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Clements/eBird 2012 update (1 Viewer)

Richard Klim

Richard Klim

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eBird News, 15 Aug 2012: Taxonomy updating now!
eBird follows the Clements taxonomy, which will be updated in late August, and this year's update brings the eBird and Clements taxonomies in line with the August 2012 update of the AOU Check-List, the South American Classification Committee updates through June 2012. The August 2012 Clements update also incorporates a large number of taxonomic revisions (including many splits) from Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and New Guinea.

We'll post a complete list of the updates shortly. A few highlights to expect are:

  • Xantus's Murrelet is split into Guadalupe Murrelet and Scripps's Murrelet; the latter is more common in the United States and breeds on the Channel Islands of California, while Guadalupe Murrelet breeds on a few islands off Mexico (mostly on Guadalupe Island) and strays north to deep waters off California in fall.

  • Gray Hawk is split into two species, with the northern birds retaining the name Gray Hawk and the southern ones (south of central Costa Rica) becoming known as Gray-lined Hawk.

  • Stonechat is split into three species: European Stonechat, Siberian Stonechat, and African Stonechat. The species largely stick to their namesake continents (Siberian occurring throughout Asia), but overlap broadly in the Middle East. The few vagrants to North America have been Siberian Stonechats. [Note that this split has not yet been followed by the AOU.]

  • Numerous common name changes, scientific name changes, and order reshufflings (especially) will also occur. Perhaps most notable, falcons (Falconiformes) and Parrots (Psittaciformes) move to a position just before perching birds (Passeriformes). Amazingly, hawks and falcons are no longer considered each others' closest relatives and a Gyrfalcon is now considered to be more closely related to a Ruby-crowned Kinglet than to a Red-tailed Hawk!
And many more. Stay tuned and we'll post the full list of updates soon.
Click to expand...
Interesting to see that Cornell is re-splitting Common Stonechat (lumped in 2008, following AOU) – contra AOU! :eek!:
 
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Jim

Yes, of course. My reaction was based more on the reasons for this particular shuffling rather than why eBird was doing it. Even the eBird update describes it as amazing!

David
 
TwoDipsfromAmsterdam said:
Jim

Yes, of course. My reaction was based more on the reasons for this particular shuffling rather than why eBird was doing it. Even the eBird update describes it as amazing!

David
Click to expand...

Thanks for clarifying. This thread was apparently started to discuss what changes eBird staff had opted to make; so I of course assumed the eBird rationale was the point of your comment. Issues related to the striking taxonomic re-ordering approved by AOU have been discussed in many other threads here already.

Jim
 
Good to see the splits suggested by Collar in Forktail appearing. Also some otherwise unsupported (by publication) phylogenetic splits including Visayan Fantail and Visayan Blue-fantail.
The recent proliferation of 'Visayan' in lists is unfortunate. None of the books on Philippine birds have used this term extensively, (McGregor, Dupont, Dickinson et al, Kennedy et al, Fisher and Hicks) for good reason, and it is hard to imagine that future authors will either.
The only incidence that I have noticed is McGregor's teasing use of Visayan Cuckooshrike and Visayan Artamides, and for Visayan Sunbird.
 
dnsallen said:
Good to see the splits suggested by Collar in Forktail appearing. Also some otherwise unsupported (by publication) phylogenetic splits including Visayan Fantail and Visayan Blue-fantail.
The recent proliferation of 'Visayan' in lists is unfortunate. None of the books on Philippine birds have used this term extensively, (McGregor, Dupont, Dickinson et al, Kennedy et al, Fisher and Hicks) for good reason, and it is hard to imagine that future authors will either.
The only incidence that I have noticed is McGregor's teasing use of Visayan Cuckooshrike and Visayan Artamides, and for Visayan Sunbird.
Click to expand...

Des

What is your issue with the use of "Visayan"? Is it just the lack of current / likely usage in bird books? Intigued by your comment, I did a quick check on wiki:

"The Visayas /vɨˈsaɪəz/ və-SY-əz or Visayan Islands (Visayan languages: Kabisay-an, Tagalog: Kabisayaan), is one of the three principal geographical divisions of the Philippines, along with Mindanao and Luzon. It consists of several islands, primarily surrounding the Visayan Sea, although the Visayas are considered the northeast extremity of the entire Sulu Sea.[2] Residents are known as the Visayans.

The major islands of the Visayas are Panay, Negros, Cebu, Bohol, Leyte, and Samar.[5] The region may also include the islands of Romblon and Masbate, whose population identify as Visayan... "etc

If a species is generally confined to several islands within the Visayas, the use of Visayan seems rather helpful.

