birding-aus

FW: HBW/Birdlife International Illustrated Checklist adopted by UN Conve

To: Carl Clifford <>
Subject: FW: HBW/Birdlife International Illustrated Checklist adopted by UN Convention
From: Joseph Morlan <>
Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 03:12:10 -0800
If all you want is the new HBW list, it is available for free online at...

http://www.hbw.com/

The free version includes the new taxonomy for the non-passerines and also
provides the Tobias scoring rationale for each species. I personally find
their scoring system to be idiosyncratic at best.  It is explained here..

http://www.hbw.com/taxonomic-scoring-system
 
The IOC list is okay, but they tend to jump the gun on new split proposals
without additional peer review or deliberation.  They also include some new
splits for which there has not been a published study.  It is available for
free as a downloadable spreadsheet.

http://www.worldbirdnames.org/ioc-lists/master-list-2/

My preference is Clements, which is much slower to adopt proposed changes
until they have been thoroughly peer reviewed by an appropriate committee.
They are more conservative than either HBW or IOC and the clear choice for
North and South America.  It is also available for free in spreadsheet
format.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/

I have the new Howard & Moore on order, but it is not available in a free
format.  

My classmate, Andrew Tanenbaum famously said, "The nice thing about
standards is there are so many from which to choose." 

On Mon, 8 Dec 2014 21:47:00 +1100, Carl Clifford <>
wrote:

>It is a lot of money for two books that will be partially out of date by the 
>time they are printed. I think I will stick to the IOC list. Much more 
>portable and better priced, as well as being constantly updated.
-- 
Joseph Morlan, Pacifica, CA
"It turns out we're very good at not seeing things" - Jack Hitt

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