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  1. C

    Best bird guides by region...Central and South America

    I agree, having recently returned from there. In fact I am quite impressed with the quality of the photo and the range of plumages they illustrate, even for very rare species like Gray-bellied Goshawk. It's fairly heavy, and I would say its main shortcoming is the lack of any info on...
  2. C

    Princeton Guide to North American Birds

    The last two plates of the field guide he shows, the ravens and orioles, are by Lorenzo Starnini, and he introduces them by saying "I've saved the best for last".
  3. C

    (Not only) Thamnophilidae

    I count four YES votes in favour of the lump (including Mark Robbins, who voted NO but whose comments clearly indicate he meant YES to the lump) and five NO votes (maintain the status quo and keep them split), so I guess it does mean it did not pass. A relief in purely "emotional" terms, but...
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    The best vagrant ever?

    What with rallids being the kings of vagrancy, maybe Swinhoe's Rail or White-winged Flufftail (if it is true they migrate from South Africa to Ethiopia)?
  5. C

    The best vagrant ever?

    At the outer edges of the outer edges of what is imaginable as a vagrant, but what about Firethroat or, better yet, Blackthroat?
  6. C

    Dark Antbirds, French Guiana

    I agree with Black-headed Antbird for the first one. The other two look like Cinereous or Dusky-throated Antshrike, I would lean Cinereous for both since they look relatively long-tailed and I can't see a contrastingly darker throat on either.
  7. C

    Name a Bird You've Seen 2

    It was Black-headed, in Colombia
  8. C

    San Cipriano, Valle del Cauca, Colombia, December_1

    I think you are right about the first two, but the barring on the belly and strong bill of the third make it a Northern Barred Woodcreeper i think
  9. C

    Cassia Crossbill being lumped again???

    A couple of people addressed this more eloquently, but while I would not have a problem either with a Red Crossbill lump or with more splits (I think the situation kind of eludes our understanding of what a species is), I think you'd have a harder time finding a more interesting topic to study...
  10. C

    Should we consider lumping more subspecies?

    I like Kirk Roth's answer to your broader question above, but as concerns vulpinus vs buteo Common Buzzard or fuscus vs intermedius LBBG, I would not consider them morphologically identical, in fact they are quite distinct for the most part. Not all individuals can be safely identified...
  11. C

    Genus with the most Common Names?

    But if Willet gets split into Eastern and Western, would you say the same? And once a genus has both grosbeaks and canaries in it, do you count grosbeak-canary as yet another name?
  12. C

    Latest IOC Diary Updates

    I'd say it's difficult in terms of proving a Scopoli's beyond any doubt in a vagrant context (and as you say, some of the difficulties are actually photographic in nature, namely nailing the exposure of a brightly lit, black-and white underwing against a dark backround of water), but otherwise I...
  13. C

    Yet another thread on eponyms... But this one might actually be fun!

    Calandro maggiore in Italian, which translates as Greater Pipit (Calandro's actually a bit more specific as it refers to Tawny Pipit and close relatives)
  14. C

    French Guiana

    I am hoping to be in FG in February and we are considering Saul. I take this to mean that food is mostly unavailable here and/or very expensive?
  15. C

    Pretty sure this is an antbird, but not sure what species. Orellana, Ecuador. March

    My first reaction was Spot-winged Antshrike based on the amount of spotting on the wing that seems to extend to the lesser coverts, but the tail is too long, and the undertail would be all dark on a Spot-winged Antshrike, whereas your bird has broad white tips to the underside of the tail...
  16. C

    Yet another thread on eponyms... But this one might actually be fun!

    It's true that the initial split was into two, but it was the discovery that Moltoni's (and not Subalpine) was the taxon breeding in much of continental northern Italy that prompted the studies that led to the split.
  17. C

    Yet another thread on eponyms... But this one might actually be fun!

    Liguria is on the margins of the range of Moltoni's, and Western Subalpine breeds there as well (possibly the occasional Eastern as well) so of the two Tyrrhenian works best (if you can spell it, that is)
  18. C

    Latest IOC Diary Updates

    I agree that quite a few of the proposed lumps make little sense, but I wonder if this is a draft and some of the lumps are meant to realign the checklist with an older version of SACC? The Dubusia carrikeri split is now a done deal with SACC and the Dacnis egregia split also seems to be going...
  19. C

    Yet another thread on eponyms... But this one might actually be fun!

    I'm guessing you mean sparrow and not junco? Either way, Canadians might beg to differ ;) My main point is that individual preferences are just that. One person's great name is another's abomination. Don't get me wrong, I find this thread quite fun, but for the practical purpose of...
  20. C

    Yet another thread on eponyms... But this one might actually be fun!

    Eponyms aside, that actually sums up my position quite well on English names. We all know what bird we're referring to when we say Cetti's Warbler. A few posts prior to this, I pointed out that the Italian name of Cetti's Warbler translates literally as River Nightingale. A completely...
  21. C

    Yet another thread on eponyms... But this one might actually be fun!

    It's Usignolo di fiume (River Nightingale) in Italian. The fact that it's neither a nightingale nor particularly tied to rivers doesn't seem to bother anyone though.
  22. C

    Yet another thread on eponyms... But this one might actually be fun!

    Kangaroo Warbler. This is what a friend who has found a couple of Radde's here it Italy likened it to.
  23. C

    Zeiss FL issue...and are they still repairable?

    Is it under warranty? Mine is from 2009 and has pretty big (and recurring) issues with eyecups and the neckstrap attachment which required me sending them in for repairs twice already, but last time I wrote to Zeiss in Italy they said the warranty is only good for 10 years. For this reason I...
  24. C

    Hirundinidae

    Looking forward to reading this in detail, on my first serious birding trip to Colombia in 2012 I remember being puzzled by some of the swallows I saw at Boca de Camarones in the Guajira peninsula and trying hard to string them into Mangrove until I saw that they did have some (quite limited)...
  25. C

    Yet another thread on eponyms... But this one might actually be fun!

    It's Falco della Regina in Italian, the Queen's Falcon
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