Australian Subspecies

Hi James, Great to hear discussion around subspecies on Birding-Aus! BirdLife Australia offers a comprehensive list of all Australian subspecies through the Working List of Australian Birds (WALB). This list is build on decades of research by many taxonomists and conservation researchers. It includes taxonomic notes as well as conservation classifications for all species and subspecies. The current version is available below – although an update of this (with quite a lot of changes to subspecies and species arising from recent research and recent additions to the Australian list from the rarities committee) will be out before years end. There is also a short section on subspecies on the below webpage. Classifications for IOC, C&B and Clements are also included if your that way inclined. www.birdlife.org.au/taxonomy We have recently implemented proper vernacular names for all subspecies (a peer-reviewed paper is currently in review outlining this process), extending the critical work of the English Names Committee who have worked tirelessly for 30 years to provide our birds with the sensible identities that have been so important to all conservation efforts. We will also be offering functionality for birders to record subspecies detail in the new version of Birdata (which will be released within the next 6 months) as many people have called for this for quite a long time. This is an important as we have often lacked critical information on threatened subspecies in particular in the past and of course BirdLife Australia’s position is that all subspecies are equal to species in terms of conservation value. The Birdata system will usually attribute subspecies detail based on survey coordinates automatically and will only offer manual subspecies selections where subspecies co-occur to keep the data entry burden low. Cheers, Glenn Hi all, Regarding subspecies, does anyone have (or known of) a list or some detail info the different subspecies across the country? I began copying and picking out all the information from the IOC document including all the birds of the world and then thought there must be an easier way! Thought I better get on and start that subspecies list for future ticks (or lumps I guess) All the best, James Mustafa 0400 951 517 www.jamesmustafajazzorchestra.com