cheers, alan
 
The problem is that although it is a useful political division it includes three (or 4) very distinct biogeographic regions - the West Visayas of Negros-Panay etc, Cebu, and the East Visayas of Bohol-Leyte-Samar. It can also include Romblon province, and Siquijor. So for example Visayan Fantail will never be sympatric with Visayan Blue-fantail; Visayan Hornbill does not occur in the East Visayas - that is Samar Hornbill. Which is Visayan Bulbul, is that the one on Siquijor, on Tablas, on Cebu, on Negros? Visayan has tended to be used in recent years for West Visayan endemics, but several East Visayan endemics have been proposed including the broadbill, and Miniature babbler.
Apart from the issue of birders, especially Philippine birders, getting confused about the species, it also suggests that species are more widespread than they are.
Unfortunately the terms 'West Visayan' or 'East Visayan' are mouthfuls too far. McGregor got round it with eg Samar Broadbill, Samar Blue Fantail
 
dnsallen said:
The problem is that although it is a useful political division it includes three (or 4) very distinct biogeographic regions - the West Visayas of Negros-Panay etc, Cebu, and the East Visayas of Bohol-Leyte-Samar. It can also include Romblon province, and Siquijor. So for example Visayan Fantail will never be sympatric with Visayan Blue-fantail; Visayan Hornbill does not occur in the East Visayas - that is Samar Hornbill. Which is Visayan Bulbul, is that the one on Siquijor, on Tablas, on Cebu, on Negros? Visayan has tended to be used in recent years for West Visayan endemics, but several East Visayan endemics have been proposed including the broadbill, and Miniature babbler.
Apart from the issue of birders, especially Philippine birders, getting confused about the species, it also suggests that species are more widespread than they are.
Unfortunately the terms 'West Visayan' or 'East Visayan' are mouthfuls too far. McGregor got round it with eg Samar Broadbill, Samar Blue Fantail
Click to expand...

cheers Des,

I think if a species is confined (almost or mainly) to a single island, then the island moniker is most appropriate, eg Cebu Boobook. Clearly the use of Visayan in this case would be daft. However as a counterpoint I don't think a bird has to occupy ALL of a region to assume the geographic name! There are surely many hundreds of geographic names worldwide where this is the case. I appreciate that the term Visayan to date seems to have been appropriated for the Western Visayas (Negros, Panay) but think it is still a useful term where a species is broadly confined to a number of islands within the wider group.

cheers, alan
 
lewis20126 said:
cheers Des,

I think if a species is confined (almost or mainly) to a single island, then the island moniker is most appropriate, eg Cebu Boobook. Clearly the use of Visayan in this case would be daft. However as a counterpoint I don't think a bird has to occupy ALL of a region to assume the geographic name! There are surely many hundreds of geographic names worldwide where this is the case. I appreciate that the term Visayan to date seems to have been appropriated for the Western Visayas (Negros, Panay) but think it is still a useful term where a species is broadly confined to a number of islands within the wider group.

cheers, alan
Click to expand...

I don't disagree with your main point but none of the Visayan-named birds occur in a majority of the Visayan islands. Even so it is not really an issue for international birders. The problem is more domestic. The Philippines are significantly anglophone, particularly for birders. I am sure Chinese and Japanese birders couldn't care less about the English names of their birds. But some of the recent names have already caused confusion eg why would an owl on Bohol not be Visayan Lowland Scops but Mindanao Lowland Scops?

How about British Crossbill, Mediterranean Warbler?
 
dnsallen said:
How about British Crossbill, Mediterranean Warbler?
Click to expand...

If you mean Scottish Crossbill (an not one of the vocal forms), then that follows the Cebu Boobook example, ie a more precise geographical descriptor is available, so Scottish (or Caledonian Pine?) Crossbill is "better". Mediterranean Warbler sounds like a more logical name than eg "Sardinian Warbler". Of course there are a number of "warblers" broadly confined as breeding species to the Mediterranean basin, so it loses any value it might have as a descriptor. That may be less true when you strip out the Sylvias....

cheers, a
 
To compound the problem, I can think of at least one instance (Negros Bleeding-heart) where the species is (now) largely found on a different island to its moniker!
 
There is no perfect solution to this but I think names indicative of range are best and lead to less confusion. A Negros X bird is very likely to occur on Panay (and a few other islands); a Samar Y bird is very likely to occur on Leyte and Bohol (and a few other islands). Neither of them is likely to occur throughout the Visayas.
This pattern works well for Luzon Hornbill, Water Redstart and Bleeding-heart, all of which occur on other islands, and Mindanao Brown-dove, Bleeding-heart, Hornbill, Pygmy babbler, and Broadbill. Not to mention Bukidnon Woodcock*.
But I am not after neatness. I just want to avoid the extra work of pointing out misIDs that have followed from the term Visayan, in particular where there is congener in the Visayas that is not called Visayan.
 
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'Clements' seems behind eBird as there is nothing on the Cornell site about the 2012 updates yet.
The revised eBird taxonomy has nothing to show what has changed, and I find the inclusion of all the horrible hybrids etc etc distracting.
Hopefully the Clements update when it comes will have the usual list of changes as well as the revised chart.

Steve
 
Steve Lister said:
'Clements' seems behind eBird as there is nothing on the Cornell site about the 2012 updates yet.
The revised eBird taxonomy has nothing to show what has changed, and I find the inclusion of all the horrible hybrids etc etc distracting.
Hopefully the Clements update when it comes will have the usual list of changes as well as the revised chart.

Steve
Click to expand...

The website shows the changes http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/taxonomic-update-august-2012
though the excel file doesn't seem to
Des
 
Des - do you know if there will be a distinct Clements update or do people have to pick out what they want from the eBird one ?

Even though I use eBird I do find the waffle very irritating.

Steve
 
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