Brotogeris confusion (1 Viewer)

[Fulmar]

There is some confusion about a species of Parakeet that formerly was known as the Canary-winged Parakeet / Brotogeris versicolurus. According to the AOU (American Ornithologist’s Union), this species was split into the Brotogeris chiriri / Yellow-chevroned Parakeet and the Brotogeris versicolurus for which the English name was changed at the same time from Canary-winged Parakeet to White-winged Parakeet. Also Sibley uses these new names.

In the Birdforum Birds Database, the Brotogeris versicolurus is IMO thus wrongly listed as “Canary-winged Parakeet”. The Brotogeris chiriri is correctly listed as Yellow-chevroned Parakeet.

Because of this confusion I think that the picture that is currently selected in the BF Database for the Brotogeris versicolurus is also wrong and is in fact a Brotogeris chiriri. The versicolurus should have some white visible in the wing and would have a bare loral (see http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~jmorlan/sfparrots.htm for identification clues).

I found out about this because I had photographed a confirmed Brotogeris versicolurus / White-winged Parakeet in California and became confused. Although the quality of the photo is very bad, I decided to upload it anyway, because it would currently be the only photo of a White-winged Parakeet at BF if my theory is correct.

What do you think?

Peter

 

[cuckooroller]

Hi Fulmar,

It's a tough call. By the way, it is not the SM but the Clement's that follows suit with the AOU on the common name.

In the database photo, I don't think that is the shoulder corniced between those two flowers. It looks like the shoulder is hidden behind the flowers to me. I've looked through all of my photos in my database for these two and I find no solid loral distinctions, moreover, both have white ceres and whitish or very pale blue-whitish periocular rings. Further, the white shoulders seems to be inconstant in some of my photos and may depend on the age of the bird. The database on BF has been redacted using the SM 1996 version and should have Brotogeris versicolurus (Canary-winged Parakeet). The photo was taken in S. California I believe and there are no known records for B. chiriri in USA.

Taxonomic status:
Species status: full species
Alternative names recognized by other taxonomic authorities:
AOU 7th ed. (42nd suppl.):
White-winged Parakeet (Brotogeris versicolurus)
AOU 7th ed. (43nd suppl.):
White-winged Parakeet (Brotogeris versicolurus)
AOU 7th ed. (44nd suppl.):
White-winged Parakeet (Brotogeris versicolurus)
CINFO 1993:
Toui à ailes variées (Brotogeris versicolurus)
Clements 4th ed.:
Canary-winged Parakeet (Brotogeris versicolurus)
Clements 5th ed.:
White-winged Parakeet (Brotogeris versicolurus)
Clements 5th ed. (updated 2003):
White-winged Parakeet (Brotogeris versicolurus)
Howard & Moore 2003:
Canary-winged Parakeet (Brotogeris versicolurus)
Sibley & Monroe 1993:
Canary-winged Parakeet (Brotogeris versicolurus)
Sibley & Monroe 1996:
Canary-winged Parakeet (Brotogeris versicolurus)
Sibley & Monroe 2003:
Canary-winged Parakeet (Brotogeris versicolurus)

Monotypic

Taxonomic status:
Species status: full species
Alternative names recognized by other taxonomic authorities:
CINFO 1993:
Toui à ailes jaunes (Brotogeris chiriri)
Clements 4th ed.:
Yellow-chevroned Parakeet (Brotogeris chiriri)
Clements 5th ed.:
Yellow-chevroned Parakeet (Brotogeris chiriri)
Clements 5th ed. (updated 2003):
Yellow-chevroned Parakeet (Brotogeris chiriri)
Howard & Moore 2003:
Yellow-chevroned Parakeet (Brotogeris chiriri)
Sibley & Monroe 1993:
Yellow-chevroned Parakeet (Brotogeris chiriri)
Sibley & Monroe 1996:
Yellow-chevroned Parakeet (Brotogeris chiriri)
Sibley & Monroe 2003:
Yellow-chevroned Parakeet (Brotogeris chiriri)

Brotogeris chiriri chiriri
Brotogeris chiriri behni

 

[Katy Penland]

Don't know about official records of these two spp in CA, but here's some possibly hopeful ID info on how to distinguish between the white-winged and yellow-chevroned by the parrot guy himself, Kimball Garrett, of the Natural History Museum of LA County. I've parenthetically inserted URLs and email addys since I wasn't sure they'd show up as hyperlinks when cutting-n-pasting.

