2017 Western Palearctic Big Year (2 Viewers)

[Brian J Small]

Chats and Wheatears

European Stonechat Saxicola rubicola not torquatus?

Siberian Stonechat - new names for variegatus is hemprichii and armenicus is variegatus - cf Svensson, Shirihai, Frahnert & Dickinson. 2012. Taxonomy and nomenclature of the Stonechat complex Saxicola torquatus sensu lato in the Caspian region. Bull. B.O.C. 132(4): 260-269.

Seebohm's Wheatear has been split by Birdlife but not IOC - named (disastrously) 'Black-throated Wheatear' - very few wheatears have black throats of course..!!!

Desert Wheatear - I am confused by your 'atrogularis'

Red-rumped Wheatear is generally treated as monotypic nowadays isn't it?

White-crowned Black Wheatear - i am confused by your ranges as I always thought nominate was in N Africa? and never heard of 'aegra'

Black Wheatear - syenitica (inc riggenbachi) is new to me - where does that come from?

Hume's Wheatear is albonigra?

B

 

[Captain_of_Crunch]

I'm finally done with that subspecies master list for the WP. I'm 100% certain there are some mistakes in it.
At least the comments section is often outdated or uncomplete, but I think it gives a good overview in most cases....

Maffong

One more:

-Corn Bunting ssp clanceyi is sadly extinct in Ireland (since c1998), so the text would be better writen as "Western Scotland. Formerly in Ireland."

 

[Selsey Birder]

I'm finally done with that subspecies master list for the WP. I'm 100% certain there are some mistakes in it.
At least the comments section is often outdated or uncomplete, but I think it gives a good overview in most cases.

I might make my own scoring system for WP birds in the near future with more clearly defined rules for rarity status assigments. However Paul's list will be a great help to achieve this and maybe it proves to be better than what I have currently in my head. The general idea for this can be found on the cesond page of the sheet. It will be more of an approach like that used by ABA, scoring the frequency of occurence of the birds rather than Pauls 'gettability' scores

Maffong

Hi Maffong,

Huge task and thank you very much on everyone's behalf who are active here.

Paul comments on the Hooded Merganser's status, actually it needs to be swapped with Smew which is currently holding a 6 status.

I have not read the full document yet, but it seems very comprehensive, though as you acknowledge there are bound to be omissions and errors which are inevitable in these situations. I am sure everyone will contribute their comments, I agree with Paul about splitting the observations into three columns if this is practical.

Ian

 

[Maffong]

Thank you guys for all your input. I opened a new thread, as this discussion doesn't really belong to this thread. I've already implemented some of your suggestions, but dismissed others (those that would change things from the netfugl list). I'll explain more, later this evening.
For further discussion please use this thread
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?p=3509817#post3509817

Maffong

 

[Surreybirder]

Thank you guys for all your input. I opened a new thread, as this discussion doesn't really belong to this thread. I've already implemented some of your suggestions, but dismissed others (those that would change things from the netfugl list). I'll explain more, later this evening.
For further discussion please use this thread
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?p=3509817#post3509817

Maffong

Good idea - I was beginning to feel that the thread had got taken over by the taxonomists!

 

[Maffong]

They added some good stuff today with Buff-bellied Pipit (2), White-tailed Lapwing (3), Grey-headed Swamphen (2), Jack Snipe (1) and Ruppell's Weaver (3). One of the team members also added Little Crake. The list isn't online yet

http://www.bigyearwp.com/index.php/2017/01/10/crake-day/

Maffong

 

[Paul Chapman]

Twitter refers to 152 including Ruppell's Weaver but species list is 152 without it.... Did they see it or not? Are they on 153?

http://www.bigyearwp.com/index.php/igoterra-ticks/

They don't appear to have gone to Green Island today - the normal site as far as I am aware.

Buff-bellied Pipit is good and Ruppell's Weaver would be the fifth species on me so far if seen. :-C

Armenian Gull is handy. Otherwise Temminck's Stint, Jack Snipe, Crag Martin, Green Sandpiper, Merlin, White Pelican and Citrine Wagtail.

