Date: 10/13/26 10:56 am From: Kent Fiala (via carolinabirds Mailing List) <carolinabirds...> Subject: It's a Purple Swamphen
If you upload photos of the Gray-headed Swamphen to the Carolina Bird Club photo gallery, please identify it as Purple Swamphen, not Gray-headed.
Since the 1880s the American Ornithologists' Union (now reconstituted as American Ornithological Society) has been the authority for taxonomy of North American birds. From the early days of Carolina Bird Club up into the early years of this century, everyone in North America accepted their taxonomy. In this century, eBird has emerged using the Clements taxonomy, which is worldwide rather than just for North America. Many people use eBird so they are more familiar with Clements/eBird taxonomy than with AOS. This is one of a few unfortunate cases where Clements/eBird uses a different name than AOS uses.
I have asked the chairs of both the NC and SC Bird Records Committees to make a formal decision on whether we continue the long tradition of using the AOS taxonomy, or to switch to Clements. Neither committee has responded to me, so on the CBC website I continued using AOS as always rather than make a big change on my own, and I've suggested to Jeff that he do so as well. Thus, on the CBC website this species is known by its AOS name, Purple Swamphen, and not the Clements name Gray-headed Swamphen. By the way, the reason for the difference is that worldwide, Clements splits the former Purple Swamphen into multiple species, while AOS retains them all as one species.
I believe that the annual taxonomic update from AOS is expected this month, so it will be interesting to see if they make any further move toward unification.