Peter, don't hesitate to contact Kimball via email at the museum about IDing your birds in flight. He's a very, very nice guy and always eager to hear about and/or see any documentation about parrots in the LA area. I'm sure he could help you with your flight shots.

Katy


The following was taken from a page on the California Parrot Project website: http://natureali.org/parrot_project/ID.htm
where this discussion of San Francisco-based feral parrots was located.


<<A second flock of small parakeets in the genus Brotogeris have a major roost in a palm tree at Dolores and 24th, just south of the intersection, in the island in the middle of the road. According to Luke Cole, early evenings finds them there, loudly, and they are easily visible from the sidewalk on either side of Dolores. They are mostly White-winged Parakeets (formerly Canary-winged Parakeets B. versicolurus) but a few are Yellow-chevroned Parakeets (B. chiriri) which lacks the white patch on the secondaries and inner primaries found on Canary-winged Parakeets. Yellow-chevroned Parakeets have largely replaced White-winged Parakeets in Florida and in Southern California but according to recent observations by Luke Cole, the San Francisco population is still primarily White-winged as it was prior to 1980 when studied by Patricia Arrowood.

<<Kimball Garrett ([email protected]) provided the following useful information on distinguishing Canary-winged from Yellow-chevroned on perched birds:
The main things to look for on perched birds are:

<<(1) presence of white or yellow in the secondaries: this is diagnostic for White-winged; however, the white on White-winged is sometimes (rarely) not visible on the folded wing, so its apparent absence does not confirm a bird as Yellow-chevroned. In Yellow-chevroned the yellow is limited to the coverts; on White-winged, even when no white is visible, the yellow extends back from the coverts to include the visible outer webs of some secondaries, giving the yellow wing patch a different shape.

<<(2) overall plumage color: much brighter yellow-green in Yellow-chevroned, as opposed to a darker, forest green in White-winged.

<<(3) bare facial patterning: both species have evident blue-gray bare orbital rings, but in White-winged this is expanded anteriorly into the loral area.

<<(4) under side of tail: strongly washed with turquoise blue in White-winged; plain green in nominate chiriri Yellow-chevroned (but beware possibility of behni Yellow-chevroned, which are bluer on the undertail).

<<(5) bill color: as pointed out to me by Donald Brightsmith of Duke University (who is writing the BNA account for these taxa), the bill of Yellow-chevroned is a deeper darker flesh-pink color than that of White-winged.

<<There are several published photos of Yellow-chevroned Parakeets, including in the Audubon Master Guide to Birding and in Birding 25:426; some of the plumage characters I mentioned are shown in a photo of specimens on p. 430 in that same issue of Birding.
Much more excellent information is available at the Parrot Project site. (http://parrotproject.org/)

 

[cuckooroller]

Katy,

Thanks for pointing out the occurrence of chiriri in California. First time that I had heard of it. It's been more than 20 years since I have lived there and I keep seeing photos of several species of feral parrots coming from California especially from the southern part of the State. What is going on there? Are these all escapees or are they all coming up from Mexico along with the climate changes of the last years?

:h?:

 

[Glen Tepke]

By the way, it is not the SM but the Clement's that follows suit with the AOU on the common name.

Steve - I suspect Fulmar was referring to David Sibley, the field guide author, not Charles Sibley, the taxonomist. David Sibley generally follows AOU/Clements in his books. Glen

 

[cuckooroller]

Glen,

Thanks for the correction. I can see that you are probably right. Oh well, it won't hurt to put up all of the classifications anyway just to muck things up further. "The One List" - the Holy Grail of all birders, are we destined to never find it!!!

