Month: March 2011

Hawks in Australia

That is simple. Goshawks are types of hawks. The set of things that are goshawks are a subset of the set of things that are hawks. The set of things that are hawks (family Accipitridae) also includes eagles, harriers, kites, buzzards, sea-eagles, old world vultures, etc. A subset of family Accipitridae is the genus Accipiter that includes the goshawks and sparrowhawks and a few others that are given their own name. So yes all birds that are in Accipiter are essentially Hawks even though it may be called a Goshawk, or Sparrowhawk etc.

The set of things that are hawks (family Accipitridae) does not include the falcons & new world vultures, etc.

Philip

Ushuaia, North and Central Chile, March 2011

I had booked a cruise from Ushuaia to Antarctica for Feb/March but the vessel I was booked on hit an uncharted rock in late January and further cruises for the southern summer were cancelled or rather postponed until the following summer. I decided to use the booked airfares and extend my time in Ushuaia from 3 to 8 days, go to Northern Chile for 12 days and retain my original plan to bird in Central Chile for 4 days.

Birding in Tierra del Fuego was slow since it was late in the season, some of the land birds had gone North and the seabirds had apparently gone South. I did not have a guide here and saw about 60 species, 12 of these being new to me. I tried hard and often for the Magellanic Woodpecker in Tierra del Fuego National Park without success. I had been birding in Argentina in 1994/1995, but not quite as far south as Ushuaia.

On the coast and Altiplano of Northern Chile, I saw about 115 species, 70 being new to me. I stayed in Putre for most of the time and used the excellent guiding services of Barbara Knapton of Alto Andino Nature Tours for about 2.5 days.

In Central Chile, I had booked the excellent accommodation, transport and guiding services of Rodrigo Reyes of Aconcagua Birding for the 4-day version of their “From the Andes to the Pacific Ocean” tour. On this tour, we saw an additional 65 species, 25 of these being new to me. Even though I was not particularly keen, we looked for the Diademed Sandpiper Plover in both Central and Northern Chile without success. The story was that the birds had dispersed after breeding. We did see some Torrent Ducks, perhaps the bird of the trip for me although the Inca Terns, Moustached Turca and White-throated Tapaculo all tie for second.

I had to overnight in Buenos Aires on the way and spent a morning at the Reserva Ecologica de Costanera Sur, which I had visited and enjoyed in December/January 1994/5. In early March it was completely dry and on Sunday morning it was full of people. On the street in the San Telmo area of BA, my attention was diverted by white blobs sprayed on my clothes and I managed to have stolen my backpack with Swarovski bins, Panasonic Lumix camera and Chile Bird Guidebook. Apparently the trick (along with similar ruses) is used in many parts of South America.

Please contact me directly if you would like bird lists or further information.

Regards,

Gil Langfield Melbourne, Australia gil.langfield@bigpond.com

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Bronze-Cuckoos

Hi friends,

While working through the Cuckoos on my website (http://worldbirdinfo.net http://worldbirdinfo.net/ ), I came to the Bronze-Cuckoos, and realized that there was massive contradictions in recent authorities on how to treat this group.

First, as regards the genera involved, I found that most recent authorities assigned the Bronze-Cuckoos all to Chrysococcyx. This includes Payne,2005,The Cuckoos, and Dickinson,2003,The Howard & Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World,3rd edn..p.210.

But Australian authorities, including Christidis and Boles, 2008, Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds place the Australasian and Southeast Asian taxa in Chalcites. There is a bad misunderstanding of the Code in relation to this.

Payne accepted the interpretation of Chalcites Lesson,1831 that its type was determined by subsequent determination (Swain,1837,The natural history of the birds of Western Africa), as Cuculus klaas an African species. But in the ICZN Code Art.68 Type species fixed in the original publication, includes 68.1 which established order of precedence in ways of fixation. Firstly original designation; then monotypy; then absolute tautonymy; and lastly Linnaean tautonymy. Designaton of any type by the original author has priority over any subsequent designation.

Based on this; I think that absolute tautonymy established chalcites Ill. As the type. So Peters was right to conclude that the type was Cuculus chalcites Illiger = Cuculus plagosus Latham 1802, which is a race of Cuculus lucidus J.F.Gmelin,1788, as Australasian species.

Secondly, the tree in the chapter by Sorenson & Payne, A Molecular genetic Analysis, fig. 5.6,p.90 shows the two clades to share a common ancestor but that the two clades separated millions of years ago. And Joseph,Wilke Z& Alpers, Molecular Ecology (2002) 11, 829-837 and Christidis and Boles (2008) recognised Chalcites as distinct from Chrysococcyx. As was done by Howard & Moore,1994,A Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World,2nd ed.,p.116.

Beyond that, there is widespread disagreement as to what species to recognise in Chalcites group, and indeed what subspecies to allocate to such subspecies.

