[pduxon]

The Titchwell redpoll thread has made me wonder.

Do you generally think certain birds should be lumped together
e.g Lesser and Mealy are just subspecies the same for Black Brant etc or do you normally say split it. e.g Northern Long Tail is not a sub species but a species

[CJW]

Good question Pete.
FWIW I think the Hooded/Carrion Crow split is bonkers - but it got me an armchair tick, so that's all that matters...
So I'd be a lumper until it suits me to split them

[robinm]

Originally Posted by pduxon

The Titchwell redpoll thread has made me wonder.

Do you generally think certain birds should be lumped together
e.g Lesser and Mealy are just subspecies the same for Black Brant etc or do you normally say split it. e.g Northern Long Tail is not a sub species but a species

I tend to go by the BOU list. I am sure that Lesser/Mealy will be lumped again soon.

[Richard D]

With my birding skills I'm a lumper - It goes something like 'Oh bother, what was that' and a guess that it was a Pipit-bunting-lark of some description that I flushed

On a more serious note, as far as my list is concerned it follows the BOU, but I'd quite like to see splits amongst the Wagtails.

[edenwatcher]

Each case on its merits I think.
Brent goose is vaguely ridiculous but unlike Chris I don't have a problem with hoodie/carrion crow. I wonder if people's views on that split are coloured by a) crows are very common birds
& b) Britain is in the zone of overlap
both of which mean we've all seen carrion/hoodie hybrids. As I recall part of the reasoning behind the split was to do with hybridisation being much less frequent than would be expected for birds of the same species.

I agree that the redpoll split may not last long, and how about green-winged teal?
Having said that, armchair ticks are always nice

Rob

[Jane Turner]

I'm a lumper.. Redpolls, Crossbills, Hoodie/Carrion Crow - get them lumped. Still think Water Pipit from Rock pipit is on the edge being dodgy.... and as for Wildfowl!!!!

This doesn't mean I don't have a big interest in identification at the sub specific level... I can never quite understand the "I can't tick it therefore I won't look at it mentality"

[edenwatcher]

How about a nice lump - large white-headed gull (Larus tedius)?

Rob

[POP]

When I am not splitting I am a lumper,which makes me a spliper

POP

[CJW]

Originally Posted by edenwatcher

How about a nice lump - large white-headed gull (Larus tedius)?

Rob

Spot-on Rob.

[StuartReeves]

Originally Posted by edenwatcher

How about a nice lump - large white-headed gull (Larus tedius)?

Rob

It's certainly on my list !

I would generally classify myself as a lumper as I am certainly sceptical of the Redpoll and Carrion/Hooded crow examples that people have mentioned. Other cases do have merit however, with things like Booted/Sykes's Warbler and Eastern/Western Bonelli's Warbler coming to mind. I also agree with Jane in that birds are worth looking at for their own sake, not for whether or not you can tick them.

In most of these cases the birds are just doing what they've always done, it is just that our perception of them has changed. With the big gulls however, I can't help but feel that by the time we have made up our minds about their inter-relationships, they will be doing something entirely different !

Stuart

[pduxon]

Got to say I'm a lumper - may be due to Incompetence though Herring Gull, Yellow Legged, Caspian, American Herring ................ zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Anyway I totally agree with Jane.

[tf1044x]

Being cynical, I suppose it depends how big your list is and how desperate you are for a tick.

[Jane Turner]

All the recent proposed Sylvia splits seem a bit silly too, but nothing beats the Brent Goose situation!

[pduxon]

Originally Posted by Jane Turner

All the recent proposed Sylvia splits seem a bit silly too, but nothing beats the Brent Goose situation!

aren't there a number of full species of Canada Goose recognized by our American cousins? Strikes me as daft.

