my eyes, says Swam Fen.
Chris
chris butterworth
aka The Person Named Above
The only problem with that is that it would require field guides ( and us :eek!: ) to state both author and date after the scientific name. I have no problem with that, I do it all the time with Mollusca, but could you really see it taking off with birders?
Chris
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Sorry for this, it's probably my bad understanding of English, but I don't see how author and date would be of any help. They are not going to change after a split, are they?
Theo
