The Lincolnshire Bird Club

I have seen Kentish Plover in Greece and Turkey in the past and now I have just seen one Snowy Plover several times in Antigua. My guide book told me that the bird was a Snowy Plover yet some of the articles on the internet are suggesting that the birds are the same species

I would be grateful if someone could tell me the latest thinking. Are they two different species or not

They are both the same species Charadrius alexandrinus. Sorry but you cannot tick them both on your world list.

_________________
Regards,

Andy.

Thanks Andy. I thought as much

Actually Andy not necessarily true depending on whose taxonomic list you are following!

There are several players in the world bird list, but of the major ones both IOC and Boyd's TiF treat Kentish Plover Charadrius alexandrinus and Snowy Plover Charadrius nivosus as seperate species. However Cornell Clements and BLI still regard them as sub-species of one another.

I personally find Clements very New World orientated and lags behind with decisions made elsewhere in the world. The obvious choice if you are based in the Americas but rapidly falling out of favour with Old World birders. IOC have gained much ground recently and as well as being endorsed by the likes of the BOU have, again in my humble opinion, become the first choice for those birders who like to keep a world list.

So as an advocate of the IOC world bird list (which is free to download by the way) then Kentish Plover AND Snowy Plover are both ticked on mine!

Cheers

Grahame

Thanks for that Graham. My snowy plover didn't really look like the Kentish Plovers I have seen in Greece and Turkey. The markings on the Snowy are much fainter but after reading Andy's reply and looking on the internet I put it down to being a juvenile. It was almost the same as a Piping Plover but its legs were the wrong colour for that.

Chris (or anybody else who is interested in the taxonomy of the worlds birds).

I meant to follow up my last post above in a little more detail as it was written in something of a hurry at the time.

Not so long ago world bird lists were published as books but due to DNA studies that are rapidly unravelling the relationships amongst the worlds birds at an unprecedented rate, its now easier (and free!) to publish these lists as downloads from the internet.

I have given below the links for two of the most popular world bird lists that are currently in use. It is purely personal choice which one to use and both have their advantages/disadvantages.

The one I use is the IOC (International Ornithological Congress) whose website (www.worldbirdnames.org) virtually replaces ‘Birds of the World Recommended English Names’ by Frank Gill and Minturn Wright. Note that the BOU use the Gill & Wright names in their international documents. From the home page click IOC World List and it should bring up the IOC World Bird List Version 2.6 with the choice of two Excel files to download. Note that IOC updates their World Bird List every three months to keep up to date with the latest taxonomic thinking.

The list that Andy uses has been around a lot longer than IOC and is known as the Cornell Clements Checklist (www.birds.edu/clementschecklist). Clements is based on decisions made primarily by the NACC (North America Checklist Committee) and the SACC (South America Checklist Committee). The big disadvantage with Clements is the poor coverage given to birds out with the Americas and if you have been to N America recently don’t expect to find for example Green-winged Teal, American Herring Gull or Snowy Plover as separate species as they are still treated as forms of Eurasian Teal, Herring Gull and Kentish Plover respectively! Anyway, from the homepage click ‘Preface to the 6th Edition’ then ‘Downloadable Clements Checklist’

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Grahame

Hi Grahame

Thanks for this. It makes sense to me that Snowy and Kentish should be split but when are the BOU going to split Whimbrel and Hudsonian Whimbrel? I checked out both lists you mention and IOC has 10.417 species and Clements now has "more than 9,930"

Andy is going to Colombia on Friday for 3 weeks and will be up to his neck in new species. I think in the short time he has before he goes he needs to compare the 2 world lists and decide which one he is going to use.

I use the Clements 5th edition published in 2000 myself (which lists all the races) and has "approx 9,800 species but if I can boost my world list by 5% just by swapping to IOC thats got to be saving me a few grand and I can avoid going anywhere until next August when the Atlas is done and dusted and not feel too bad that I've not been anywhere this year either!

My personal view is that a world species list is the wrong way to view it and the races are just as important, capturing as they do evolution in action, and telling a much more interesting story.

Phil
There is a grandeur in this view of life

It would appear that our American friends may be playing catch up! The AOU's NACC (North American Classification Committee, not Checklist Committee as I called it in an earlier post!) has just published its pending proposals.

http://www.aou.org/committees/nacc/prop ... ending.php

Look at proposal 2010-A-1 Separate Snowy Plover Charadrius nivosus from C. alexandrinus. Click on the PDF to see the proposal in more detail! World listers using Clements might also like to look at proposal 2010-A-10 Split Common Gallinule Gallinula galeata from G. chloropus. However, if you are a follower of the IOC then these two species will already be ticked off!

Cheers

Grahame