There is one thing that I should stress, if you read carefully the original question as it was posed, a logical connection was put whereby the name Sibley was used and then it was related to the classification scheme used in the Database. I was basically responding to this and had to assume, therefore, that he was talking about the SM classification, otherwise it did not make logical sense to me. :h?:

 

[Glen Tepke]

I can see how you would read it that way, but why would Fulmar say that (Charles) Sibley has adopted the new names when he has not done so? I should let Fulmar speak for himself.

Re the holy grail, if we ever achieved it, then we would have no reason for these confusing discussions of taxonomy, and that wouldn't be any fun. Glen

 

[cuckooroller]

I can see how you would read it that way, but why would Fulmar say that (Charles) Sibley has adopted the new names when he has not done so? I should let Fulmar speak for himself.

Re the holy grail, if we ever achieved it, then we would have no reason for these confusing discussions of taxonomy, and that wouldn't be any fun. Glen

You're right. I assumed that he was talking about the Sibley of SM and that he had just made a mistake about the common name. He, however, made another mistake when he tried to apply the AOU classification to the SM used in the database stating that on that basis the common name in the database was wrong. All in all, the whole question got off to a bad start because of this and became even more confusing.

 

[Katy Penland]

Katy,

Thanks for pointing out the occurrence of chiriri in California. First time that I had heard of it. It's been more than 20 years since I have lived there and I keep seeing photos of several species of feral parrots coming from California especially from the southern part of the State. What is going on there? Are these all escapees or are they all coming up from Mexico along with the climate changes of the last years?

:h?:

Sorry, Steve, haven't a clue. Since I only occasionally ran into these different flocks when I happened to be on Palos Verdes Peninsula, the rest of the time they were sorta out of sight, out of mind. I'm sure most of them are escapes, but haven't talked to Kimball in a while; I'll go pester him.

 

[Fulmar]

Steve, sorry for the confusion I caused with the name Sibley. As Glen already said, I was referring to the Sibley Guide of Birds by David Allen Sibley which I used for the initial identification of my photos. I thought this was self-explanatory as in quite a few threads on this Forum people speak about "the Sibley" when referring to David's field guide. When I would have been referring to the taxonomy list, I would have said Sibley-Monroe.

The confusion is caused IMO because we originally had one species, the Brotogeris versicolurus / Canary-winged Parakeet, which had three subspecies:
Brotogeris versicolurus versicolurus
Brotogeris versicolurus chiriri
Brotogeris versicolurus behni
This means that the English name used for the species was Canary-winged Parakeet whatever the subspecies was (the B.v.behni is irrelevant here, so I won't further talk about that one).

The website that I listed in my first posting (the same info as on the site that Katy gave) says: "Yellow-chevroned Parakeets have largely replaced White-winged Parakeets in Florida and in Southern California", and David Schramm's "A Birder's Guide to Southern California" says: "Yellow-chevroned Parakeets are fairly common in the Los Angeles basin, including the Los Angeles Civic Center, Exposition Park, West Hollywood, Redondo Beach, and the Palos Verdes Peninsula, White-winged Parakeet is sometimes seen in Redondo Beach and Palos Verdes".

This means that the commoner bird is the subspecies B.v.chiriri, which is now known as Yellow-chevroned Parakeet, and the less common one is B.v.versicolurus, which is now known as White-winged Parakeet. Please note that the species name for both subspecies was at the time referred to as Brotogeris versicolurus / Canary-winged Parakeet.

Now the decision was taken to split Brotogeris versicolurus / Canary-winged Parakeet:
B.v.versicolurus became full species Brotogeris versicolurus which (thanks Steve!) in the latest AOU and Clements lists is named White-winged Parakeet, but which in the latest Sibley & Monroe and Howard & Moore lists (and the Birdforum database) kept the former "lump" name Canary-winged Parakeet, i.e. the former name of a GROUP of subspecies is now retained for ONE of the former subspecies. I think that, in order to avoid confusion, the AOU and Clements took the right decision in giving new names to the split species instead of keeping the former lump name for one of the species.
B.v.chiriri became full species Brotogeris chiriri, which has (on all lists) the English name Yellow-chevroned Parakeet.

