Yellow-tufted HE status.

Hi Philip,

I appologise to everyone who has grown
weary of this subject but will conclude my part of this debate on the status
of the Yellow-tufted Honeyeater (YTHE) with one final broadside...(and
I guess to also show how subjective status can be)

Apart from the GBS Report stating the
YTHE is "Uncommon" the following publications go even
further.

The "Birds of the Australian Capital
Territory: An Atlas" by McComas Taylor and COG (1992 Reprint) states
that the YTHE is a "Rare winter visitor" and "...are
rarely encountered in the ACT."

Then the "Field Guide to the Birds
of the ACT" by McComas Taylor & Nicolas Day (1999) writes the
species is to be expected in the ACT in winter and autumn and it shows
a 'single binocular' icon for status - which the key states stands for
"Very Rare. Expected once in one thousand visits or less."

And the final say may go to the definitive
updated guide to the avifauna of the ACT COG's "Annotated Checklist
of the Birds of the Australian Capital Territory" compiled by David
McDonald (2003) and based on "Birds of the ACT: Two Centuries of Change"
by Steve Wilson OAM (1999).
I have inserted the full description
below:

619

Yellow-tufted Honeyeater

Lichenostomus melanops

Rare visitor, chiefly in the cooler months. Probably breeds not far away outside the ACT.

I rest my case...

Cheers
Marnix

"Philip Veerman" <>

20/07/2005 02:55 PM

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Subject	[canberrabirds] Yellow-tufted HE status.
Classification

Hi Marnix,
 
Thank you for the publicity. I knew full well  what
was in the GBS Report. I knew that it didn't say what you were quoting
and  I know that this text about some birds occurring more often in
outer areas  actually is in there for other species, so I was curious
as to how those ideas  came together. I knew that the GBS Report described
that the bird is "uncommon"  and in spite of clumsiness
of all of these terms, that is ranking is consistent  with the whole
point I was making, which is that it is not "rare". I was  lamenting
that we don't have a word for something between "uncommon"  and "rare".  As
for your further point that "The species in this
list are ranked by No. of Records, and as we  all know this can be
deceiving, as the same bird or group of birds can be  recorded many
times." To  clarify this. One record is a
species at a site on a year. One record is one  record whether it
contains 52 observations of species presence (the maximum  possible
number) or one observation of species presence (the minimum  possible
number) and it is independent of abundance.  Really I should
 have quoted the "A" value and given a level of greater
detail, your comparisons  on this are quite correct. These birds,
like a lot of honeyeaters when they are  in high densities, are very
noisy and obvious but individual birds are much less  obvious. I have
no doubt that they are often around us in small numbers passing  through
and they just don't get noticed. I hope this is my last bit on  this.
 
Philip