• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

AOU-NACC Proposals 2020 (1 Viewer)

2020-D-8: Add Long-legged Buzzard Buteo rufinus to the Main List
An error in the text:
The more eastern, nominate subspecies is much larger, and the plumage variation includes a dark morph, which is more frequent in the eastern part of its range (Ferguson-Lees and Christie 2001). More western rufinus is significantly smaller and averages a paler, more rufous belly, and it does not have a dark morph (Ferguson-Lees and Christie 2001).
Should read:
The more eastern, nominate subspecies is much larger, and the plumage variation includes a dark morph, which is more frequent in the eastern part of its range (Ferguson-Lees and Christie 2001). More western cirtensis is significantly smaller and averages a paler, more rufous belly, and it does not have a dark morph (Ferguson-Lees and Christie 2001).
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Kovalik
2020-D-8: Add Long-legged Buzzard Buteo rufinus to the Main List
An error in the text:
Quote:
The more eastern, nominate subspecies is much larger, and the plumage variation includes a dark morph, which is more frequent in the eastern part of its range (Ferguson-Lees and Christie 2001). More western rufinus is significantly smaller and averages a paler, more rufous belly, and it does not have a dark morph (Ferguson-Lees and Christie 2001).
Should read:
Quote:
The more eastern, nominate subspecies is much larger, and the plumage variation includes a dark morph, which is more frequent in the eastern part of its range (Ferguson-Lees and Christie 2001). More western cirtensis is significantly smaller and averages a paler, more rufous belly, and it does not have a dark morph (Ferguson-Lees and Christie 2001).

Good catch!
The Key says “
L. Cirtensis of Cirta, Numidia (= Constantine, Algeria)”

B. rufinus fatherland is Das obere nubien etc basically Sudan along the Niles ad Ethiopia.
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/114235#page/257/mode/1up .
Here is Vaillant 1850 F. cirtensis:
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175182#page/473/mode/1up . only the drawing is his the text is from Loche and from 1867.
Info: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/85192#page/405/mode/1up .
Vaillant is the son of the other one. He was a French soldier in Algeria in the 1840’s. The French army must have killed a lot of raptors in that campaign:
https://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=386386 .
Are Sudan birds still considered B. rufinus? Even in America Algeria is west of Ethiopia.
 
Last edited:
Are Sudan birds still considered B. rufinus? Even in America Algeria is west of Ethiopia.

IOC10.1 states for cirtensis: Mauritania to Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula.

Jowers et al 2019 focused on the taxa within the Buzzard superspecies via a battery of DNA techniques. Amongst their conclusions is that taxon cirtensis is best considered an allospecies of Common Buzzard (comprising buteo, vulpinus), although it has two lines of ancestry, the other being Long-legged Buzzard (rufinus).
MJB
Reference
Jowers, MJ, S Sánchez-Ramírez, S Lopes, I Karyakin, V Dombrovski, A, Qninba, T Valkenburg, N Onofre, N Ferrand, P Beja, L, Palma and R Godinho. 2019. Unravelling population processes over the Late Pleistocene driving contemporary genetic divergence in Palearctic Buzzards, Mol. Phyl. Gen. & Evol. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2019.02.004
 
Just to clarify, B. (rufinus / buteo) cirtensis is strictly resident, breeding in Africa north of the Sahara; B. r. rufinus is partially migrant, breeding SE Europe eastwards; the type locality of rufinus in Sudan / Ethiopia is in the wintering grounds, not the breeding area :t:
 
It is not strictly resident as there are hybrids between cirtensis and Iberian buteo in southern Spain. The Strait of Gibraltar is apparently not an obstacle for the North African birds.
 
2020-D-5: Add Tahiti Petrel Pseudobulweria rostrata to the US list
A bird was also well-photographed off Hatteras, North Carolina, on 29 May 2018. I presume that
it has been accepted by the state committee, but I am unaware of a publication on it.
Bird Records Committee reports

Swick, Nate, et al.. 2019. 2018 Annual Report of the North Carolina Bird Records Committee. Chat 83:17–21
Tahiti Petrel (Pseudobulweria rostrata): Accepted. (18-15). Easily one of the most incredible bird sightings in North Carolina's ornithological history, an adult Tahiti Petrel was seen from a Seabirding pelagic in the Gulf Stream out of Hatteras (Dare) 29 May 2018. The NCBRC received and unanimously accepted a written description from Ed Corey with photos from Peter Flood and Kate Sutherland. This record represents the first record of this species for the Atlantic Ocean, let alone North Carolina, and by virtue of submitted photographs it is placed on the Definitive List.
 
Swick, Nate, et al.. 2019. 2018 Annual Report of the North Carolina Bird Records Committee. Chat 83:17–21

Online here (currently accessible only by Carlina Bird Club members). The latest issue of Chat (84(1): 10–13, Winter 2020) includes "A Tahiti Petrel (Pseudobulweria rostrata) off Hatteras, North Carolina USA", a write-up of this extraordinary record by Peter Flood, Kate Sutherland and Brian Patteson. The cover includes a photo of the Tahiti Petrel offshore from Hatteras on 29 May 2018 by Peter Flood.
 
2020-D-3: Add Eurasian Oystercatcher Haematopus ostralegus to the US list
This is a situation which makes it unfortunate that the AOS has abandoned subspecies:
https://americanornithology.org/publications/north-and-middle-american-checklist/ .
Here they refer people to other checklists for updated subspecies. The 1995 ABA report accepting Euro Oystercatchers to ABA area does not cite a subspecies.
https://www.aba.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/ccr1995.pdf .
But the 1957 5th AOU Checklist used H. o. occidentalis for the subspecies of the Greenland specimens.
http://www.zoonomen.net/cit/RI/SP/Habi/habi00095a.jpg . Supposedly from the Orkneys.
Not sure why they did not cite H. o. m.
http://www.zoonomen.net/cit/RI/SP/Habi/habi00094a.jpg . Iceland.
The HBW do not use either subspecies so the Greenland birds are H. ostralegus ostralegus.
The Alaska Committee report diagnosed their oystercatcher as H. o. oscularis Swinhoe China.
http://www.universityofalaskamuseum...hird report of Alaska Checklist Committee.pdf .
EBird lists Russian and Kamchatka and Iceland oystercatcher groups??
 
IOC lists

ostarlegus - Iceland to Scandinavia and S Europe
longipes - Ukraine and Turkey to C Russia E Siberia to E Africa
buturlini - Kazakhstan to NW China to SW Asia and India
osculans - Kamchatka Peninsula, NE China, Korea to E China
 
Warning! This thread is more than 4 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top