birding-aus

RFI : Twitcher questions re NEW SPECIES FOR AUSTRALIA?

To: Ian May <>
Subject: RFI : Twitcher questions re NEW SPECIES FOR AUSTRALIA?
From: Chris Sanderson <>
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:49:20 +1000
Hi Ian,

This has been had out before on B-aus, with no sound resolution.  There was
a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that by the definition, you could tick birds on
any Australian embassy in any country.  I think most twitchers include
continental Australia, Tasmania, Macquarie and Heard Island, Norfolk and
Lord Howe Islands, the Torres Strait islands and Christmas and Cocos Keeling
Islands.  And Ashmore Reef of late.  The thing about twitching is it doesn't
matter what reasons you use to define the boundaries, as long as people are
working from the same areas if you want to compare lists.  If you want to
keep your own, more logical list, I believe a few people are keeping a
biogeographic Australian list, and they can no doubt pipe up with how they
define those boundaries.

Regards,
Chris

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 10:37 AM, Ian May <> wrote:

> <>
> Hi all
>
> While counting up my Australian bird list recently some questions were
> raised by a non birding friend re geographical limits that apply to record
> species on the Australian national list.  I showed some recent posts about
> Christmas Island birds titled "New Species for Australia" indicating that
> this is what we do and generally the list is developed around political
> boundaries relating to the nation and its territories.
>
> However I was unable to give easy answers to the questions.
> For example, if the reason is political boundaries, why are not all New
> Guinea birds recorded on the Ausie historical list?    Are birds recorded
> from French Polynesia in the Pacific or Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean
> considered part of the French national bird list?   Are birds recorded from
> Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean part of the UK bird list?     Outside of
> Australia do others follow the same rules?  If so is there any part of the
> world that would not qualify for the US list?   The exercise has left me
> wondering about the rationale of recording national bird lists.
>
> During the exercise some interesting geographic facts about Australia and
> its territories were indicated.
> The closest Australian mainland location to Christmas Island (South Point)
> is North West Cape (Jabiru Point), distance 830 Nm. (1538 km.)    However
> the distance from Christmas Island to Java, Indonesia is only185 Nm.   Cocos
> Island to Australia (Jabiru Point) is 1137 Nm (approx. 2100 km).
>
> Hoping we can have a friendly discussion about this subject.
>
> Regards
>
>
> Ian May
> PO Box 110
> St Helens Tasmania
>
> 0428 337956
>
>
>
>>
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