IOC 8.2
The IOC taxonomy (now released twice a year) has its usual batch of changes. Those affecting the largest number of birders will doubtless be:
- A five-way split of Eurasian Magpie, some easy-to-see (Oriental Magpie), some extremely difficult (Asir Magpie, a Saudi Arabian endemic!).
- A two-way split of Western Whipbird (an Australian species)
- A two-way split of White-collared Seedeater
There's more splits and lumps; you can see all the changes, including the dreaded lumps, at the IOC website.
Other changes of some interest, depending on one's interest in these sorts of things:
- One wide-ranging subspecies of Japanese Bush Warbler (canturians) has moved into Manchurian Bush Warbler. If you've seen Japanese Bush Warbler, you may need to be re-evaluate which species you've really seen.
- Two enigmatic species - Madanga (endemic to the Indonesian island of Buru) and Sao Tome Shorttail (no prize for guessing which island it's found on) - have both been proven to belong to the Pipit and Wagtail family, Motacillidae!
- Vangidae (formerly just the Madagascar Vangas) now includes Helmetshrikes, Wattle-eyes, Batises, and more.
Other changes
A few other changes snuck into Scythebill 14.0.2.
- IOC 8.2 now includes names in the "Northern Sami" language of Scandinavia. If you're one of its ~25,000 speakers, you're in luck!
- Show Reports is now more consistent about showing sighting flags, like "uncertain identification" with (?) or "dead" with (†).
- In Browse by location, the list of visits is now sorted most-recent-first, to be consistent with other parts of Scythebill. And for places you've visited frequently, clicking a location selects (by default) the list of visits, and not the first species.