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Hi Noel
& all in Canberra
I think you
have only just uncovered the tip of the iceberg with Richards Pipit & the
Koel. Take a look at the Avibase web site, http://www.bsc-eoc.org/avibase/avibase.jsp , a monumental piece of work that lists
just about every vernacular & scientific bird name on the planet. It isn't
exactly definitive in its guidance on taxonomy for an interested by-stander like
me, more like it gives you all the choices & leaves you to make your own
mind up.
But for
Richard's Pipit, you can now carve it up into:
- African
Pipit (Anthus cinnamomeus)
- Cameroon
Pipit (Anthus cameroonensis)
- Mountain
Pipit (Anthus hoeschi)
- Richard's
Pipit (Anthus richardi)
- Paddyfield
Pipit (Anthus rufulus)
- Australasian Pipit or New Zealand Pipit (Anthus
novaeseelandiae) - the latter sounds a sensible choice to me
!
- Australian
Pipit (Anthus australis)
That's a
seven way split world-wide if you want to take it to the extreme as Avibase
lists it.
And for the
Koel, it's just about as clear. Avibase says that Australian Koel (Eudynamys
cyanocephala) has been split from Common Koel (Eudynamys scolopacea)
- which is also known as Asian Koel, Indian Koel and Pacific Koel depending
on subspecies. And Black-billed Koel (Eudynamys melanorhyncha)
has been split from Australian Koel (Eudynamys cyanocephala).
Taxonomy seems to be whatever you personally choose to
make of it, from whichever authoritative source, they all differ. The conclusion
I draw from all this is that national committees on taxonomy may be
painfully slow in coming to decisions that seem natural to us, but the
alternative option is chaos & confusion as I have tried to illustrate above.
It is
certainly confusing to me, so I keep an eye on potential splits on my personal
list & have been trying to evolve a list based on the taxon as the basic
building block rather than species, so that I can move what might be commonly
regarded as a subspecies yesterday up a level to the species rank today (and
vice versa if necessary).
This is just
one take on the situation, others no doubt would do differently, but I thought I
would like to share my thoughts as an amateur birder without any pretensions to
a scientific approach to the subject which confuses the hell out of most of
us.
Cheers
Geoff
Bowen
Norfolk,
UK
-----Original Message-----
From: Noel
Luff [
Sent: 04 February 2007
22:50
To: ; COG Lists
Manager
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Koel
and just to add to the confusion
the latest HANZAB has the Australasian Pipit
(Anthus novaeseelandiae) as opposed to Schodde & Mason/Clayton's Australian
Pipit (A australis). It would also seem that Richard's Pipit is variously
refered to as A novaeseelandiae or A richardi.
isn't taxonomy fun?
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