Hi Geoffrey,
I might just be nerdy enough to answer
that one. I believe that British Ornithologists Union Rarities Committee
assesses the first record of a species for the British Isles and Northern Ireland. This falls within their
role as the custodians of the official British bird list. I think they made the
decision a long time ago that the workload in assessing any further records of
vagrant birds to their geographic area (so 2nd, 3rd, 100th,
records etc) was too great a task for them and was not part of their ‘scientific’
role.
As such once a bird is already on the British Isles and Northern Ireland list, further records of
these vagrant species are assessed by the British Birds Rarities Committee.
The British Trust for Ornithology has
always focussed on ringing projects, bird population studies, and even the
major garden bird surveys in the UK.
Cheers Dan
-----Original
Message-----
From: Geoffrey
Dabb [
Sent: Friday,
13 August 2010 11:45
To:
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds]
taxonomic references
The
BOU was formed in 1858 as a scientific organisation. The RSPB (founded
1889) is essentially a conservation organisation. The British Trust for
Ornithology dates from 1932. The BOU for more than a century has been the
custodian of the British bird list.
Only
the most learned students of the arcane world of bird organisations will be
able to tell you why there is both a British Ornithologists Union Rarities
Committee and a British Birds Rarities Committee.
From:
Philip Veerman [
Sent: Friday,
13 August 2010 11:20
AM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] taxonomic
references
Interesting
and I fully agree with both comments. Sometimes we are trying too hard to
understand species. The natural world is not so clear cut that we know the
answers and the situation changes. I think it interesting though that
Martin mentions "a
group called the British Ornithologists Union and not the British Trust for
Ornithology or the RSPB". That is
not something I was aware of. It seems odd to me to have a British
Ornithologists Union and a British Trust for Ornithology and that these would
be separate organisations (in such a small geographic area). Would that not
be more confusing than the situation in Australia? I think RSPB has a
different focus.
-----Original Message-----From:
martin butterfield [ Sent: Friday, 13 August 2010
7:15 AM
To: Mark Clayton Cc: John Layton; Canberra
Birds Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Stockdill
Drive and taxonomic references
Mark
Thank you for a very helpful outline of the situation.
I think the range of choices is nicely illustrated by the way Avibase lists the
"authorities recognising a particular taxonomic concept". See http://avibase.bsc-eoc.org/species.jsp?lang=EN&avibaseid=BB0363BD6A5F4B77
for an example of this using what Birds Australia have adopted as Eastern Barn
Owl. Clements is not in this list.
A key point is that there is
an official list of birds in Australia: that is the list provided
by Birds Australia and is the C&B flavour. Many other countries have
similar lists with the content varied to suit their needs. It is
interesting that the official list of British Birds is compiled by a group
called the British Ornithologists Union and not the British Trust for
Ornithology or the RSPB. Their list is at http://www.bou.org.uk/recbrlst1.html
and also includes the "International name" as defined by Gill and
Wright (and some of these are different to the Clements name) where this
differs from their endorsed British name.
In some other fields in which i am interested -fungi and orchids there doesn't
appear to be any official vernacular name (probably reflecting the grater
number of species in those groups. The scientific name is nearly always
used. and even they are much more variable than for birds.
Martin
On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 9:11 PM, Mark Clayton <>
wrote:
John and
all,
It was
probably a comment I made about Christidis and Boles (C&B) some time back
that John Layton is referring to. I was not denigrating C&B, rather I was
pointing out that taxonomic lists such as C&B, the CSIRO book that I
co-authored and other such lists that are, given the constant and ever changing
advances in research, virtually out of date the day they are published. The
original C&B was published in 1994 and not revised until 2008. When it will
be revised again is anyone’s guess. The same happened with the two editions of
the CSIRO list that I was involved with. In the meantime advances in DNA etc
have led to splitting, and lumping, of species. Unless you are following the
scientific journals, and this could be from anywhere in the world, you will not
know what is happening in the bird world.
The one
list that I am aware of that does try and keep up to date with WORLD taxonomy
is that put out by the IOC titled “Birds of the World: Recommended English
Names” – if you want a copy, it is downloadable as an Excel spreadsheet. All
you need to do is Google it and select what you want. It is usually updated
about 3 or 4 times a year. Currently they are up to version 2.5 (July 2010) and
are working on a draft of version 2.6. In each version they list what is
currently being considered for inclusion and what potentially will be deleted,
among other things. This is the list I personally use for my list keeping,
including for Australia. It has some species that are not recognised in C&B but that
is taxonomy at work. Taxonomists will never agree on all species. There is a
book version available that as far as I am aware records subspecies, something
that I did with the CSIRO list for Australia and its territories, but C&B does not include. It is often
these subspecies that are elevated to full specific status and if you know that
you have seen them, can give you an “armchair“ tick.
I know
from a birding friend in Sweden that the majority of Swedes use the Clements checklist of world
birds; it also includes subspecies names in its book form. This again is
different to the IOC list. I am sure there are other lists out there that
people use.
What it
all boils down to is personal choice – use whatever you think suits your needs.
Mark
From:
John Layton [ Sent: Wednesday,
11 August 2010 12:48
PM To: Canberra Birds
Subject: [canberrabirds] Stockdill
Drive
.................
Several weeks ago mention
was made that Christidis and Boles was out of date. Not surprising, But what is
the informed birder-around-town referring to now that C & B is yesterday’s
news?
John Layton.