All the best

 

[DanielDoer]

Twitter refers to 152 including Ruppell's Weaver but species list is 152 without it.... Did they see it or not? Are they on 153?

http://www.bigyearwp.com/index.php/igoterra-ticks/

They don't appear to have gone to Green Island today - the normal site as far as I am aware.

Buff-bellied Pipit is good and Ruppell's Weaver would be the fifth species on me so far if seen. :-C

Armenian Gull is handy. Otherwise Temminck's Stint, Jack Snipe, Crag Martin, Green Sandpiper, Merlin, White Pelican and Citrine Wagtail.

All the best

I think that they have seen Ruppell's Weaver but aren't sure about the C status of the species in Kuwait (I think it was a facebook post). Therefore it is missing in the list I suppose. And they have already beaten your guess of 150 species after 11 days of birding, Paul. And they still have missing target species as crakes and shikra. So probably their strategic point of taking more time in Kuwait pays off?...

 

[DanielDoer]

They added some good stuff today with Buff-bellied Pipit (2), White-tailed Lapwing (3), Grey-headed Swamphen (2), Jack Snipe (1) and Ruppell's Weaver (3). One of the team members also added Little Crake. The list isn't online yet

http://www.bigyearwp.com/index.php/2017/01/10/crake-day/

Maffong

I think they saw White-tailed Lapwing and Grey-headed Swamphen in their first days and just posted photos now...

And the list of today is now available:
http://www.bigyearwp.com/index.php/igoterra-ticks/

Go on like this guys...

 

[Maffong]

I think they saw White-tailed Lapwing and Grey-headed Swamphen in their first days and just posted photos now...

And the list of today is now available:
http://www.bigyearwp.com/index.php/igoterra-ticks/

Go on like this guys...

You're right, they ticked some of these species before. About Ruppell's Weaver: As far as I understood it wasn't on the IGoTerra list at first, as it was added only very recently to the WP list. They certainly saw it, but their sighting has yet to be implemented to their list.

By the way, does anybody how to look at their mammal sightings?

Maffong

 

[Paul Chapman]

You're right, they ticked some of these species before. About Ruppell's Weaver: As far as I understood it wasn't on the IGoTerra list at first, as it was added only very recently to the WP list. They certainly saw it, but their sighting has yet to be implemented to their list.

Maffong

They are going by the Netfugl list and it was on that and my spreadsheet. It was a known target.

All the best

 

[Paul Chapman]

And they have already beaten your guess of 150 species after 11 days of birding, Paul. And they still have missing target species as crakes and shikra. So probably their strategic point of taking more time in Kuwait pays off?...

I had said a week ago......

Of the 117 so far, 98 were amongst my 138 from my week long November trip. Maybe 170+ is possible for their trip.

Still 22 species from that trip so 170+ does look possible. A Category 6 or 7 rarity remains a possibility in my view.

All the best

 

[Maffong]

Finally I'm done with coding all birds based on occurence patterns. Find the spreadsheet attached

Along the way I got confused about Indian Roller. Both Paul and I have it coded as 5 and 4 (means the same), but looking at the HBW range map it should breed and winter on a regular basis within WP borders and thus be coded as a 3, shouldn't it?

Comparing the two coding systems I get
Gettability (Paul)/Occurence (Maffong)
322 Code 1 vs. 274 Code 1
230 Code 2 vs. 208 Code 2
124+9 Codes 3+4 vs. 203 Code 3
51 Code 5 vs. 84 Code 4
64 Code 6 vs. 57 Code 5
194 Code 7 vs. 167 Code 6
7 Code 8 vs. 8 Code 7

They've got
103 Code 1 vs. 92 Code 1
33 Code 2 vs. 33 Code 2
10 Code 3 vs. 21 Code 3
6 Code 5 vs. 6 Code 4

By the way, I just noticed that IGoTerra splits Steppe Grey Shrike, while netfugl doesn't. This might get confusing when they add Southern Grey Shrike.

