Russell Woodford said
Congratulations to Mike Carter for being the first person ever to see 800
bird species in Australia!
Thank you Russell and others that voiced similar sentiments. I have made it
to 800 but not by the margin I said yesterday. I'm actually on 801 or 802
An hour on the phone with Bill Ramsay this morning who'd done a similar
exercise on the new Checklist has uncovered an error of one. So I'll correct
the numbers re the new Checklist and resend.
A word of warning for those doing similar analyses. Don't make the mistake
of thinking that once a species is extinct it is always extinct! The 1994
checklist had 13 extinct species but the 2008 one has 14. This is not
because we've lost another bird in that period. In fact we lost 2 but only
on paper! These are the NZ Red-fronted (AKA Red-crowned) Parakeet that once
existed on Macquarie Island has been split from the extant Tasman Parakeet
of Norfolk Island and the NZ Fantail. The latter is because the population
of Grey Fantail that once existed on Lord Howe Island is now split. So it's
not that they've gone missing since 1994 it is just that they are now
recognised to be distinct species not subspecies.
So one might imagine that that should make it 15 not 14 extinct in the new
Checklist! No, because it is now thought that the Tasman Booby from Lord
Howe listed as extinct in the 1994 Checklist never really existed! It was
identified as a distinct species erroneously from fossil remains!
Mike Carter
30 Canadian Bay Road
Mount Eliza VIC 3930
Tel (03) 9787 7136
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