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Quickest armchair tick? (1 Viewer)

John Cantelo

John Cantelo

Well-known member
I saw my first Cape York race of Graceful Honeyeater this Monday but on Wednesday came the news that the IOC had decided to promote it to full species rank calling it Cryptic Honeyeater. Certainly my fastest "armchair tick" but has anyone done still better?
 
Hi John,
assuming you've seen both types then you still get a quick armchair tick (and i certainly can't beat it for speed!)

however i think the new "Cryptic" honeyeater doesn't occur in Cape York, rather it is the taxon found further south round Cairns. The Cape York birds remain as Graceful HE.

cheers,
James

p.s. the IOC announcement was apparently made on Tuesday, so even faster!
 
No, it's Cryptic Honeyeater that's found here on Cape York or at least that's what two very authoritative sources both tell me.
 
John Cantelo said:
Apologies, you're right. I was having a senior moment and had misremembered/misunderstood what I'd been told.
Click to expand...

If it's any consolation, John, BirdLife call it Imitatress Honeyeater; Merriam-Webster define 'imitatress' as 'a female imitator', which could go down pretty badly with about half the human population...!

Probably amongst many others, I suggested the name 'Cryptic' to World Bird Names because in my case I couldn't distinguish those I saw around Cairns from those I saw on Cape York at Lotus Bird lodge and Iron Range, even when the birds were being most cooperative.

Anyway, in response to your original question, it turned out well after the event that I had seen Nullarbor Quail-thrush near Cocklebiddy on or very near the day that it had been declared a species!
MJB
 
Are we sure about the ranges here? As I understood it when I read about the split a while ago, Graceful (now) has a disjunct range, and occurs in the wet forests in the southern part of its range (including round Cairns), and also in wet forests in Cape York (eg Iron Range), whereas Cryptic Honeyeater occurs in dry the forest in Cape York (I assumed further north than Cairns, but happy to be corrected).

I'd certainly really like to see some detailed range maps, or description of ranges of the two!
 
this is fairly mysterious....

Abstract of the Nielsen paper seems pretty unambiguous

"Two subspecies of Graceful Honeyeater Meliphaga (Microptilotis) gracilis are recognised in north-eastern Queensland: imitatrix inhabiting the Wet Tropics and gracilis inhabiting northern Cape York Peninsula. .....The ranges of these taxa are separated by ~140 km in the vicinity of Cape Flattery–Princess Charlotte Bay on the eastern coast of Cape York Peninsula."

this is borne out by the range maps of the two species on the Birdlife International pages and the range descriptions on the IOC site.

can't find anything contradictory by googling.. but maybe there is something else I am missing?

James
 
I seem to recall the Essex Steppe Grey Shrike was very late autumn and the split was published within weeks afterwards? But out with the Tippex now!

All the best
 
MJB said:
If it's any consolation, John, BirdLife call it Imitatress Honeyeater; Merriam-Webster define 'imitatress' as 'a female imitator', which could go down pretty badly with about half the human population...!
Click to expand...
If it's been split from Graceful Honeyeater, why not call it Disgraceful Honeyeater?


3:)
 
Getting back to the OP, not sure where this stands relative to Paul's Steppe Grey Shrike, but I saw my first Japanese white-eye in HK on 23rd Feb 2018, saw more in the Izu Is. on 5th March, and the paper splitting them was published on 23 July 2018 - 142 days. (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10336-018-1583-7)

According to Scythebill, the HK birds would be Swinhoe's (Zosterops simplex) and the Izu birds Warbling (Z. japonicus).

I thought they looked really different at the time...;)
 
According to the latest Birdlife Australia checklist (V3), Graceful Honeyeater has two races:
Wet Tropics Graceful Honeyeater, Microptilotis gracilis gracilis
Cape York Graceful Honeyeater, Microptilotis gracilis imitatrix

There seems to be real confusion here, even among authoritative sources
 
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