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Hello and welcome to the American Birding Podcast from the American Birding Association.

I am Nate Swick.

Western Flycatcher is back.

But truly, was it ever really gone?

The North American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society, henceforth, the AOSNACC, has officially published their updates to the AOS Bird Checklist, which are automatically adopted

by the ABA's checklist, but not for E Bird, for what it's worth, although there is a

considerable amount of overlap.

In any case, the changes are out, and the biggest one is the expected lump of Pacific

Slope and Cordillian Flycatcher back together as Western flycatcher,

eliminating all the parsing, all the confusion, and all the need for us to come to a

consensus on how to pronounce Cordillarin. I've already done it both ways here. I still don't

know which one to use. But all that is behind us. No more slashes, no more spuds. Welcome to the Western world.

Other notable changes went the other way, two splits that affected the ABA checklist this year.

Northern Gosshawk was split roughly by hemisphere into what is now the uninspired but

geographically appropriate American Gossack and Eurasian Gosshawk.

...