Scythebill 15.7.5 is now available! Its main feature is the new eBird/Clements 2022 taxonomy. As always, download here, and let me know if you have any problems, either on Facebook or by email.
Update: 15.7.6 was released on November 9. It includes a few small improvements, but the most notable change is improved country checklists. In particular, I'd completely flipped the ranges of Black-faced Bunting and Masked Bunting in 15.7.5, so if Scythebill auto-resolved this split for you, it may have gotten it wrong. You can always use "Verify against checklists..." in the File menu to look for sightings that may have the wrong species.
eBird/Clements 2022
The 2022 update of the eBird/Clements taxonomy is finally here, and it's a big one, with 118 new species from splits (and 41 lumps). If you're a North American birder, this introduces just the Chihuahuan Meadowlark. But if you've spent much time birding in the neotropics or southeast Asia, there's a good chance you'll have a lot of armchair ticks awaiting you.
As always, Scythebill will automatically handle the upgrade as much as possible, and use its checklists to automate splits where possible. When you're done with the upgrade, visit the Splits and Lumps "special report" to see what's changed since 2021. (For me, I had a whopping 31 gained against just 2 lost.)
There's also been some species where subspecies have been rearranged - moved from one species to another - which may give you some work even if there isn't truly a split. This year, examples include:
- Golden-bellied and Golden-crowned Flycatchers
- Black-throated and Green-breasted Mango
- Sulawesi and Moluccan Scops-Owl
- Tropical and Large Scrubwren
Other changes
Other changes in this are fairly minor:
- I've added over 1300 alternate scientific names to both taxonomies, mostly reflecting changes in genera over the years. This will help users with imports that only include scientific names.
- Scythebill should give a better message to Windows users whose file permissions prevent Scythebill from being able to save.