Dear all,
Below is a message from this committee:
Following the discussion of the possible split of Melithreptus lunatus, subscribers to Birding-Aus may be interested in the following.
Birds Australia currently has an English Names Committee which is a sub-committee of the Research and Conservation Committee which is itself a sub-committee of the BA Council. The ENC is charged with recommending English names for species new to the Oz list (BA’s list is on the website), whether through BARC or as a result of taxonomic changes such as splits. The committee membership is at present Simon Bennett, John Blyth, Walter Boles, Geoffrey Dabb, Mike Carter, Les Christidis, Tony Palliser, Harry Recher, Peter Menkhorst and Andrew Ley.
It is specifically not the role of the ENC to make determinations on the status of suggested taxonomic splits such as that proposed for the White-naped Honeyeater so we have recommended to RACC that a Taxonomic Advisory Committee be (re)constituted to do that. The result of that recommendation is outstanding. Matters that will be taken into consideration by the committee when looking at possible names include such things as the opinion of the proposer of a split, overseas usage, established or past usage in Australia, consistency with existing names, and so on. Decisions of the committee will take the form of recommendations to RACC.
Andrew Ley, chairman, ENC
Regards
Shirley
Shirley Cook Secretary/Treasurer Birds Australia – Northern NSW Group
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If I remember correctly, the Index of Organism Names takes the bird names directly from the IOC, which they also rely on for taxonomic information as well, so that makes it far from international acceptance, although I imagine that would follow without much of a problem. I also think that the IOC list is an excellent tool for ornithology, but can have shortcomings in the English names department when English-speaking countries other than the US are involved – there are several members from Britain on the IOC, but it is unlikely that many of the IOC names will make it into common usage in field guides in the UK (Common Murre, Common Merganser, etc), not because of parochialism, but because they aren’t the common name that’s been used for hundreds of years. You should have seen the complaints when the recent edition of the Collins Field Guide changed the divers to loons… I know they have a hard job keeping everyone happy, what with spellings of words like ‘grey/gray’ and whet her something is a hawk or a buzzard having been up for serious discussion in the past and it’s a really impressive project. One advantage to having Australian authorities naming the birds here would be that you might avoid the terminally dull ‘eastern’ and ‘western’ names for splits and that something a little more imaginitive might happen. It’s also very sad to see wonderful birds being dumped with the over-used and not always helpful epithet ‘Eurasian’, when more interesting alternatives could be used, but that would just be my opinion. 😉 Cheers,
Tony
Dear Shirley,
Hopefully the committee will follow the International Ornithological Union’s recommended English names. Seeing as Walter Boles is on the IOU. It is no point re-inventing the wheel.
The Melithripus lunatus split seems to be internationally accepted, with M. chloropsis being listed as a full species in the Index of Organism Names database, I would suggest that the split is a fait accompli.
Regards,
Carl Clifford
Dear all,
Below is a message from this committee:
Following the discussion of the possible split of Melithreptus lunatus, subscribers to Birding-Aus may be interested in the following.
Birds Australia currently has an English Names Committee which is a sub-committee of the Research and Conservation Committee which is itself a sub-committee of the BA Council. The ENC is charged with recommending English names for species new to the Oz list (BA’s list is on the website), whether through BARC or as a result of taxonomic changes such as splits. The committee membership is at present Simon Bennett, John Blyth, Walter Boles, Geoffrey Dabb, Mike Carter, Les Christidis, Tony Palliser, Harry Recher, Peter Menkhorst and Andrew Ley.
It is specifically not the role of the ENC to make determinations on the status of suggested taxonomic splits such as that proposed for the White-naped Honeyeater so we have recommended to RACC that a Taxonomic Advisory Committee be (re)constituted to do that. The result of that recommendation is outstanding. Matters that will be taken into consideration by the committee when looking at possible names include such things as the opinion of the proposer of a split, overseas usage, established or past usage in Australia, consistency with existing names, and so on. Decisions of the committee will take the form of recommendations to RACC.
Andrew Ley, chairman, ENC
Regards
Shirley
Shirley Cook Secretary/Treasurer Birds Australia – Northern NSW Group ===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) href=”mailto:birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au”>birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au
http://birding-aus.org ===============================
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http://birding-aus.org ===============================