2024 ABA Checklist update (1 Viewer)

[Mysticete]

I have to say that I find this all rather bizarre. The merging of the eBird and the official approach to me is nonsensical. eBird went from a database which made no real judgment. It was a repository of sightings. To one in which they started applying some judgements with their exotic categorisations which was not meant (as far as I understood) to be an official record. To one where effectively, the listing/official record has started homogenising! That makes no sense to me. It is theoretically muddled. My personal experience is that simply leads to bewilderment.

All the best

Paul

Unfortunately many birders also use it for listing purposes, which can interfere with nonbiased data collection as far as things like introduced species are concerned. The main reason why there is a provisional list is to encourage data collection on species not considered established but which are likely on track for that. There are a lot of birders for one reason or another that won't include any introduced species in a checklist they submit, unless it is considered countable.

It also a way to allow birds whose validity has been questioned on origin to be listed, since that in the past is often a major source of disagreement.

 

[Paul Chapman]

Unfortunately many birders also use it for listing purposes, which can interfere with nonbiased data collection as far as things like introduced species are concerned. The main reason why there is a provisional list is to encourage data collection on species not considered established but which are likely on track for that. There are a lot of birders for one reason or another that won't include any introduced species in a checklist they submit, unless it is considered countable.

It also a way to allow birds whose validity has been questioned on origin to be listed, since that in the past is often a major source of disagreement.

Yes. I recall reading the rationale. I was a reviewer at the time. It does not stand up to analysis in my view and simply adds a different bias line even if it is correct.

It also adds the capability for individual records of species to be treated arbitrarily.

Anyone who is tempted to keep a personal list will simply end up reviewing the mix of species added by the approach - taking off some and adding others. Anyone keeping an official list will end up removing the Exotic: Provisional category but still needing to check if any of their individual records are misclassified...

All rather bizarre.

All the best

Paul

 

[Jeff Hopkins]

Cornell inherited the Clements list. Cornell also developed eBird as a database and recording/photo collection tool - they already had their own collection.

The complications came when the ABA declared eBird/Clements as the "official" list of ABA listers. That meant that Cornell had to have a "scientific" basis for its list. But that was in conflict with its original purpose of data collection, because people didn't want non-countable or heard birds on their lists. And it was too complicated to create multiple databases for differing taxonomies.

It became even more messed up when Cornell's solution was to decide what was provisional, escaped, or similar. That added some birds that weren't countable and missed some birds that were.

IMO, what Cornell needs to do is provide some way for the user to exclude certain birds from their personal totals, but not from the full data set. That way, people can include all the exotics and heard birds in the data, but exclude them from their lists.

But my experience is that Cornell isn't really interested in feedback on functionality with regard to personalization from the users. I've tried. They don't care about that.

 

[Mysticete]

Cornell inherited the Clements list. Cornell also developed eBird as a database and recording/photo collection tool - they already had their own collection.

The complications came when the ABA declared eBird/Clements as the "official" list of ABA listers. That meant that Cornell had to have a "scientific" basis for its list. But that was in conflict with its original purpose of data collection, because people didn't want non-countable or heard birds on their lists. And it was too complicated to create multiple databases for differing taxonomies.

It became even more messed up when Cornell's solution was to decide what was provisional, escaped, or similar. That added some birds that weren't countable and missed some birds that were.

IMO, what Cornell needs to do is provide some way for the user to exclude certain birds from their personal totals, but not from the full data set. That way, people can include all the exotics and heard birds in the data, but exclude them from their lists.

But my experience is that Cornell isn't really interested in feedback on functionality with regard to personalization from the users. I've tried. They don't care about that.

I agree that more personalization would be nice, especially since it should be easier with the different categories. It feels like it wouldn't take a lot of work to create some sort of toggle that allowed you to exclude introduced species, or exclude provisionals, in your personal totals. I'm not really sure however they could have avoided some of these issues. Some segment of ebird users were always going to use ebird to create track of their lifelist, which was always going to create some manner of conflict on what is and isn't countable since people really do have different standards.

As far as implementing feedback, I imagine Cornell's resources are stretched very thing on the ebird side of things. There is a lot of stuff Cornell really needs to update...just look at Birds of the World.

 

[Kirk Roth]

Sadly I feel the article comes a bit too early. The recent Herring Gull decision will be the first case where there will be a discrepancy in number of species in ebird versus ABA as a result of a taxonomic split. Namely AOS rejected the split (for now) but ebird accepts it, and American Herring (obviously), Vega, and European Herring Gull all occur within the ABA area. So will these be separate ticks?

So it sounds like you're saying the article says they are not adopting the split - is that correct?

