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Few from Portugal (1 Viewer)

sthwild

Well-known member
All taken Last week in Portugal. Please help with ID. I think they Skylark, Iberian Grey Shrike and ?Booted Eagle.
Thanks for help.






 
The eagle is slightly better than a Booted, it's a Spanish Imperial Eagle. I'm not sure of the lark ID from this single photo (I'm not sure we can exclude Thekla safely from this, would you have more images, with a side view of the head?).
 
the lark looks good for thekla.

I thought the bill looked long, pointed & pale & the crest 'spikey' supporting Crested but I guess distinct breast streaking & being off the ground are better for Thekla. I have only seen a few of each though, so more than happy to go with the opinion of the locals and those with more experience.
 
Who's splitting the Shrike?A

I'm not really too fussed about any particular authority, Andy. The OP's photo shows a Grey Shrike in Iberia that has a pink flush and asked if it was an Iberian Grey Shrike - which I think it is based on having seen only a few. But if they have a taxonomic list they prefer then it may be a sub-species of Southern Grey Shrike or some other taxon.
 
I'm not really too fussed about any particular authority, Andy. The OP's photo shows a Grey Shrike in Iberia that has a pink flush and asked if it was an Iberian Grey Shrike - which I think it is based on having seen only a few. But if they have a taxonomic list they prefer then it may be a sub-species of Southern Grey Shrike or some other taxon.

I only asked in light of the other Iberian splits, Magpie etc, thought one had passed me by.

It's Southern Grey Shrike on the IOC, a name I was familiar with and one which I think, is more appropriate?



A
 
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I'm not really too fussed about any particular authority, Andy. The OP's photo shows a Grey Shrike in Iberia that has a pink flush and asked if it was an Iberian Grey Shrike - which I think it is based on having seen only a few. But if they have a taxonomic list they prefer then it may be a sub-species of Southern Grey Shrike or some other taxon.

Well, it's nominate Southern Grey Shrike (Lanius meridionalis meridionalis) which occurs only in Iberia and extreme Southern France. Iberian Grey Shrike seems appropriate for this taxon, unless you want to call them Iberian Southern Grey Shrike* :king: As long as we all know what bird we're talking about I'm not too bothered about which common name is used (I guess this is mostly an UK thing?); now the scientific name is a different matter.

*Or Northern Southern Grey Shrike o:D 3:)
 
Well, it's nominate Southern Grey Shrike (Lanius meridionalis meridionalis) which occurs only in Iberia and extreme Southern France. Iberian Grey Shrike seems appropriate for this taxon, unless you want to call them Iberian Southern Grey Shrike* :king: As long as we all know what bird we're talking about I'm not too bothered about which common name is used (I guess this is mostly an UK thing?); now the scientific name is a different matter.

*Or Northern Southern Grey Shrike o:D 3:)

We'll have to disagree Rafael, I think that Southern is more appropriate as it's range does extend outside of Iberia even though not by much?

Southern, AFAIK, was a name used first and as I said, one with which I and probably others, was / were familiar, why the need to change it?

It's not just 'a UK thing', people are getting hacked off with the constant, messing with names!

A
 
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We'll have to disagree Rafael, I think that Southern is more appropriate as it's range does extend outside of Iberia even though not by much?

Southern, AFAIK, was a name used first and as I said, one with which I and probably others, was / were familiar, why the need to change it?

It's not just 'a UK thing', people are getting hacked off with the constant, messing with names!

A

But that can't be an argument. Most likely 99% of its population is found in Iberia. Iberian Chiffchaffs also breed in the UK, Madeiran Storm Petrels breed outside of Madeira island, Kentish Plovers are far from a Kent endemic, etc, just to name a few. To me a common name is a common name, we don't need to change it all the time whenever scientific nomenclature changes and especially not when it's only taxonomy that changes and the scientific name remains the same. That is the case of the Iberian taxon, which is the nominate subspecies. It seems there will be changes to Southern shrike taxonomy and eventually the Iberian taxon will become monotypic (there's a paper hinting at that I think) and then the name "Southern Shrike" would no longer be appropriate. But I wasn't discussing the English name for it, I was just saying that as long as we all know what we're referring to, it doesn't really matter (for me at least :) )
 
