Thank you for all your responses on this. Now please, PLEASE, to anyone with no interest in English bird names: do not read further.
Despite good intentions on all sides, we are moving into an untidy situation. So far as I can see, the AviList taxonomy is being generally adopted, including by BirdLife Australia, for use in the online HANZAB for example. English names are another matter. AviList has provisionally adopted the IOC English names. An AviList English Names Committee has just been formed, and its first priority is to consider English names for new species in AviList 2026. After that, AviList ENC might be able to turn to review of adopted IOC names that create possible problems. It is a possibility, no more than that , that ‘Australian Tern’ might be reviewed at that stage. Perhaps BirdLife International will give support to ‘Australian Gull-billed Tern’.
Meanwhile, for the future, so far as I know, BirdLife Australia will maintain its own list of Australian bird names (currently ‘WLAB’). A result of this would be that Cornell Lab could continue to use that list as a basis for names under its ‘English (Australia)’ option in eBird. Those will be matters for BirdLife Australia and Cornell Lab. So, some possible untidiness ahead.