Payne,2005,The Cuckoos,pp.415 – 418 includes in Chrysococcyx [=Chalcites] minutillus C.m.aheneus (Junge 1935); C.m.jungei (Stresemann, 1938); C.m.rufomerus Hartert 1900; C.m.crassirotris Salvadori,1878, C.m.salvadorii Hartert & Stresemann,1925. C.russatus Gould,1868, was included in C.m.poecilurus (G.R.Gray, 1862).

Yet Parker,1981,Prolegomenon to further studies in the “Chrysococcyx malayanus” group, Zoologische Mededeelingen Rijks Museum van Natuurlijke historie,Leiden,187,3-54, recognised as subspecies of C.minutillus: C.m.peninsularis (S.Parker,1981); C.m.albifrons (Junge 1938);C.m.cleis (Parker 1981); C.m.minutillus, C.m.barnardi Mathews 1912. He recognised C.poecilurus as a distinct species. He reocgnised C.russatus aheneus, C.r.jungei, C.r. misoriensis, and C.r.russatus. He also recognised as distinct species, C.rufomerus, “C.salvadorii” and C.crassirostris.

Howard & Moore,1994,2nd edition, largely followed Parker 1981, placing aheneus,misoriensis,jungei with nominate russatus in russatus. Poecilurus was still recognised as a distinct species. And C.crassirostris was regarded as a distinct species. Note that Howard & Moore included nieuwenhuysi in minutillus, although this has generally been lumped with nominate minutillus.

Handbook of Australian,New Zealand and Antarctic Birds, Vol.4,p. 745 assigned barnardi, albifrons, and peninsularis to minutillus; to russatus he assigned aheneus, jungei, and misoriensis beside nominate russatus. It is also plain that HANZAB recognises C.rufomerus, C.crassirostris and C.ruficollis as extralimital good species.

Dickinson,2003,p.210 recognises C.crassirostis, with subspecies C.c.salvadorii beside the nominate.

What are we to make of this confused mess? It is a pity that Sorenson & Payne (2005) did not include any of the problematic taxa in their genetic analysis. I have requested Prof.Sorenson to send me his sequences for his Chrysococcyx, so that I can reanalyse the data, but have had no reply from him.

I have to make some decision for at least the time being. Maybe somewhill do a genetic analysis of all the problematic taxa.

What I have decided to do for the time being is to generally follow the accounts in Parker (1981) and HANZAB plus Christidis and Boles 2008 to the extent that they are relevant. I know that all of these accounts have studied extensive collections of specimens in reaching their conclusions. Whereas the same cannot be said for Payne, Dickinson and several other authors.

Please let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Dr John Penhallurick

86 Bingley Cres

Fraser A.C.T. 2615

Australia

email:jpenhall@bigpond.net.au

Phone: Home (612) 62585428

Mobile:0408585426

Please visit my website: http://www.worldbirdinfo.net http://www.worldbirdinfo.net/

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Oriental Cuckoo in Wynnum, SE Qld

Attention Brisbane birders, at lunchtime today (31 March) an ‘hepatic’ Oriental Cuckoo was seen at the small bridge on the walking-trail on the North Wynnum Boardwalk (Coords -27.425298, 153.166998) The bird was typically ‘nervous’, initially trying to conceal itself in dense-foliage and then flying into a nearby treeline where I failed to relocate it.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Wynnum,+Queensland,+Australia&aq=2&sll=-27.239153,152.81001&sspn=0.010493,0.022724&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Wynnum+Queensland,+Australia&ll=-27.425509,153.167412&spn=0.002619,0.005681&t=h&z=18

Hope someone manages to refind it,

Tom

Scarlet Myzomela

I have just updated my bird sightings software, which is based on the latest Clements list. I have been checking the listings and discovered in the species entries there are holes where Scarlet Honeyeater Myzomela sanguinolenta should be. It seems I now have to call it Scarlet Myzomela. I referred to the Clements site at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and their overview of updates and corrections they mention that they have updated their data for Australia, Based on Birds Australia’s checklist, with a link to it. In the BA checklist M. sanguinolenta is still given the common name of Scarlet Honeyeater.

Can anyone throw some light on what name we should actually use?

Cheers,

Carl Clifford ===============================

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Migratory Bird Mortality

The US Fish and wildlife service estimates that between 350,000,000 and more than 1,000,000,000 migratory birds were killed each year in the USA alone, by human activities. I guess you could add a power of 10 or two for world wide mortalities. Perhaps we should get rid of humans.

Carl Clifford

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Alternatives to Bird Banding, Flagging, Etc.

Could the opponents of bird banding, flagging, etc. suggest a method which can be used to monitor the movements of birds, which does not rely on any human contact with the birds?

Carl Clifford ===============================

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