SARBN: Southern African checklist version 10

[Trevor Hardaker]

Greetings all SARBN subscribers,

 

The annual update to the Southern African bird checklist has been very delayed this year and, every time I thought I was ready to publish it, another new bird would come to the fore and I would need to change it again and wait for the official Afrikaans name to come through, so I apologise for taking so long to send it out. However, I am now sending it out quickly before I go away and someone else goes and finds another new bird for the subregion…;)

 

Please find attached Version 10 of the Southern African bird list. Some changes to highlight that have happened since Version 9 was published last year:

 

·         One species, Saunders’s Tern, has been moved from a previously uncountable category into a countable category following the confirmed birds on the San Sebastian Peninsula.

·         4 new species have been added to the various countable categories on the list i.e. Madagascan Pratincole, Forbes-Watson’s Swift, Sooty Gull and Northern Carmine Bee-eater. We are now up to 983 countable species in the subregion.

·         The 3 potential Francolin splits have all been added into Category G on the list for now, so are not countable yet. As soon as the IOC accepts these splits on to their world list, they will automatically become countable on our list too, so we are just waiting for them now.

·         Royal Tern has been removed from our list and replaced with West African Crested Tern to be in line with the split that happened between the American and African birds.

·         Various taxonomical changes have happened which include the re-ordering of some bird families, a new bird family for Old World Parrots, changes in genera of some species, etc. All of this to bring our list in line with the IOC list.

·         The main column for English common names is now fully in line with the IOC list names and alternative English names are included in a second column. It does not mean that these are our official common names, but it’s just to keep everything in line with the IOC list. Although we are treating this list as the Southern African subregion list, there are a number of countries that make up the subregion, all of whom have different approaches to their naming conventions in their countries, so it’s impossible to align this list with just one of those. You just keep calling the bird whatever you prefer and it’s really no big deal but, at least when comparing across to the IOC world list, you will be able to be sure of what you have and haven’t seen before.

·         The full list of changes from Version 9 to Version 10 is specifically listed on the tab labelled “changes” at the bottom of the spreadsheet.

 

I think that’s it for now. If anyone picks up any errors in this list, please do let me know about them, so that I can try and rectify them in the next update.

 

Take your time and work through the new list. Sometime early in the New Year, I will then make a call to everyone to send in their latest totals, so that I can update the various Listing Clubs on www.zestforbirds.co.za in line with this latest checklist.

 

Hope you find it of some value!

 

Enjoy your Festive Season birding and listing…J

 

Kind regards

Trevor