 

[Maffong]

I corrected my last version of the checklist and have now gone over all the unsure codes and decided upon almost all of them. But I'd like to hear your your opinions on 4 birds, where I can't decide:

Is Hooded Merganser an (almost) annual vagrant or would you say that it is not annually occuring as a wild species? I'm leaning towards the latter (code 5), but tarsiger shows lots of records for almost every of the last years, though some of these might be Category E species

Is Oriental Skylark an annually occuring vagrant to the Middle East or is it a regular overwinterer in that region? (Code 4 or 3?)

To what code should I assign Sudan Golden Sparrow. There are very few records so far (less than 10), but it appears to be regular in Western Sahara. It could anything from Code 3 to 6

Can Siberian Crane be considered extirpated in the WP and thus a code 7?

Maffong

 

[Nutcracker]

Hooded Merg - probably near-annual, but difficult to be sure with long-staying individuals turning up in multiple years.

 

[Jos Stratford]

Can Siberian Crane be considered extirpated in the WP and thus a code 7?

The single remaining individual of the western population is still wintering annually in the wetlands of northern Iran - though this is not within the WP borders you follow, birds from this wintering area have been known to return north via the western side of the Caspian, thus within the WP as in your definition.

 

[Jos Stratford]

To what code should I assign Sudan Golden Sparrow. There are very few records so far (less than 10), but it appears to be regular in Western Sahara. It could anything from Code 3 to 6

Appears to vary from one year to the next, but basically annual now I suppose (especially as birders are essentially all checking the same areas, whereas the birds are, I believe, somewhat nomadic and thus are probably really annual).

 

[Farnboro John]

Hooded Merg - probably near-annual, but difficult to be sure with long-staying individuals turning up in multiple years.

Long-stayers are available, though, so for listing purposes they must count repeatedly i.e. "bird-years" (cf "bird-days")?

John

 

[Maffong]

Thanks for the input so far. I guess I'll leave the Merganser and the Sparrow as code 4 and the Crane as code 3 as it is a regular migrant, eventhough it's just one single bird.

I just checked several websites for rare birds sightings and reports and found that surprisingly many codes 4 and 5 have already been observed this year. They are the following ones

Pacific Loon 4
Pied-billed Grebe 4
Black-browed Albatross 4
Yellow-billed Egret 5
Lesser Flamingo 4
Snow Goose 4
Ross's Goose 4
American Wigeon 4
Green-winged Teal 4
Blue-winged Teal 4
Ring-necked Duck 4
Lesser Scaup 4
American Scoter 4
Surf Scoter 4
Bufflehead 4
Hooded Merganser 4
Crested Honey Buzzard 4
Rüppell's Griffon 4
Bateleur 5
Tawny Eagle 5
Sora 5
Allen's Gallinule 4
American Coot 4
Semipalmated Plover 4
Pacific Golden Plover 4
American Golden Plover 4
Semipalmated Sandpiper 4
Red-necked Stint 5
Wilson's Snipe 4
Long-billed Dowitcher 4
Lesser Yellowlegs 4
Bonaparte's Gull 4
Ring-billed Gull 4
American Herring Gull 4
Oriental Turtle Dove 4
Indian Roller 4
Richard's Pipit 4
Blyth's Pipit 4
Buff-bellied Pipit 4
Dusky Thrush 5
Pallas's Leaf Warbler 4
Hume's Leaf Warbler 4
Pied Crow 5
Sudan Golden Sparrow 4
Common Yellowthroat 4
Pine Bunting 4

A few more might currently still be on the Azores (Great Blue Heron, Wood Duck, several Sandpipers) or elsewhere but I couldn't find reports for them for this year so far

So far I found reports for 529 species that have already been recorded this year, with 202 codes 1-3 still missing because they are either wintering outside WP boundaries or haven't yet been submitted to ebird, observado or local listservs (such as resident, non-migratory species as Partridges or owls)

Maffong

 

[Maffong]

Today they only added three very easy species that they could've found almost every else too, so must have been a slow day
Whimbrel, Sanderling, Spoonbill

Maffong