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2 San Diego CA rails (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter zoutedrop
- Start date
tom baxter
Well-known member
They are in fact Ridgeway's nice job getting open looks of them!
tom baxter
Well-known member
One or the greats of American Ornithology. Wrote the first detailed identification criteria for almost all North American birds. Museums still use his multivolume works today for identifying tricky taxa (particularly subspecies). Although the lumping era of the 1930-1980 lumped many of what Ridgway considered species, the latest splitting fiesta has come to recognize much of Ridway's taxonomy as legit. And the spelling - well, that is the way his name is spelled.
Andy
zoutedrop
zoutedrop
I checked that entry prior to my request. There is nothing in there,
including the list of birds named after him, that includes Rallus Obsoletus.
zoutedrop
zoutedrop
Yes, I’m aware of who Ridgway was and of the importance of his magnum opus. My objection to naming the rail after him is mostly esthetic—“Ridgway’s Rail” to my eyes just looks ugly on the page. Better IMO would be a geographical or descriptive name. That’s all my comment amounted to—a personal predilection mildly expressed and certainly nothing for anybody else to fuss about
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CalvinFold
Well-known member
Nice photos of this near-threatened species. Consensus around here is that they are "tricky" to spot.
I say "tricky" because my partner has gotten good at it (by going against common spotting advice) and we are lucky enough to live near a sanctuary where they are going out of their way to protect them.
I say "tricky" because my partner has gotten good at it (by going against common spotting advice) and we are lucky enough to live near a sanctuary where they are going out of their way to protect them.
When I lived in the Bay Area decades ago, the old Palo Alto Yacht Harbor was a sure spot for them, even at low tide. At high tide (along with Virginia Rails, Soras and, at the very highest tides, Black Rails) they were all over the place! Don’t know. what the current state of affairs might be.
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Many years ago I stood on the boardwalk at the Palo Alto Baylands and scanning around the marsh counted 24 Ridgway's Rails (or Clapper Rails, as we called them then). There are a few left, but it is very hard to find Ridgway's there now, even on the highest tides.
These decisions are made by the Committee on Classification and Nomenclature NACC of the American Ornithologists Society, experts who evaluate the evidence and whose recommendations most ornithologists in North America follow.
zoutedrop
zoutedrop
thanks, just the key I was looking for,
Here is the reference to Robert Ridgway:
https://www.fws.gov/uploadedFiles/R...cisco_Bay_Complex/e-tideline winter final.pdf
Nutcracker
Stop Brexit!
Much of the problem seems to be the unexpected spelling of the chap's name and the way it confuses people - already two variant spellings in this thread alone!
Nutcracker
Stop Brexit!
"Rij-way", surely, in analogy with "judgment".