[Dawsy]

Definitely a lumper myself and I especially like the new gull species proposed above. More seriously (though only slightly) I think there does seem to be a big thing recently for making too much of regional variation. At the risk of being unnecessarily emotive as an example how species would we be splitting humans in to (at least pre 20th century) on current form? My point is that species vary.
Michael

[Edward woodwood]

depends a bit which species concept you follow

BSC - I'm a lumper

there are several Asian species in need of splitting but these are not really akin to the redpoll and gull situation in western pal

Tim

[jurek]

I'm a lumper. But I follow the local list.

Fortunately, we have a very keen twitcher here, the Polish equivalent of uk400club owner. He keeps the lists updated according to the latest fashions. So I looked recently... wow, in my list I have Yellow-legged Gull split from Caspian... really kind of him.

[Mike Pennington]

I'm a cautious splitter.

There is also a good conservation reason for promoting well-founded splits. You try telling a government it should preserve an endemic subspecies ... Now change that to endemic species ...

Hoodies/Carrions are good semi-species. They just never stayed allospecies for long enough. If they were just subspecies species though, the hybrid zone would have covered Eurasian many thousands of years ago. They mate assortatively but are close enough to each other hybridise when necessary. Well on the way to being species then.

Small and large Canadas split from each over a million years ago I believe and have only recently come back into contact with each other. They look very similar but probably behave as better species than some other well accepted splits.

Large white-headed gulls are speciating. But we are looking at a snapshot in time. They may become full species in continued isolation but, alternatively, their ranges may overlap in the near future and they may interbreed and lose theier separate gentic identities.

The Brent splits seem premature to me on the available evidence.

Almost everyone accepts that the Lesser Redpoll split was premature. I think that the Common Redpoll/Arctic Redpoll split is probably valid but I've never been to a contact zone (such as Finland or even more confusingly, Iceland).

[MikeDale]

There not going to split those little brown jobs up any more are they?

[James Lowther]

Whether you are a 'splitter' or a 'lumper' in any given situation should depend on a combination of whether the data in that particular case supports the split/lump, and which species concept you are more convinced by (phylogenetic being more split-friendly than biological).
I'm of the opinion that the people who decide these things (e.g. the BOU in Britain), tend to do so for good reasons (not so convinced by the UK400 club guidelines however). Of course it's perfectly acceptable to disagree with their assessments in individual cases if you're well-read in ornthological papers, but i'm not, so tend to toe the party line. Having said that, my secret preference is for splits in easy to distinguish groups (geese/wagtails) and lumps in difficult ones (crossbills/redpolls).
James

[Jane Turner]

Originally Posted by James Lowther

Having said that, my secret preference is for splits in easy to distinguish groups (geese/wagtails) and lumps in difficult ones (crossbills/redpolls).
James

What.. you think all the mixed characters of Branta Geese and Flava wags are easy :)

[CJW]

Originally Posted by Jane Turner

What.. you think all the mixed characters of Branta Geese and Flava wags are easy :)

A doddle.
One's a goose the other is a wagtail...

[Nutcracker]

Each case on its own merits -

Siberian / European / African Stonechats: definite split. This one's about 20 years overdue. Why on earth hasn't the BOU followed the extensive published evidence?

Green-winged Teal: lump.

Brant Geese: lump

Whitefront Geese: split

Redpolls: six or one. Lumping some (e.g. Mealy and Lesser) but not others (e.g. Mealy and Arctic) just doesn't make sense.

Large white-headed gulls: don't know. Logically on the tiny DNA differences thay should all be lumped and called Sea Gull (Larus marinus), but that may be a bit extreme!

[James Lowther]

Originally Posted by Jane Turner

What.. you think all the mixed characters of Branta Geese and Flava wags are easy :)

I can tell a classic bernicla from a classic hrota, likewise flava/iberiae/flavissima. Anything difficult goes down as a hybrid/aberrant - i still end up with an extra tick right?

[Nutcracker]

Yellow wags: stay lumped, with possibly the exception of feldegg. But definitely not split flava and flavissima

Shore/Horned Lark: split black-masked races (balcanica, penicillata etc) from the others (alpestris, flava etc); also possibly split the Moroccan race

Rock & Water Pipits - keep split as at present (not further split littoralis)