Date: 10/15/24 1:50 pm From: Kent Fiala (via carolinabirds Mailing List) <carolinabirds...> Subject: eBird changes are coming October 22!!!!
It's time for the annual Clements taxonomy update. This is the taxonomy that eBird uses, and a lot of species names will be changing in eBird, including names of several Carolina species.
Do you keep checklists on your phone for a long time before you submit them? Please--submit every last checklist that you have by October 21. If you have an unsubmitted checklist with old names and submit it on October 22 or later, eBird may not be able to recognize some of the names on your checklist. Just one example: Beginning October 22, there will no longer be a species named Herring Gull. If you submit a checklist with Herring Gull on it after Herring Gull disappears, what is eBird supposed to do with it? Don't find out, go ahead and make sure you have no unsubmitted checklists on October 21.
Likewise, delete old or unused eBird Mobile Packs to free up valuable storage space on your phone and ensure an up-to-date taxonomy when you download those packs again. You’ll get a notice on your phone when new packs are ready. If you use outdated packs, you might see minor inconsistencies for the changed taxa. Feel free to keep the packs you plan to use on 22 October, and update afterward.
Old
New
Herring Gull American Herring Gull (split)
Audubon's Shearwater
Sargasso Shearwater (split)
Western Cattle Egret
Western Cattle-Egret (hyphen)
Barn Owl
American Barn Owl (split)
House Wren
Northern House Wren (split)
Common Redpoll
Redpoll (lumped with Hoary Redpoll)
Cory's Shearwater
Cory's Shearwater (split)
Cory's Shearwater
Scopoli's Shearwater (split from Cory's)
Records that you may have now as Cory's Shearwater with no subspecies identification will probably be changed to Cory's/Scopoli's Shearwater and you'll lose a species on your life list if all of your records are like this.
And finally: *Accipiter sp. No More!
*In recent years, research has shown that /Accipiter /is not a monophyletic genus, meaning its members are not all closely related. This year the long-anticipated breakup of the genus has finally occurred. World-wide this means many changes, but for North America:
Cooper’s Hawk and American Goshawk move to genus /Astur/
Sharp-shinned Hawk remains in genus /Accipiter/.
This means that you can *NO LONGER USE ACCIPITER SP *when you are not sure between Cooper's and Sharp-shinned. Instead, use the more precise name Sharp-shinned/Cooper’s Hawk. (I hope you have been doing this already.)
