I've been experimenting with my occasional blog for a while, now I want to make it more regular. The main purpose is twofold-firstly to keep in touch with birders all over the world, and secondly to promote my website. Now I've retired I've had to cut back on travelling and also general birding, but I still have a need to do something, and the website has become another one of my hobbies- http://www.aabirdpix.com. It is just for interest, I'm not selling anything.

Whilst compiling some new pages I was researching shags, (or cormorants without silly innuendoes),  and realised that like owls and kingfishers, many new species had been described relatively recently as a result of splits. I really love splitting, and keeping my list up to date, not because of "armchair ticks" but I find it interesting. However there is one big drawback, I'm not sure we've got it right. The problem is all the information leading to a world list (I use IOC as a basis) is provided by researchers and taxonomists. I'm not sure we've even got a correct working agreement on what a species is, as I'm pretty certain that the degrees of genetic difference, if used on Homo sapiens, would result in isolated tribes being afforded species status, which is morally unnacceptable. Not sure about politicians though (Homo (sapiens) nocommonsensus?).

As I see it we need to simplify things somewhat, returning towards the Biological Species Concept more than we do at present. I recently saw Hanuman Plover in Sri Lanka, and researching it I found articles which told me that it was originally described as a species, but "became" a race of Kentish Plover, despite the fact it is non-migratory. But I also saw reports saying that it had been re-assigned species status (re-discovered, in media-speak). I consulted the IOC list- nothing, not even a proposed split. I heard that the paper supporting its status had flaws, and was being re-submitted, but all that proves is that the reviewers disagreed with the research worker, and that the ordinary birder doesn't get the full info'. In case anyone's wondering, it's on my list, because I could identify it from Kentish Plovers seen on the same trip.


 I have photographed a race of New Zealand Pipit on Auckland Island. This was previously Australasian Pipit, and before that all three were Richard's Pipits, according to taxonomists. It looks completely different, but because no-one's ever done any research on the matter it remains a subspecies. Arctic Warbler was split a few years ago, but all the three species involved look the same. How do we know that every record of Arctic Warbler in the UK was one? Are they all to become "unproven".  No, because Kamchatka Warbler is supposedly a short-distance migrant. But then so is Pale-legged Leaf Warbler. The reason the latter is on the British list is on the strength of a dead specimen found on St. Agnes, the DNA of which was analysed.                   There is also a sight record from Dorset of a species-pair, either Pale-legged Leaf Warbler or ......Kamchatka Warbler! Pale-legged has been a good species since 1860.

Ignore the overall hue, due to lighting conditions. The Kamchatka Leaf-warbler, originally taken on slide film, I labelled as an Arctic Warbler for thirty years!

Nothing can be done about this situation, and I don't believe we should try, even Darwin's Theory remains a theory. But bear in mind that 99.9% of birds are unequivocally one species, the other 0.1% are currently just interesting. But then we said that about Soft-plumaged Petrel once. If you don't understand that reference have a look at the petrels page on my website, which is where I came in!

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