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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fugl" data-source="post: 1716510" data-attributes="member: 816">Well, I just read the Howell et al article, & I must say it makes sense to me.  “Must say”, because given my innate conservatism in matters of this kind, I expected to disagree with their suggestions.  I do, however, object to some of the larger groupings--e.g., Landbirds/Waterbirds (too arbitrarily defined to be useful), Aerial Landbirds (uniting Hummingbirds(?), with swallows & swifts) & Songbirds (bad name since includes tyrant flycatchers which are not “songbirds” as traditionally defined)--& if it were up to me I would just list the families seriatim without further classfication into general categories.Getting fieldguide authors (&/or publishers in the case of new editions) to agree to any kind of uniform arrangement, of course, is a different matter, and good luck to the attempt!</blockquote>