And you can't say its the first case of discrepancy - but its the first case of discrepancy in the four years (I think) since they went with Clements. If I recall correctly, it all started with the Mexican Duck split - which is frankly a somewhat comparable taxonomic situation to the Herring Gulls.

It is odd then, that the ABA is all Clements but for that one big exception.

 

[Mysticete]

So it sounds like you're saying the article says they are not adopting the split - is that correct?

And you can't say its the first case of discrepancy - but its the first case of discrepancy in the four years (I think) since they went with Clements. If I recall correctly, it all started with the Mexican Duck split - which is frankly a somewhat comparable taxonomic situation to the Herring Gulls.

It is odd then, that the ABA is all Clements but for that one big exception.

The article doesn't make a single mention of Herring Gull. Given that the AOS supplement came out this week, and the article was probably written months ago, why would it?

 

[Paul Chapman]

Isn't all of this just a timing issue and the Working Group for Avian Checklists is going to harmonise all of this next year?

(We will just be left with arguments and individual action over vernacular names then. )

All the best

Paul

 

[Mysticete]

Isn't all of this just a timing issue and the Working Group for Avian Checklists is going to harmonise all of this next year?

(We will just be left with arguments and individual action over vernacular names then. )

All the best

Paul

AOS has not signed on technically with the WGAC goal. They will continue to evaluate taxonomy independently of that group and thus there will continue to be differences.

 

[Paul Chapman]

AOS has not signed on technically with the WGAC goal. They will continue to evaluate taxonomy independently of that group and thus there will continue to be differences.

🙄

All the best

Paul

 

[raymie]

So it sounds like you're saying the article says they are not adopting the split - is that correct?

And you can't say its the first case of discrepancy - but its the first case of discrepancy in the four years (I think) since they went with Clements. If I recall correctly, it all started with the Mexican Duck split - which is frankly a somewhat comparable taxonomic situation to the Herring Gulls.

It is odd then, that the ABA is all Clements but for that one big exception.

Actually the first split that Clements did that did not align with the AOS was the split of Purple Swamphen.

Cornell inherited the Clements list. Cornell also developed eBird as a database and recording/photo collection tool - they already had their own collection.

The complications came when the ABA declared eBird/Clements as the "official" list of ABA listers. That meant that Cornell had to have a "scientific" basis for its list. But that was in conflict with its original purpose of data collection, because people didn't want non-countable or heard birds on their lists. And it was too complicated to create multiple databases for differing taxonomies.

It became even more messed up when Cornell's solution was to decide what was provisional, escaped, or similar. That added some birds that weren't countable and missed some birds that were.

IMO, what Cornell needs to do is provide some way for the user to exclude certain birds from their personal totals, but not from the full data set. That way, people can include all the exotics and heard birds in the data, but exclude them from their lists.

But my experience is that Cornell isn't really interested in feedback on functionality with regard to personalization from the users. I've tried. They don't care about that.

Or, perhaps people can just think of the lists eBird gives them and their own personal lists as completely separate things?

 

[Paul Chapman]

Actually the first split that Clements did that did not align with the AOS was the split of Purple Swamphen.

Being reversed by the WGAC I understand?

All the best

Paul

 

[Kirk Roth]

The article doesn't make a single mention of Herring Gull. Given that the AOS supplement came out this week, and the article was probably written months ago, why would it?

That's precisely what I was thinking.

You stated: "The recent Herring Gull decision will be the first case where there will be a discrepancy in number of species in ebird versus ABA as a result of a taxonomic split." If not from the ABA, where did you get this information?

 

[Mysticete]

That's precisely what I was thinking.

You stated: "The recent Herring Gull decision will be the first case where there will be a discrepancy in number of species in ebird versus ABA as a result of a taxonomic split." If not from the ABA, where did you get this information?

Ebird/Cornell is doing a 4-way split of Herring Gull. AOS didn't pass this split. Ergo, once the update for ebird is published come October, one of two things happen:
Either ABA adds the Herring Gull splits as countable ticks (So American Herring, Vega, and European Herring)
OR
They don't, which means folks "ABA lists" on ebird will have extra species and not be accurate. hence my statement of discrepancy.

 

[Kirk Roth]

Ebird/Cornell is doing a 4-way split of Herring Gull. AOS didn't pass this split. Ergo, once the update for ebird is published come October, one of two things happen:
Either ABA adds the Herring Gull splits as countable ticks (So American Herring, Vega, and European Herring)
OR
They don't, which means folks "ABA lists" on ebird will have extra species and not be accurate. hence my statement of discrepancy.

Yes, and this is more of an either/or statement than what was said before.

My prediction would be that the ABA follows Cornell because that is what they have been doing in the past several years including the latest checklist. It would be very anomalous for them to carve out an exception for the Herring Gull complex. But anomalous exceptions aren't unheard of, so we'll see.

