News from the AOU Check-list Committee

‘Tis July, and the Committee on Classification and Nomenclature of the American Ornithologists’ Union has issued the 49th Supplement to the Check-list, the authority on the names, relationships, and distribution of all the birds from the Canadian Arctic to Panama. Anybody who likes birds, and words, and birdwords, will find hours of delight in these eleven pages, and there’s lots of interesting sciency stuff in there, too.

Notoriously, the Supplements are the source of all those lumps and splits that so many birders dread and delight in, respectively. There aren’t many of either this time around (I’d had my heart set on the Savannah Sparrows!)–perhaps reflecting a salutary sense that arguing about whether a given population merits “specific” or merely “subspecific” status is like unto chasing the squirrel around the tree. But for anyone keeping track, Mangrove Black-Hawk is now the subtilis subspecies of Common Black-Hawk (again), while Eastern Spot-billed Duck and American Flamingo have been split (not from each other, but from Indian Spot-billed Duck and from Greater Flamingo).

Swallow-tailed Gull has–finally–been accepted onto the list, with two records from California; Song Thrush (Quebec) and Pallas’s Leaf-Warbler (Alaska) are also new to the AOU area (the latter was discovered by Paul Lehman and Gary Rosenberg on a WINGS tour, just in case you’ve forgot!). And Gray Heron, Parkinson’s Petrel, and Loggerhead Kingbird are on the US list–back on, in the case of the kingbird.

There are quite a few English name changes this time, including the abolition of the silly hyphen in “violetear,” and a bunch of Turdus thrushes are now to be called “thrushes,” though it looks like we’re still stuck with “Rufous-backed Robin” for a while.

Far more significant are those changes in scientific names intended to reflect the latest views on evolutionary relationships. Gray-crowned Woodpecker (which occurs not that far south of the Arizona border) is now assigned to the genus Colaptes, which it shares with the flickers. And there is a major revision of the classification of gulls, with three old genera (Chroicocephalus, Hydrocoloeus, and Leucophaeus) revived and the “white-headed” gulls of the genus Larus re-ordered (who’d have thought that Ring-billed Gull was more closely related to Western than to California?). The flamingos, poor taxonomic nomads, have been moved to follow the grebes, now thought to be their closest relatives (it’s seems so unlikely that it must be true!).

As always, the final paragraph tantalizes: the Committee considered but did not accept a three-way split of the Herring Gulls and a two-way split of Orchard Oriole. There is also a hint that some re-organization is in the future for the woodpecker genus Picoides. And the proposal to change the name of Common Moorhen back to something gallinulish was rejected–though the South American Committee has resurrected the traditional “Common Gallinule,” giving us two English names for that creature in the western hemisphere.

The Supplement is on line now; pull up a chair and enjoy!