Changing names In all the controversy over name changes one important factor seems to have been overlooked. Constantly changing bird names leads to confusion, especially among field birders. Why should the changes be decided by people that rarely set foot outside an office or laboratory. The big problem is that what the bird is called now is often very different in the field guide for the area, or in other publications. If eponymous names are to be dropped for "socio-political" reasons, then what is to be done about all the places the name already appears. This isn't new, but the number of changes has reached ridiculous proportions for varying reasons. When I first started birding, in the back of my trusty "Shell Guide" was a bird called a Rufous Bush Robin, which I finally managed to see in the UK a few years ago. In the latest IOC list it's a Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin, but I have books in which it is called Rufous Bushchat, and both scrub-robin and bush-...