Query

[Denis Wilson <>]

• The other query, how does a bird gain a description as being from a particular country, when they spend half the year, like the Dollabird and Koel, in another country.  What is it that makes them PNG - not Australian native?

• (from Jude)

Following up on Jude's question and replies from Geoffrey and Phillip, if I might dare to add my two-bobs' worth, I would think that the Dollarbird and the Koel at least breed in Australia. Whether or not they breed in PNG or Indonesia (or merely spend the non-breeding season there) is beyond my knowledge. But we do have SOME claim to them, on that basis.

Geoffrey's examples of northern hemisphere migrants, (Waders and Terns spring to mind) do not breed here, so the Northerners at least have a better claim to them, surely.

But we all know that scientific names are recognised as having precedence as long as the "naming" is accepted (as a validly published and recognised "description"). So my beloved "Brown Pigeons" (now  Brown Cuckoo-Doves) rejoice in the name Macropygia amboinensis simply because they were described from Ambon, in Indonesia, before they were identified here in Oz. But of course, they at least ought have dual nationality, and probably on a human head-count, would be recognised as more Asian than Australian (simply because more people might see them as "local birds" in Asia than here).

Personally I like to blame Paul Keating for having proclaimed Australia to be part of Asia (which claim clearly some birds agree with). Others might like to lay the blame further back in the history of taxonomy, and the international rules of nomenclature.

Cheers
Denis Wilson
Robertson NSW