So, do we list Hooded separate from Carrion?
Personally, I have Scottish Hooded "separate" from southern Carrion crows in my lists based purely on the plumage/region separation so that *I* know. No real scientific basis, just a distinction so that I remember the look of each one I'd noted.
I looked in Clements', and it counts them as one species, so that's what we'll do, officially. I am still inclined to allow listing of subspecies which are sufficiently distinct that you don't need to hold the bird to be able to tell the apart, and have thus listed both as subspecies; similarly, I listed Hokulele's Mexican stilt with the subspecies epithet, in case someone on the mainland observes the nominate subspecies.
I also found out that there is apparently two more subspecies of
C. corone in "Europe":
C. c. sharpii in Italy and former Yugoslavia, and
C. c. pallescens in southern Turkey and the Levant. If these are distinguishable from the other two subspecies, maybe these should count as well.
I've birded most of my life and always had made the distinction (based on some field guides) between the different Australian Rosellas (Green, Crimson, Yellow, Adelaide, Eastern, Western, Pahe-headed, Northern).
Then I met a friend who breeds them and the distinction the breeders make is much narrower, blue-cheeked (Green, Crimson, Adelaide, Yellow), yellow-cheeked (Western, Pale-headed), white-cheeked (Eastern, Northern).
A different field guide (Simpson and Day) to the first one I quoted (Slater) lumps the Adelaide and Crimson as "Yellow", but distinguishes between the rest.
I think for this thread's purpose we just go for general agreement, 'cos those discussion can go on interminably!
I think that taxonomically, we should follow Clements', as that's the only book I have that covers all the world's species. However, I believe we could list subspecies as separate entries, as long as they can be told apart by a layman without special equipment. This could potentially require that we look at pictures of two subspecies and make a subjective judgement, but I think that'd be allowed. There are some good resources out there for pictures on birds from all over the world. A cursory look suggests that the stilts comply with this criterion, as their head patterns seem to differ from mainland stilts, but that could be because of differences in season when the pictures were taken.
'tis a fine cold and drizzly morning, and there are three of Royal Spoonbill Platalea regia - 04.02.08 - Dunedin Harbour, New Zealand swinging their flanged noggins through the shallows. Looks a bit like hadrosaurs.
Back in January:
Banded Rail Gallirallus philippensis - 18.01.08 - Abel Tasman National Park, New Zealand and a dead Little Blue Penguin. Next weekend I'm going down to Sandfly Bay and have a look at some live ones.
I've seen spoonbills here twice, but both times, they've been quite dull and just stood there keeping their heads out of the rain, or maybe moving about a bit... meh... next time, perhaps...
Almost a bit too much detail^^
May I again say thanks for this thread. I've always enjoyed having birds around the place, and have done what I could to encourage them here, but I've largely taken them for granted. Now I find myself jumping up every time I hear a twitter or whistle to see if it's something new, and then looking them up to make sure I've identified it correctly. I've learned heaps from that, and more again from the other posters observations.
My only regret so far is that I never seem to have time to go birdwatching! There's always visitors or stuff I need to take care of. I had much more time last year^^. But I expect it will pick up once spring arrives and I get to go out and catch more birds on my own...
