birding-aus

Cocos & Christmas Island Rarities

To: david taylor <>
Subject: Cocos & Christmas Island Rarities
From: Laurie Knight <>
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2011 12:09:46 +1000
It's a case of political lists vs biogeographical lists.

I suspect that relatively few birders maintain both types of list.

On 09/01/2011, at 11:56 AM, david taylor wrote:

Another who agrees - I would love to bird Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands but this recent notion that they are part of the Australian bird list is in my opinion flawed - they may be Australian Territories but are vast distances from Australia, Surley just because they are Australian territories does not make them Australian birds?

I pose the scenario that if next year a country in South America became an Australian Territory that some of our twitchers would be adding Toucans to the Australian list - this may seem silly but in reality what is the difference in the two scenarios. I struggle too see how distance can form the basis of the argument? Cocos islands are 3600 kms due west of Darwin. Darwin to Thailand is less distance - if it became a territory would we be adding all of their birds?

I would be interested to hear the attitude of those who do believe these birds are valid on the Australian list because they are Australian Territories and if so what would be the difference if indeed we gained a new territory in a place like Sth America or Asia?

And as Tom points out - do the French birders add New Caledonia birds because its a territory of theirs?

Seems its great sport for our twitchers (and absolutely nothing wrong with that) - but a long bow for mine that they form part of the Australian bird list.

But each to his own and great birding all.

cheers

David Taylor



On 09/01/2011, at 10:32 AM, Carl Clifford wrote:

Tom,

I heartily agree. You could almost say that birding on Christmas and Cocos was SE Asian birding for xenophobes, except for the fact that the population of Cocos is mainly Malay and the population of Christmas is mainly Middle Eastern, albeit they are banged-up in a concentration camp

Cheers,

Carl Clifford


On 09/01/2011, at 7:38 AM, Tom Tarrant wrote:

Hi Frank,

I think you are missing the point regarding that comment, as exciting as Christmas and Cocos sound (I would love to go birding there!) they are not
in the same faunal zone as Australia so many birders don't see the
relevance. You may as well go New Caledonia and add those species to your
'French' list.

Tom



And I remember there was a comment about the possible Short-toed Eagle in Victoria being better than the rarities reported on Cocos and Christmas in December. Sorry. Not even close!!! I saw 11 new birds for my Australian list, and I dipped on two. Even Mike Carter added 9 birds to his Australian
list.


--
********************************
Tom Tarrant
Kobble Creek, Qld

http://kobble.aviceda.org

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/aviceda/
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