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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sumit" data-source="post: 1737871" data-attributes="member: 1853">Just a thought here. The poster is from India. His/her access to field guides is restricted. Most of India still follows the Oriental Bird Clubs (OBC) nomenclature and taxonomy (those who don't, follow Salim Ali and Ripley). The OBC does not recognize some of the Rasmussen splits (in Birds of South Asia) as yet. BSA has never been publicly available in India and only , maybe, a few hundred copies are in circulation in India. If you trawl OBC's image gallery at <a href="http://orientalbirdimages.org/index.php" target="_blank">http://orientalbirdimages.org/index.php</a> you will not find birds named White-spotted Fantail or Indian Blackbird. And OBC remains a major lifeline for bird identification in the Oriental Region. In the circumstances, I prefer to stick to names / splits which are in vogue in the country of sighting as this allows easier understanding. A good example of names, splits and confusion is the Fantail. It is still White-throated in OBC, Rasmussen has it as a split and calls it White-spotted and Opus calls it Spot-breasted. The Blackbird remains lumped under merula in Opus I think, as it is in OBC.Like I said, just my thoughts. Cheers!sumit</blockquote>