But that can't be an argument. Most likely 99% of its population is found in Iberia. Iberian Chiffchaffs also breed in the UK, Madeiran Storm Petrels breed outside of Madeira island, Kentish Plovers are far from a Kent endemic, etc, just to name a few. To me a common name is a common name, we don't need to change it all the time whenever scientific nomenclature changes and especially not when it's only taxonomy that changes and the scientific name remains the same. That is the case of the Iberian taxon, which is the nominate subspecies. It seems there will be changes to Southern shrike taxonomy and eventually the Iberian taxon will become monotypic (there's a paper hinting at that I think) and then the name "Southern Shrike" would no longer be appropriate. But I wasn't discussing the English name for it, I was just saying that as long as we all know what we're referring to, it doesn't really matter (for me at least :) )

Exactly!!!

This and the other examples, never had another name, that's my main point, they didn't need to change the name at all, it was already split from Great Grey as Southern Grey Shrike, why the need to change it? My point is not what the name is, it's the constant changing that seems unneccessary?

Why won't 'Southern Shrike' be appropriate anymore, meridionalis isn't being further split is it because if not, it's just a name change?

Here's another link, showing how it confuses people

https://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=164442



A
 
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This and the other examples, never had another name, that's my main point, they didn't need to change the name at all, it was already split from Great Grey as Southern Grey Shrike, why the need to chamge it? My point is not what the name is, it's the constant changing that seems unneccessary?

Why won't 'Southern Shrike' be appropriate anymore, meridionalis isn't being further split is it?

Here's another link, showing how it confuses people

https://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=164442


A

As I said, I think this is an issue that might be more relevant for UK birders (or English speaking birders) than for other people (e.g. the Portuguese name(s) doesn't change because of taxonomy changes). So in a way I feel this should be non of my business.
Southern Grey Shrike seems to be a bit of a 'garbage bin' taxon where several taxa of still fully unresolved affinities are grouped, before a full taxonomic review is made to the whole group. It includes taxa distributed from Iberia, to the Canary islands and North Africa (Mauritania to Sudan) to Pakistan and Bangladesh (see IOC here).
'If' the nominate subspecies is eventually split from rest of the taxa now classified under Southern Grey Shrike (L. meridionalis) then you'll need a new name (at least) for either the Iberian taxon or to the rest of the lot. Given the Iberian taxon is more range restricted and has a more northerly distribution compared to other members of the group, the name Southern would become inadequate as I see it.
Which of the Southern Grey Shrike complex subspecies was the name used on first? Was it the nominate subspecies? Then, if you want to use 'rules' similar to the scientific ones, yes, it would have priority over the rest, but I'm not sure it makes total sense to apply these rules to common names usage. And was really Southern Grey Shrike used before Iberian Grey Shrike, can this be tracked down easily having in mind it was described in 1820?
I agree with you that common names should be stable and more permanent than scientific ones in order to be useful as such. But this is probably not easy in practice. One way to reduce instability would be to have common names for all subspecies named/valid, but this is not practical and has doubtful value. And there's nothing wrong (imo) about having more than 1 common name for one species (Bonxie, etc).
 
Worth noting and perhaps specially relevant to the OP, the English language version of everyone's favourite field guide calls it Iberian Grey Shrike.
 
I only asked in light of the other Iberian splits, Magpie etc, thought one had passed me by.

It's Southern Grey Shrike on the IOC, a name I was familiar with and one which I think, is more appropriate?



A

Yes, sorry, Andy, having re-read my post it possibly came across as more argumentative that I had intended. Perhaps what I should have said was that I personally do not follow any particular taxonomic authority but use the relevant field guide for a given area both for ID and for naming - in this case, as it is in Europe, the second edition of Collins, which treats this bird as per Simon's comment above.
 
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thanks for all the responses. I was using Collins Bird Guide 2nd Edition to try and identify these birds and they use Iberian Grey Shrike. Here are two more photos of the Shrike and Lark


 
I quite like using Iberian Grey Shrike, regardless of being a subspecies or not and without delving into ever developing taxonomy issues, it has always seemed a different beast that the one's I've seen in Morocco especially the stunning elegans. Although "Iberian" can mean species/subsp. this a slightly fluid concept and includes parts of southern France that have habitats and climate very similar to Iberia and precisely where this shrike occurs.

So (for now?) when I say Iberian Grey Shrike its not implying a form at species level, just a different creature and also one of our most sedentary birds. Iberian Green Woodpecker is a similar case.
 
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