01-08: 2017 Splits and Lumps, The AOS Episode

The American Birding Podcast

naswick

Science, Birding, Hobbies, Travel, Birdwatching, Leisure, Aba, Ornithology, Nature, Birds

4.7 • 632 Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2017

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Every year, birders look forward to the check-list supplement from the American Ornithological Society (formerly the American Ornithologist's Union), and this year is no exception. In fact, 2017 offers a bounty of potential splits for your armchair ticks, as well as some very compelling lumps. In this episode, Nate Swick breaks down some of those taxonomic decision with Nick Block, professor of Biology at Stonehill College and member of the ABA's Recording Standards and Ethics Committee, talking Yellow-rumped Warblers, redpolls, willets and more!

And Greg Neise and Ted Floyd return with guest and gull expert Amar Ayyash to talk about one of the most fascinating proposals in this year's batch, the lump of Thayer's and Iceland Gulls. Clines and hybrid swarms are on the agenda!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Before we get started on this week's episode, I want to make a short announcement.
0:03.5	The ABA is hosting a drawing for birders who join the ABA or renew their membership in the month of April, 2017.
0:10.5	The prize this time around comes from Brian Patterson and sea birding pelagics out of Hatteras, North Carolina.
0:15.8	The winner will receive two free spots on a date of their choice on the world famous stormy petrol two on a trip out
0:22.2	to the gulf stream the birding out there is spectacular and brian's trips are world class so if you
0:28.0	are interested be sure to join the aBA or renew your membership before april 30th you can do that
0:32.9	at aBA.org slash join.
0:48.8	Hello and welcome to another episode of the American Birding Podcast from the American Birding Association.
0:50.2	I am your host, Nate Swick, and I am really excited about this episode because we are going to do a dive into the recent taxonomic proposals from the American Ornithological Society that could lead to splits and lumps and changes in your life list.
1:06.1	And maybe, if you're lucky, a few armchair ticks.
1:09.3	I'll provide a little background here. I talked a bit about
1:12.5	the AOS proposals in an earlier episode. That's 0103, if you were interested in going back.
1:18.9	But the short of it is that the AOS is the big professional academic organization for bird scientists in
1:25.5	the Americas. They maintain a taxonomic classification committee
1:29.2	that makes decisions based on the latest bird science and proposals made by interested parties.
1:34.4	Those parties might be researchers who were actually doing the work. They might be hobby birders
1:39.2	with an interest and the requisite knowledge about a given topic. But those proposals are kicked
1:43.8	up to this committee of volunteer ornithologists who make them public,
1:47.0	and we absolutely thank them for that, and they vote on them every year.
1:51.8	I always find it sort of interesting how those of us who are not necessarily bird researchers
1:56.0	have such an interest in the decisions that are made here.
1:59.6	They certainly affect the lists that we
	...

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