 

[Kirk Roth]

Common Hill Myna hasn't been sighted in Florida since May of 2022. Considering how densely populated the area they occur in is it's difficult to imagine them going undetected for such a long period of time.

It was brought to my attention that, at least according to eBird, there hasn't been a Silver Pheasant reported in Nanaimo BC since 2013. I'm guessing that bird is not long for remaining on "provisional lists" in either the ABA or eBird systems.

 

[raymie]

It was brought to my attention that, at least according to eBird, there hasn't been a Silver Pheasant reported in Nanaimo BC since 2013. I'm guessing that bird is not long for remaining on "provisional lists" in either the ABA or eBird systems.

But that's also a bit of a different case. Silver Pheasants are much more secretive and live in a much less densely-populated area than the mynas. There are also relatively few birders birding this area and probably even fewer specifically looking for this species. Even before 2013, it was frequently years between sightings. I would not at all be surprised if that population is still thriving undetected.

Regardless, I still want to know what's going on with Great Tit.

 

[Kirk Roth]

But that's also a bit of a different case. Silver Pheasants are much more secretive and live in a much less densely-populated area than the mynas. There are also relatively few birders birding this area and probably even fewer specifically looking for this species. Even before 2013, it was frequently years between sightings. I would not at all be surprised if that population is still thriving undetected.

Regardless, I still want to know what's going on with Great Tit.

I agree there are huge differences. Still, if it is many years between sightings - is that really a bird that is "established?" Certainly not more so than many species which are not even under consideration...

On the Great Tit, I have good but not shareable reasons to think it is just as you speculated earlier - that there was some confusion on whether it goes on the Provisional list due to the vagrant report of one in Alaska which has not yet been vetted by ABA. My belief is that another CLC update will occur this fall to incorporate the Clements/eBird changes, and that Great Tit might be added to the Provisional List at that time.

 

[raymie]

I agree there are huge differences. Still, if it is many years between sightings - is that really a bird that is "established?" Certainly not more so than many species which are not even under consideration...

On the Great Tit, I have good but not shareable reasons to think it is just as you speculated earlier - that there was some confusion on whether it goes on the Provisional list due to the vagrant report of one in Alaska which has not yet been vetted by ABA. My belief is that another CLC update will occur this fall to incorporate the Clements/eBird changes, and that Great Tit might be added to the Provisional List at that time.

If the population is there, I don't see why it would be any different even if observations are very rare - to compare it to a native species, it would be like Gray-headed Chickadee. They're always around in the ABA area, just almost never observed.

 

[Kirk Roth]

If the population is there, I don't see why it would be any different even if observations are very rare - to compare it to a native species, it would be like Gray-headed Chickadee. They're always around in the ABA area, just almost never observed.

I don't think the ABA or eBird is going to be comparing it to native species - and also disagree that it is comparable (there was a Gray-headed reported in Fairbanks last week). Also the Gray-headed Chickadee occurs in a remote and underbirded area, not a regional district with 500+ checklists per month.

I think Golden Pheasant in Maui might be comparable in both habits and secretive nature... except that the Golden is in a much more difficult area and habitat to survey and is still more frequently reported. I'm not convinced (based on eBird coverage) that Namaimo is so sparsely covered by birders that a "thriving" population would go undetected - especially when eBird comments from older records indicate they were seen "every year" and were "widespread" and the locations seem to be centered in the city itself. Of 332 species with data, there are only 26 other species which haven't been reported since 2013 - 25 of these are vagrants... plus Crested Myna. None of these birds have established populations in Namaimo.

Meanwhile, there are populations of other birds which have far more evidence of staying power, but (rightly I think) not considered "established." Several species of parrot which haunt the neighborhoods in Palm Springs, Florida for example. The "thriving" populations of domestic Graylags and Swan Geese which breed ferally in several cities. The Helmeted Guineafowl all over Florida (and places in Hawaii) which flirt with feral status. Red-legged Partridge in Quebec and Lake Okeechobee Florida. If there is so much less evidence of Silver Pheasant presence than of these birds, then I would certainly agree with a decision to "downgrade" its label.

 

[Kirk Roth]

Ebird/Cornell is doing a 4-way split of Herring Gull. AOS didn't pass this split. Ergo, once the update for ebird is published come October, one of two things happen:
Either ABA adds the Herring Gull splits as countable ticks (So American Herring, Vega, and European Herring)
OR
They don't, which means folks "ABA lists" on ebird will have extra species and not be accurate. hence my statement of discrepancy.

ABA put out a checklist update this weekend. In it, they adopt the ABA taxonomy changes related to Scopoli's Shearwater, Cocos Booby, Siberian Pipit, and Redpoll, but notably do NOT adopt Clement's Herring Gull split, so touché.