As a lowly North American who hasn't been to Australia since 1974, I cannot
comment with any real credibility on Lloyd Nielsen's criticisms of the
locality information in "Where to watch birds in Australasia and Oceania" -
even for one of my old stomping grounds, the Atherton Tableland (is
Walkamin Lagoon still there? Are there still Green Pygmy Geese on it?).
But I would like to come, ever so gingerly, to the author's defense on the
subject of nomenclature.
>For a start, five friarbirds are mentioned for these areas - Little,
>Noisy, Helmeted, Silver-crowned and New Guinea. Not bad considering
>only three occur in the area. Silver-crowned occurs well to the north
>(Cooktown). Most people would not know that 'New Guinea Friarbird' is
>an alternative name for the Helmeted Friarbird in New Guinea, but no
>mention is made of this. (Using Clement's taxonomy ? can be confusing
>to Australians).
This confusion seems to be partly the fault of Sibley, not Clemens. Sibley
treats the population of "Helmeted Friarbird" in northeast Queensland as
conspecific with the New Guinea Friarbird, giving the ranges of the two
species as follows:
Philemon buceroides HELMETED FRIARBIRD. Forest, edge, woods, mangroves.
Lowlands of the w,c Lesser Sunda is. from Lombok and Sumba e to Wetar and
Timor; cn Australia in n N. Territory from Darwin e to Arnhem Land, incl.
Melville I.
Philemon novaeguineae NEW GUINEA FRIARBIRD. Forest, edge, woods,
mangroves. Up to 1500 m in the Aru Is. and w Papuan is. of Waigeo, Kofiau,
Salawati, Batanta and Misool; New Guinea, incl. Japen I.; ne Australia in
ne Queensland from Cape York Peninsula s to near Mackay; islands in sw
Torres Strait and off e coast of Queensland. Generally below 300 m and
within 30 km of the coast in Australia.
[NB: This is taken from Version 2 of the electronic edition of Sibley,
Copyright 1994-1996, Dr. Charles Sibley and Thayer Birding Software, Ltd.]
As this is certainly different from what Australians are used to (and
different from what you find in field guides), I can see people getting
confused. For the Silver-Crowned Sibley is more orthodox:
Philemon argenticeps SILVER-CROWNED FRIARBIRD. Open forest, riparian
woods, mangroves. Ne W. Australia w to Derby, n N. Territory s to Larrimah
and ne Queensland s to Cloncurry and near Cooktown, generally absent from w
Cape York Peninsula. Also on Melville Island and Groote Eylandt.
>. Some names are wrong and confusing to Australian birdwatchers and to
>visitors who are usuing Australian Field Guides e.g. 'Green Oriole' and
>'Green Figbird' at Cairns - presumably should be Yellow Oriole and
>Yellow Figbird.
Yes, and again, these are the names for these species in Sibley.
Now, for an Australian bird-finding guide it would be silly not to follow
Australian conventions for taxonomy and nomenclature. But what is an
author to do when he sets out to write a book covering a wide range of
countries? He presumably cannot change nomenclature from chapter to
chapter, and as many of the species covered will not occur in all countries
no one country's list can be used as a basis. He then has to fall back on
a world list, and Sibley's list - whatever you think of it - is the most
thoroughly documented one out there (other than Peters' Checklist, which is
years out of date). Wheatley has decided to use Clements, but the latest
edition of Clements seems to use Sibley as a partial basis for names if not
for species order.
Wheatley does provide a table of alternate names (including the oriole but
not the figbird). Unfortunately this table is insufficient as a guide to
differences based on differing views of species boundaries, as in the
friarbird case. Whether you fault the author for that, I suppose, depends
on you (I think it is a lapse, and find it a problem with Wheatley's entire
series of books, but that's me).
The real issue here, of course, is not Wheatley, nor is it the fact that
taxonomists disagree (there would be no science of taxonomy otherwise, I
suppose). But it is an issue that compilers of the major world lists, in
suggesting English names for many species, have not given preference to
names widely used in the countries with the largest number of active
birders (the situation is far worse in South Africa, where dozens of names
in use there are ignored in world lists in favour of names used elsewhere
on the continent, even for species endemic to South Africa).
Some of Sibley's choices, for example (and I am not sure who is responsible
for these) are bizarre. For example, Sibley recognizes a split (Baptista
and Trail (1992. Syst. Biol. 41:242-247))separating the Zebra Finches from
Lombok to Timor and surrounding islands from those in Australia - but then
assigns the well-known, entrenched name "Zebra Finch" to the Timorese
population (presumably because it is the nominate guttata), leaving the
Australian one (castanotis) to be called the "Chestnut-eared Finch"!
Surely "Sunda Zebra Finch" and "Zebra Finch" (say) would have been more
appropriate?
Anyway, I wish there were some way for birders in Australia (or South
Africa) to be more aggressive about getting world-list compilers to
recognize their existence. Mind you, I wish you still called Malurus
cyaneus the Blue Wren (or even Blue Fairy-Wren); after all other
fairy-wrens may well have more blue, but I think some of them are arguably
more superb, too...
--
Ronald I. Orenstein Phone: (905) 820-7886
International Wildlife Coalition Fax/Modem: (905) 569-0116
1825 Shady Creek Court
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5L 3W2
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