Scythebill 10.5.1 - IOC 4.3 release!

Scythebill 10.5.1 is here!  Download it here, and please follow Scythebill on Google+ or Facebook for updates.

This release is out today to get the release of the IOC 4.3 world taxonomy into your hands.  This taxonomy was only released today!

Feral Rock Pigeons

Scythebill now lets you enter feral and wild Rock Pigeons separately.   In Clements, this takes the form of two new groups ("Feral" and "Wild");  in IOC, just a single subspecies ("f. domestica") is added.  Scythebill will also export these forms to eBird correctly. Thanks to Frederik K. for the idea!

More eBird improvements

In addition to supporting "Feral" Rock Pigeon, two more things:

• Scythebill exports containing eBird groups - like "Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)" - should now import into smoothly into eBird.
• Scythebill now supports importing life list files downloaded from eBird when your eBird settings for "Species name display" is set to "Both common and scientific".

Checklist improvements

A number of checklists have been improved - and increasingly, a few dedicated users are helping out.  Specific thanks to Zack W., Richard S., Niall P., and particularly Bill D.!  The specific improvments;

• In North America, Kansas, Iowa, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, and South Dakota, as well as Nova Scotia have been cleaned up, including rarities.
• There's now an Aruba checklist!
• Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil have all been reconciled, including rarities.  Bhutan has also been cleaned up (albeit without rarities)
• A number of corrections have been made to Africa.

IOC 4.3 update details

For world birders, the highlight of this release is some new families:

• Elachuridae: a single species, once known as Spotted Wren-Babbler but now known as a basal passerine with no close relatives.
• Rhagologidae: a single species, Mottled Whistler.  (Hint:  it's not a whistler!)
• Melampittidae: the two Melampittas of New Guinea
• Ifritidae: the Blue-capped Ifrit, also of New Guinea
• Eulacestomidae: the Wattled Ploughbill, also of New Guinea (noticing a pattern?)
• Oreoicidae: three species, two from New Guinea, and a third (Crested Bellbird) from Australia

So, if you haven't visited New Guinea, there's 5 new reasons to do so!

With the IOC 4.3 release, I've made a change to the Clements/eBird treatment of Streaky-headed Seedeater.  Subspecies montanorum and elgonensis have been moved from the "Streaky-headed" group to the "West African" group.  (I try to avoid making these changes, but a small number of them have made switching between IOC and Clements vastly simpler.)

As always, please let me know if you have any problems, either on Google+,Facebook, or by email.