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  1. Kirk Roth

    Hirundinidae

    An African or European Stonechat?
  2. Kirk Roth

    Hirundinidae

    You have to know these things when you're a king. I would expect it to be rufula - the same as the branches labeled "Kuwait" and "Pakistan" - due to: the usefulness of the comparison of that taxon to the others, how they present the table with regard to the other branches, and the ease of...
  3. Kirk Roth

    Petition to AOS Leadership on the Recent Decision to Change all Eponymous Bird Names

    Against my better judgement, I'm weighing in here, though let me start by saying my primary intent here is not addressing Andy specifically, but our forum communication in general. I joke a lot, both here and elsewhere in written form - and I've been warned time and again that my tone, intent...
  4. Kirk Roth

    Trochilidae

    I just gave it a quick look, but it seems from the paper that this is the wrong way to look at the species - not through macrogeography but through microgeography. My understanding is that there is a resident high elevation species, and another species which migrates. These two species look...
  5. Kirk Roth

    Petition to AOS Leadership on the Recent Decision to Change all Eponymous Bird Names

    I'll keep mentioning this until they get around to kicking me off the forum, but the reality is that birds DO have multiple names and a lot of our anguish here stems from pretending that they don't, and/or pretending that common names should do the job of the scientific names. One of the...
  6. Kirk Roth

    Petition to AOS Leadership on the Recent Decision to Change all Eponymous Bird Names

    It needs to be kept in mind that there is an ornithological definition of North America (per the ABA and common usage of others) and a geographical definition. It could just as easily be said that a definition of North America that includes Panama is "incorrect" in the context of a birding...
  7. Kirk Roth

    Britain's most prolific egg collector, reoffends again.

    This is how replica Great Auks went extinct. Thanks, Andy.
  8. Kirk Roth

    AOU-NACC Proposals 2024

    There is a coconut joke here (English and Spanish) that fortunately I am far too sophisticated to mention. Coco is also slang for a beautiful girl and for cocaine. So this makes for a very thoughtful and politically correct bird name. But at least it doesn't honor the co-founder of the AOU.
  9. Kirk Roth

    Britain's most prolific egg collector, reoffends again.

    Andy's link above has some resin eggs - those would be higher quality than generating plastic ones - due especially to the textures you'd be forced to deal with. But as a broader point, yes there would be various levels of craftwork to meet anyone's hunger for hobbying skill. Did you see the...
  10. Kirk Roth

    Britain's most prolific egg collector, reoffends again.

    The best jokes are the ones that you have to explain to people (insert self-depricating sarcasm here). Imagine an old, cartoonish, and slightly senile person making the statement in my post, while shaking his gnarled cane at the young 'uns and a wistful twinkle in his eye for the selectively...
  11. Kirk Roth

    Scottish Crossbill - Yes? No? Never?

    I'm not sure that's true in any of the three cases based on the phylogenies that have been posted here anyway. The parrot and the scotsbill mTDNA were interspersed among (other?) Red Crossbill lineages. A paraphyletic group is one in which a lineage divides other groups - so if there were a...
  12. Kirk Roth

    Britain's most prolific egg collector, reoffends again.

    Back in my day, we had wooden eggs and had to go uphill both ways in the driving snow to get them for a nickel.
  13. Kirk Roth

    Iberian Chiffchaff dilemma

    Merlin is notorious for misidentifications - unusual (e.g. out of range/season) sound "IDs" need to be backed up by other evidence and never taken as confirmation just by itself. I believe that Merlin's own guidance declares this. As with any tool used in birding - multiple lines of evidence...
  14. Kirk Roth

    Petition to AOS Leadership on the Recent Decision to Change all Eponymous Bird Names

    I think you and I are on a different pages. You seem to be arguing the outcomes of a potential case, and I don't dispute your interpretations. I also don't dispute that there are differences with past cases - but that leads directly to my point. My concern is that its something someone will...
  15. Kirk Roth

    Petition to AOS Leadership on the Recent Decision to Change all Eponymous Bird Names

    I would suggest doing some research if you are interested - two of my examples (Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado Civil Rights Commission) and Kim Davis (the County Clerk in Kentucky) were both workplace-related cases. There are other examples (both "religious" and not - the motivations in many...
  16. Kirk Roth

    Petition to AOS Leadership on the Recent Decision to Change all Eponymous Bird Names

    Ha! - yes, the First, thank you. Let's hope that the Second Amendment doesn't become involved in the bird names argument! Note that I used a publication only as an example, and only because there was a question about field guides. The law says: "The division shall use the English-language...
  17. Kirk Roth

    Petition to AOS Leadership on the Recent Decision to Change all Eponymous Bird Names

    You can see my thoughts above referring to the goshawk. You do make a good point about Western Flycatcher using one interpretation of the law - and I'll use this as an opportunity to take another potshot at it. The law says: "The division shall use the English-language name assigned to a...
  18. Kirk Roth

    Petition to AOS Leadership on the Recent Decision to Change all Eponymous Bird Names

    I agree that is the likely intent. However, Accipiter (gentilis) atricapillus is not exactly a "new" taxon - it existed before 2020 and its name was Northern Goshawk. The point is taken that Accipiter atricapillus is a current species that had no English name prior to 2020, but again the law...
  19. Kirk Roth

    Petition to AOS Leadership on the Recent Decision to Change all Eponymous Bird Names

    To be clear, the law applies only to "The division" which refers to the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. This is not really evident from this snippet of law, but if someone were to read the whole section, then "The division" would be defined as such. So the law only has jurisdiction over...
  20. Kirk Roth

    Petition to AOS Leadership on the Recent Decision to Change all Eponymous Bird Names

    The AOS stopped officially naming subspecies decades ago, and while they have stated for years that they want to get back to defining subspecies (not necessarily naming them), they have instead prioritized other matters (if I may be a bit cheeky!) The short answer is, no - no "nationally...
  21. Kirk Roth

    Petition to AOS Leadership on the Recent Decision to Change all Eponymous Bird Names

    Its important to note that this is a law that only applies to state agencies in Utah - so to be clear there would only be the loosest relevance to birds in the U.K. That said, to get to the spirit of your question - the law leaves a bit to interpretation. The bit that says "the division may...
  22. Kirk Roth

    2024 ABA Checklist update

    "Provisional" in ABA vocabulary used to mean a bird you weren't sure would end up being accepted in a big year. That is different than eBird's definition of a Provisional bird - meaning "semi-established." So if you saw a Eurasian Sparrowhawk in Alaska, that might be a countable species but a...
  23. Kirk Roth

    2024 ABA Checklist update

    I believe there was a policy change among the reviewers and they have not yet cleaned up all the old reports before the change. This one bird was reported many hundreds of times, if not over a thousand - so if it takes some time to get things "clean" I understand. There are cases like this all...
  24. Kirk Roth

    2024 ABA Checklist update

    The treatment of these Hawaiian birds seems especially interesting to me, especially with regard to equity with other states. When eBird rolled out its new exotics policy, there were guidelines on how the categories were assigned, but it was for the most part established using the local...
  25. Kirk Roth

    2024 ABA Checklist update

    Speaking of which, Cattle Tyrant would be added to the list above - currently "Provisional" status and expected to be reviewed by ABA in the next year.
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