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A plea for a common sequence of birds in all future bird field guides (1 Viewer)

Swissboy

Sempach, Switzerland
Supporter
Switzerland
Presently, birders who use field guides are all too often confronted with a differing sequence depending on which book(s) they use. A particular "horror" example was found in the first edition of "Bird of the Indian Subcontinent" (Grimmett, Inskipp and Inskipp 1999). There is now a second edition with lots of improvements. One of them being a more customary sequence of the birds.

As a result of this, there has been an ongoing discussion in that thread that is discussed not only with respect to the birds of India. For those who don't expect such a topic of general interest being hidden in a thread about a particular field guide, here is the link: http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=220475&page=2 The discussion starts with post #48.
 
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You're always going to get birds appearing in differing sequences in books as publishers like to do daft things like grouping by similarity, colour and other strangeness's. If we demanded that field guides were all in taxonomic order that wouldn't help either as avian taxonomy is in a state of flux at the moment and national organisations / individuals use different interpretations. Looking for a species in a book shouldn't be that onerous though, it's only like looking for a bird in the wild ( except they don't fly away as soon as you find them).

Chris
 
I know some of the SE Asian guides especially are the root of this problem, but I wonder if a better complaint might be that these guides were not conservative enough. Guides (or taxonomic committees) really shouldn't adopt novel sequences at the drop of the hat, and should only adopt changes with high support from multiple lines of evidence (nuclear, mitochondrial DNA, etc)

This is in contrast to say, keeping Ratites/Tinamous at the front of the book, preceding Anseriformes/Galliformes, which IS a well supported arrangement back by multiple lines of evidence (DNA, morphology, fossil record)
 
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pretty much agree with mysticete.
i think field guide orders *should* roll with the changes otherwise you're artificially preserving and forcing users to remember a sequence with no real meaning, however i think they should do so in a conservative manner, only incorporating changes which are well supported and well established

cheers,
James
 
i think field guide orders *should* roll with the changes otherwise you're artificially preserving and forcing users to remember a sequence with no real meaning, however i think they should do so in a conservative manner, only incorporating changes which are well supported and well established

This says it all IMO. I agree with every word & can't think of anything to add.
 
Most people would say the filed guide should group similar birds together, and be easy to use= use the same sequence to which users are accustomed.

Many each others "confusion species" are now in different families or orders eg. tinamous-wood quails, gannets-albatrosses, in Europe Reed Bunting-Lapland Bunting, Pallas Warbler-Firecrest and whole complex of Scrub-Grasshopper-Reed-Leaf Warblers. Of course nobody would like to look for them in two far away parts of the book.

Also, please remember that science has no single "best" authority nor current opinion is the final one.

A field guide trying to keep with taxonomic arrangement would need to change color plates on every edition, and perhaps have several versions to reflect different opinions. Also, such a book after a few years would become difficult to sell and use, because nobody would remember previous opinion of a day.

In short, agree with Swissboy.
 
Most people would say the field guide should group similar birds together...
...In short, agree with Swissboy.
Jurek, it's not completely clear to me which approach you agree with:
  • Steve Howell (2009) argues that field guides should adopt region-specific non-taxonomic sequences, grouping superficially-similar families together.

  • Robert (Swissboy) proposes that future field guides should follow a permanently fixed taxonomic sequence (specifically HBW, = Morony et al 1975).
These are very different approaches.

But as discussed on the other thread, I strongly agree with James etc that field guides should reflect our current (but conservative) understanding of systematics.
 
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I would stick to the HBW taxonomy for general sequence of families and groups - except some inter-family jumps eg. buttonquails with quails and Haliaeetus with Aquila eagles. It is, in any case, the one I and most birders are used to. Artificial sequences may have advantages, but I simply don't see authors worldwide (or even nationwide) all agreeing to any one.

But for names and status of species and subspecies, naturally the best recent studies should be used.

BTW, I wouldn't mind separate treatment of characteristic subspecies, morphs and hybrids, like Steppe Buzzard in the recent Collins Bird Guide. They function as some separate entity among birdwatchers and field guides should follow it, naturally telling openly the status.

BTW2, some field guides in the past actually attached full species list in proper (then) taxonomic sequence printed at the back, often with boxes to tick. This was giving people the "proper" taxonomy. In practice, it was rarely used other than for ticks. People were simply not interested which genus comes after which.
 
I would stick to the HBW taxonomy... It is, in any case, the one I and most birders are used to.
I wonder if that's still true? I'm fortunate to have HBW, but I suspect that most birders/listers are now more familiar with IOC and/or Clements taxonomy.
 
In the US at least, now one really cares about HBW. It's AOU and Clements. HBW has had much less impact on the average birder, at least here in the New World.
 
.....
  • Steve Howell (2009) argues that field guides should adopt region-specific non-taxonomic sequences, grouping superficially-similar families together.

  • Robert (Swissboy) proposes that future field guides should follow a permanently fixed taxonomic sequence (specifically HBW, = Morony et al 1975).
These are very different approaches.

........

My argument is that we need a fixed basic sequence. And as this is for field guide purposes only, it does not need to be strictly taxonomic. Taking similarities into account can still provide a basic sequence. Also, I'm pleading for this to be adopted for the major groups only. With such an approach, the two approaches mentioned above are not "very different". In fact, I find the Howell et al. paper a great start. Most traditional field guides have adopted a combination of the two approaches. The problem comes in when, just as an example, ducks get widely separated from grebes and loons, and both find a spot somewhere in the middle of the book when the vast majority has been accustomed for decades to find them near the beginning.

My suggestion of using HBW should not be taken as a way to divide the advocates of a fixed sequence for field guides! I was not aware of the progress that had already gone into this topic in North America. Thus, suggesting HBW was just a way to avoid endless discussions on a sequence. But as this discussion has already happened, it's so much the better. And as publishers of various field guides of the world are usually connected with North America one way or another, it should be possible to fit the rest of the families into the proposed sequence.
 
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Robert,
much as I agree with you in principle, I agree that there is one powerful argument against: Publishing houses, when they announce a new field guide want to be able to write "latest taxonomic information included" meaning "latest sequence included". So even if we do convince some of the more experienced birders, how do we convince enough book buyers not to fall for this so that the publishers will follow along?

Niels
 
See...one thing I don't like about the Howell sequence is the Miscellaneous Land Birds. Which to me seems equivalent to "random stuff we can't figure out where to put properly" This is much much less of a problem with a taxonomic order...at least there is some rhyme or reason to why nightjars are here and cuckoos are there
 
To go at this from a somewhat different angle, one great advantage of an up-to-date taxonomic arrangement to my mind is that it turns the field guide into a sort of illustrated family tree, displaying the various trunks, branches & twigs in all their inter-connectedness, at least as far as this is possible in a linear sequence. In this manner it gives (or can give) depth & meaning to what would otherwise be a completely arid & uninformative list. Freezing the arrangement for all time, as some people here are suggesting, throws all this away, moving our hobby that much further along the spectrum of mindless "tick" chasing.

Obviously a constantly changing taxonomy isn't the absolute best arrangement for field ID, but it's not all that bad a one either, & is certainly livable with. I personally haven't had any problem with it so far. I guess what it all boils down to is how much a certain kind of convenience is worth. To me, not much.
 
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Having birded so far in 5 different continents might be a reason why it seems a problem for me ...

Niels
 
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