No eBird Taxonomy update this year (2022)? (3 Viewers)

[Jim M.]

eBird usually updates their taxonomy in August. But there is no notice on the site about this. They skipped the update in 2020 because they said they needed to update their database in other respects, but otherwise it has happened every year to my knowledge. Does anyone know what is going on?

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

eBird usually updates their taxonomy in August. But there is no notice on the site about this. They skipped the update in 2020 because they said they needed to update their database in other respects, but otherwise it has happened every year to my knowledge. Does anyone know what is going on?

L. Kemmermeir had told me that several days ago by email

"We happen to be in the middle of a taxonomic update which will be released in late October. I’m not sure what your timeframe is, but it’d be great to release this subset with that new taxonomy"

 

[njlarsen]

The October timeline has been mentioned in other places as well.
Niels

 

[Jim M.]

Thanks for the info. Seems silly that they haven't posted a note about this on the eBird site.

 

[Bismarck Honeyeater]

I understand the World Taxonomic Working Group are about to release an update, I believe they are waiting on this.

 

[jts1882]

FYI

Working Group Avian Checklists | International Ornithologists' Union

Working Group Avian Checklists Update (January 2024) Progress on the Checklist Work is continuing on the Checklist and it expected that the final draft will be completed by late 2024. There will be a period of cross-checking before it is made public in early 2025. As part of the release the...

www.internationalornithology.org

This means that we have finalized our taxonomic treatment across 165 families with 13 more being worked on currently (March, May, and June milestones).

These 178 families cover 5585 species-level taxa that have been finalized, or just over half (50.4%) of the species list for the world. By July 2022, we plan to have tackled a couple of very speciose families, including Thraupidae, which should push us closer to 55%.

These taxonomic assessments are the core part of the WGAC-Taxonomic Group’s work and have included representatives from the IOC World Bird List, BirdLife Taxonomic Working Group, eBird/Clements team, AOS-NACC, AOS-SACC, former members of the Howard and Moore team, and other authorities.

eBird/Clements and IOC have begun adopting WGAC decisions with upcoming revisions of those taxonomies in order to facilitate the full transitioning to WGAC soon after the first public release. BirdLife also plans to adopt many of these decisions, but must move more slowly because of integration with the IUCN Red List and their Data Zone. The proposal and supplement publication process for AOS-NACC has been highly aligned with WGAC, with proposals for most North American WGAC issues being put before the AOS-NACC and upcoming proposals for North American taxa currently being prepared; see for example Trochilidae, Accipitridae, Tytonidae, and Strigidae in this set of proposals, most of which were outgrowths of the WGAC process: 2022 Proposals - American Ornithological Society

In process of implementation: Tyrannidae, Aegothelidae, Caprimulgidae, Cotingidae, Falconidae, Melanopareiidae, Parulidae, Podargidae, Psophiidae


June 2022 families in progress: Aegithalidae, Emberizidae, Estrildidae, Leiothrichidae, Motacillidae

Some big families being treated, with Thraupidae in July. Implementing these changes would be understandably time consuming

 

[Mysticete]

Yep...can confirm from rumbling I have heard that a delay in the release is related to the WGAC. Although I have heard a much more vague release date of "Fall".

 

[Tom Schulenberg]

the 2022 eBird/Clements Checklist will be released on 25 October. this is mentioned here Clements Checklist but the notice is easy to overlook, and we were late in putting that out anyway (sorry).

we expect that in future years the release also will be in the fall, rather than the August date that has been the norm for the past decade or so.

 

[Mysticete]

the 2022 eBird/Clements Checklist will be released on 25 October. this is mentioned here Clements Checklist but the notice is easy to overlook, and we were late in putting that out anyway (sorry).

we expect that in future years the release also will be in the fall, rather than the August date that has been the norm for the past decade or so.

So will the update provide more treats or tricks for us birders

 

[Bismarck Honeyeater]

So will the update provide more treats or tricks for us birders

I hear treats. A number of them...

 

[Jeff Hopkins]

I've seen some interesting things in eBird this morning (Sept 6). Specifically, a Virginia Rail being listed as "Virginia/Ecuadorian Rail" and an Osprey being listed as "Eastern/Western Osprey" in the RBA lists.

The shape of things to come?

 

[njlarsen]

I've seen some interesting things in eBird this morning (Sept 6). Specifically, a Virginia Rail being listed as "Virginia/Ecuadorian Rail" and an Osprey being listed as "Eastern/Western Osprey" in the RBA lists.

The shape of things to come?

As you probably know, similar changes in the past has been steps towards future changes. The strange thing is that there is no mention in this in the reviewer slack.
Niels

 

[Jeff Hopkins]

As you probably know, similar changes in the past has been steps towards future changes. The strange thing is that there is no mention in this in the reviewer slack.
Niels

Yep, that's why I posted it. I wanted to give people a heads up.

Not to mention, if those two happen, I've got two armchair ticks.

 

[kuzeycem]

Very funny if they're really splitting Osprey right as IOC is lumping it back.

 

[Ted Y.]

This updates contain:

-new discovered birds/species?

-replacement of a temporary name (if such name exists) with a permanent one?

-corrections for mistakes in naming? What kind of mistakes?

-something else?

Please point me to a web page.

 

[njlarsen]

This updates contain:

-new discovered birds/species?

-replacement of a temporary name (if such name exists) with a permanent one?

-corrections for mistakes in naming? What kind of mistakes?

-something else?

Please point me to a web page.

No website is at this point available for the updates that are going to happen during the next couple of months. These consists of a couple of your points such as newly discovered species, as well as split and lumps.

Here is a link to a page describing what was included in the 2021 update:
2021 eBird Taxonomy Update — COMPLETE - eBird

Niels

 

[Paul Clapham]

And not only is there no website which tells you about the update which is going to happen later, when the update does happen you'll have to be quick to see the website which describes it.

The website at the end of Niels's link starts out by saying "For a complete list of all taxonomic changes, check out the 2021 eBird Taxonomic Update page." But the link in that sentence is a broken link. I don't know how long that 2021 eBird Taxonomic Update page was online but the Wayback Machine last captured it on September 16, 2021, just eight days after it was last updated. Here's the link to the Wayback Machine's last known version: 2021 eBird Taxonomy Update - eBird

 

[Mysticete]

I've seen some interesting things in eBird this morning (Sept 6). Specifically, a Virginia Rail being listed as "Virginia/Ecuadorian Rail" and an Osprey being listed as "Eastern/Western Osprey" in the RBA lists.

The shape of things to come?

Osprey however was lumped in the most recent IOC update, a decision that is correlated with where the working group was in there taxonomic overviews. Clements may simply be adding some new groups, or these were existing groups and either a new option was put in for recording them. Or simply that those were groups you didn't realize already existed.

 

[Mysticete]

I think if you want to get a sense of what Clements might be splitting, you can try going through the last year of IOC updates, and cross-reference taxonomic changes with the list of birds groups which are said to be completed as of the working group's June update. They seem to be also in the process of reconciling their own checklist with the WGAC's work

I wanna say avibase has a option to compare IOC and Clements to look for differences. IOC only splits not recognized by Clements but belong to families that WGAC has "completed" might give you further information on splits.

 

[awiner]

Yep, that's why I posted it. I wanted to give people a heads up.

Not to mention, if those two happen, I've got two armchair ticks.

I don't think that's what's happened; it is exceedingly unlikely that eBird would "leak" changes in this way.

Instead, visit the eBird prefs page.

I'm fairly confident that you've set your Species Name Display to "English (IOC)", at which point you'd see exactly what you're seeing now. Set it back to "English (US)" (or whatever else you'd want).