The lumping of Thayer's Gull and retention of 'Willet', 'Yellow-rumped Warbler' and Hoary Redpoll were briefly discussed earlier on this forum but this predated the actual publication of the annual AOS Checklist supplement, which is now available.
http://www.americanornithologypubs.org/doi/pdf/10.1642/AUK-17-72.1 As always this detailed technical report makes for very interesting, if strenuous, reading. One of the decisions I had not seen mentioned before was the return of Greenland to North America. With a landmass of 836,330 square miles, this is a rather significant event don't you think? Greenland was included in the very first checklist (1886), only to be removed in 1993. The committee was mighty powerful back then..... >From a Checklist perspective this has a real impact because it adds nine Eurasian species based on historical records and establishes four species (Pink-footed Goose, Eurasian Golden-Plover, Redwing and Fieldfare) as regular breeders in North America. With Greenland becoming rapidly greener and more accessible to both landbirds and visiting humans, the potential for new species seems higher than ever. My suspicion is that birders and researchers visiting Greenland will discover vagrants that would otherwise be potential firsts for the US or Canada. Commentators have used memorable headlines such as 'Goodbye Thayer's Gull' but of course that's not true. The enigmatic taxon is retained as a subspecies, and individuals fitting the established identification criteria will still occur in New York. Phew! Gull watchers, especially those in the western half of the state, will still have hours of fun studying and debating over candidates. The taxonomic status of Kumlein's Gull remains fuzzy. Is it also a subspecies under the banner of Iceland Gull or stable hybrid swarm sitting between Thayer's and nominate Iceland, similar to 'Olympic Gull' in the Pacific Northwest? This conundrum may not be resolved until necessary field work is done. The Supplement also details changes to the list order and scientific names of several species on the New York State checklist, with the inevitable frustrations to list keepers that this causes. Anyhow, lots of information and ideas to pick over. Kudos to the members of the *American Ornithological Society’s Committee on Classification and Nomenclature of North and Middle American Birds* (a mouthful otherwise truncated to NACC) for their hard work in curating these lists and in sifting through the complex arguments and mounds of scientific data on which the decisions are based. The Committee's task seems all the harder knowing that amateur birders around the world pay close attention to each and every decision, irrespective of whether it results in a change. Angus Wilson New York City, NY -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
