At the risk of repeating myself, I would reiterate that:
1) All boundaries and borders, be they political, geographical, or
biogeographical are artificial and temporary.
2) Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands are no more and no less in the
'Oriental' or Indo-Malay faunal region or bioregion than they are in the
Australo-Papuan region. Neither is part of Asia at this point in time or in
their geological histories. Anyone asserting otherwise must not know the facts.
--- On Fri, 14/1/11, Dave Torr <> wrote:
From: Dave Torr <>
Subject: Island rarities
To: "brian fleming" <>
Cc:
Received: Friday, 14 January, 2011, 11:24 AM
One thing occurred to me - getting back to what was the point of this thread
(I think) at one stage. Some argue that CI is in a different faunal zone
from the mainland and this is a valid reason not to count them as Aussie
birds. Whatever ones views on that subject I assume that as the climate
changes the boundaries of these zones will tend to move and thus those who
keep lists according to zones may also have an issue? Anyone care to
comment?
On 14 January 2011 11:10, brian fleming <> wrote:
> At present I cannot afford time or money to go to Christmas and Cocos
> Islands to see this season's wonderful collection of rare blow-ins. I must
> say I would like to.
>
> But there is more to rare birds on these islands than just a twitchers'
> holiday. They illustrate how continental land birds can and do arrive on
> distant islands, and then maybe begin the process of adapting and evolving
> to their new habitats. For instance, the Buff-banded Rails on Heron Island
> are almost completely flightless - presumably adaptation to absence of
> predators, as well as the advantage of not being blown out to sea in the
> next big cyclone.
>
> And whether we personally approve of twitching or not, most twitchers have
> excellent ID skills. So the blow-ins are noticed and recorded.
>
> I do not believe that the Christmas/Cocos birds should appear with the
> regular Australian birds in a Field Guide, but should rather be in an
> appendix - this was the practice for Hawaii in an ancient Peterson guide to
> Birds of north America. Likewise a secondary list for the very occasional
> vagrants and 'oncers'.
>
> Anthea Fleming
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