Thursday 13 August 2020

[cobirds] Re: So Long McCown's Longspur, Hello Thick-billed Longspur

Hey, Richard et al. Two quick responses:

1. Speaking of name changes, the nomenclatorial authority in his matter hasn't been the "AOU" for some time now. It's the "AOS," the American Ornithological Society. It seems nobody knew what "AOU" stood for, especially the "O" part of the moniker. ;-)

2. Don't hold your breath on an imminent eBird change. Taxonomic and nomenclatorial changes are happening essentially continuously around the world, and eBird is of course a global database. So eBird typically holds off in increments of at least one year in making a big batch of checklist changes. In the same way that we had to wait around for, say, Yellow-breasted Chat to move to the "correct" spot on the checklist, we may not be seeing "McCown's Longspur" for quite some time on our eBird checklists. This is not a diss on eBird, by the way; it would be totally impracticable for eBird to keep up with the constant flux of taxonomic and nomenclatorial statuses worldwide.

Ted Floyd
Lafayette, Boulder County

P. s. Recent bird sightings: a loggerhead shrike and 2 sage thrashers yesterday afternoon, Wed., Aug. 12, at the Legion Park overlook, Valmont Reservoir complex, Boulder County. The day before, Tues., Aug. 11, Little Gaynor Lake, Boulder County, had American avocet, killdeer, Baird sandpiper, least sandpiper, western/semipalmated sandpiper, Wilson phalarope, spotted sandpiper, greater yellowlegs, and lesser yellowlegs. 

On Wednesday, August 12, 2020 at 4:57:46 PM UTC-6 richardi... wrote:
Forgive me if this has already been covered on Cobirds.  I don't recall seeing it's discussion.

The AOU decided last Friday to rename the bird-fomerly-known-as-McCown's-Longspur to the Thick-billed Longspur.  I personally had not realized how controversial the bird's former namesake was.


I would imagine we'll be seeing the change in eBird soon.

Richard Trinkner
Boulder

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