One more concern about the increase in online bird databases is
consistency - Birdstack looks very user-friendly, but I'm not sure about
the taxonomic choices it has made. I would have thought that a database
would use one of the "standard" references, Sibley & Monroe or Clements or
their derivatives. Birdstack instead uses "International Ornithological
Congress's Birds of the World: Recommended English Names"(Gill and
Wright). Is this now the standard reference? Is it derived from S&M or
Clements? It isn't really clear, and it probably should be clear - or
maybe the IOC list renders these other lists obsolete?
Anyway, my point is that not only do we have another online database (a
way of aggregating all the records of all the big online databases would
make more sense) but we seem to have yet another way of naming the world's
birds! Too confusing for me.
All I wanted was some more information on the elusive Large Lifou
White-Eye - but now I see that it is called the Forest White-Eye.
Obviously I was looking for the wrong bird!!!!!
(More about my total failure to see an "easy" endemic later when I write
up my trip report ...)
Russell Woodford
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