canberrabirds

What Intermediate Egret Is That?

To: "" <>
Subject: What Intermediate Egret Is That?
From: calyptorhynchus via Canberrabirds <>
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2023 00:10:08 +0000
Never look a gift split in the mouth.



On Tue, 31 Oct 2023 at 09:23, Geoffrey Dabb <> wrote:

I recently offered the below to birding-aus.  It might be of interest as the scene is from our very own Kelly Swamp, more or less.

 

From: Birding-Aus On Behalf Of Geoffrey Dabb
Sent: Saturday, October 28, 2023 11:43 AM
To:
Subject: [Birding-Aus] Return of the Plumed Egret

 

It was in 2014 that Birdlife International resurrected Gould’s Plumed Egret.  This was followed five years later by Birdlife Australia in its WLAB v.3.  According to the theory behind that, you only (or just about only) find Intermediate Egrets to Australia’s north. I know from bird hide conversations that this particular taxonomic update has been a surprisingly difficult pill to swallow. Even Birdlife Australia has difficulty with it.  The Intermediate Egret A. intermedia is offered for ticking in the recent Aussie Bird Count. Australian Faunal Directory is also slow or unpersuaded.  However, now that eBird and its associated taxonomy (Cornell Lab BoW)  have accepted the return of plumifera the tide has surely turned, and I’d expect other lists to follow.

 

The real Intermediate Egret is listed as vagrant to Australia, but just how difficult will it be to add to your Australian list, maybe even retrospectively?  It seems you’ll need to pay particular attention to those vaguely distinguishable bare parts. There is an intermedia/plumifera record for Christmas Island that will be due for revisiting, so check your diary or photo album for medium-sized egrets seen there. I see from the BARC archive that a claimed sighting of intermedia at Cairns in June 2019 is ‘under review’ (case number 1192).

 

Geoffrey

 

 

--
This is the email announcement and discussion list of the Canberra Ornithologists Group.
Emails posted to the list that exceed 2 MB (2,000 kB) in size, including attachments, will be rejected.
All emails distributed via the list are archived at http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/archives/html/canberrabirds. It is a condition of list membership that you agree to your contributions being archived.

Canberrabirds mailing list

https://lists.canberrabirds.org.au/mailman/listinfo/canberrabirds


--
John Leonard
Canberra
Australia
www.jleonard.net

Make nature great again.

Attachment: ATT00001.txt
Description: ATT00001.txt

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the Canberra Ornithologists Group mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the list contact David McDonald, list manager, phone (02) 6231 8904 or email . If you can not contact David McDonald e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU