I am surprised that with the parallel debate over the utility of the new
Pizzey guide, it has not been mentioned that Peter Menkhorst has renamed the
bird from Great Skua to Brown Skua Catharacta antarcticus in the new
edition. In the introduction it mentions that, 'the bird names in the
book...mostly follow the current official list... in an attempt to ensure
that this guide is as current as possible, taxonomic name changes likely to
be included in the new list have been anticipated in this edition, but some
discrepancies may occur'.
As to the negative comments, I take my hat off to the Peter Menkhorst, Frank
Knight and all else involved in the production. This is obviously a labour
of love as I don't think the field guide market in Australia would be very
lucrative.
Cheers
Alastair
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of alan morris
Sent: Thursday, 9 August 2007 9:01 AM
To:
Subject: Great Skua
Chris,
What has not been said about the Great vs Brown Skua debate, is that calling
the bird a Brown Skua by Simon was a lapse on his part. As a monitor for the
Birdline NSW, he knows that both NSW and Australia, as a whole, uses
Christidis & Boles 1994 "The Taxonomy and Species of Birds of Australia and
its Territories" as a guide for scientific and English names for Australian
Birds. To do otherwise will cause confusion, especially for those new to
birding.
Until such times as the new version of this list is published by Birds
Australia ( in November?), we have to stick to using those names. I don't
think that anyone has flagged that the authors are likely to split this
species?
Alan Morris
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