Now, the confusion is found here: the most common species in California is the Yellow-chevroned Parakeet which was formerly referred to as Brotogeris versicolurus / Canary-winged Parakeet. People who are not aware of the split will thus still list photos of Yellow-chevroned Parakeets (which species they don't know as such) as Brotogeris versicolurus / Canary-winged Parakeet. That is why, IMO, the wrong photo is currently listed in the BF database under Brotogeris versicolurus / Canary-winged Parakeet. This photo should in fact be listed under Brotogeris chiriri / Yellow-chevroned Parakeet. My photo (if the quality was better) should be listed as the correct one for the database entry Brotogeris versicolurus / Canary-winged Parakeet (aka White-winged Parakeet).

Phew, are you still with me?

I have attached another, even worse, picture of the species I saw, where, using the Sibley Guide of Birds, you can easily recognize it as a (latest nomenclature) Brotogeris versicolurus / Canary-winged Parakeet / White-winged Parakeet. So you see that even very bad pictures can have their use!

Peter

 

[cuckooroller]

Peter,
Thanks for the clarification. I admit that I should be more up-to-date on what is happening, at least, in my own home state of California. As I said previously, I haven't live there in about twenty years, and it is only recently, after joining BF that I started seeing some strange photos of Parrots of different genera, including Brotogeris and Amazona to list a couple, coming out of the US, mostly from Southern California. I just haven't really had time to get up to speed on these evidently escapee populations that seem to be establishing viable breeding populations there. For this reason, I was unaware that chiriri even had any good records for the US, and this from my old information on this race. Your questions in starting the thread has served to focus me on this point and I thank you for that.

:clap:

If I have time tomorrow, I will try to go back and have a hard look at the photo in the database.

 

[Fulmar]

Cuckooroller said:

If I have time tomorrow, I will try to go back and have a hard look at the photo in the database.

Steve, Leslie has a link in the Description of her photo to more photos of the same bird, which is quite helpful, see:
http://www.pbase.com/lesliej/chevron_winged_parakeet

Peter

 

[cuckooroller]

Peter,

I just got back from there and had a good look at them. Classic chiriri without any doubt on that. I'll go make the change in the database.

 

[cuckooroller]

Peter,

Good for you for spotting it. I have just put it in the right place in the photo database - under chiriri where it belongs.

:clap:

 

[cuckooroller]

Peter,

I just linked yours to the database as well. Good night. It's 2:30 AM here in Italy and I'm bushed.

 

[Glen Tepke]

All's well that ends well.

 

[Fulmar]

Thanks for that, Steve. But I hope somebody comes up with a better photograph than mine! But, for the time being, better a bad picture than no picture.

I have now edited my photo and changed the English name from White-winged Parakeet to Canary-winged Parakeet as that is the name used in the Birdforum Database. I feel that photos in the gallery should use the same names as in the Database, otherwise they will not show up in database searches.

Peter

 

[Glen Tepke]

I feel that photos in the gallery should use the same names as in the Database, otherwise they will not show up in database searches.

There is no reason you cannot include two names in your Gallery posts with an explanation that one is used by S&M and the other by Clements or whomever. This applies to both scientific and English names. The searches for additional photos from the Database search the titles and all of the fields of Gallery posts, so as long as the (correctly spelled) name used in the database appears somewhere in your post, it will turn up in the search. I have done this with several of my posts where the English or scientific name used by American birders who follow Clements or AOU differs from the S&M name used in the database. Glen

 

[Fulmar]

Glen Tepke said:

There is no reason you cannot include two names in your Gallery posts with an explanation that one is used by S&M and the other by Clements or whomever.

That's what I did!

searches for additional photos from the Database search the titles and all of the fields of Gallery posts

I had the impression that searches from the Database work in a different way than searches from the Gallery, i.e. that Database searches don't search all the fields, but I guess I am mistaken here then.

Peter

 

[Glen Tepke]

I had the impression that searches from the Database work in a different way than searches from the Gallery, i.e. that Database searches don't search all the fields, but I guess I am mistaken here then.

As you can see, many entries in the database have two different searches for additional photos. I explained the difference between those in this post:

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=12260

I just verified that both searches search all fields by moving the English and scientific names in one of my Gallery posts to different fields; both searches were still able to find the photo. Glen