What constitutes the 'Australian bird list' depends largely on what is meant
by 'Australia', a label with different meanings in different contexts. The
Australian birdlist might look very different if the original Australian
colonies had become separate nations instead of a federation - it would have
inevitably been defined biogeographically rather than politically. I guess
we can make up whatever rules we like to generate interesting or challenging
birdlists, but to my mind, the only lists that make biological sense are
those defined on a biogeographic basis. In those terms, the 'Australian'
list would cover the continental landmass and offshore islands connected to
the continental shelf - hence Tassie etc. Whether that would include such
outliers as Norfolk Is and Ashmore Reef might be a matter for biogeographers
to argue over, but it would exclude the pelagics that don't come ashore to
breed in 'Australia'. An 'Australian' birdlist at least has the potential
to be a more meaningful 'natural' category than, say, an 'Indonesian'
birdlist, where the national boundaries enclose famously divergent
biogeographic regions, or a 'Lithuanian' list which covers only a fraction
of a biogeographic region. By and large, political boundaries make little
biological sense (and seldom much socio-cultural sense either).
Chris Healey
Clifton Creek, East Gippsland
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www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
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