The 2017 issue of Birder’s Guide to Listing & Taxonomy is at the printers. American Birding Association members should find it in their mailboxes in the next couple weeks. But you don’t have to wait until then to see what’s inside. You can see the entirety of this issue of Birder’s Guide right now. Simply click here. (Birder’s Guide is just one of the free resources that the ABA provides to the birding public.)
Listing and taxonomy may not be immediately related, but dive a bit deeper, and it soon becomes apparent. Of course, ABA Area listers depend on the American Ornithologists’ Union to maintain its checklist. Rather they used to. Paul Hess explains what led to the birth of the American Ornithological Society in this issue. Our annual “Check-list Redux” explains in simple terms all that’s changed on the (now) AOS Check-list in 2017.
You can use this information to update your list totals in ABA’s Listing Central. Greg Neise tells us what’s new there in the “Listing Central Update“, and 2016’s top totals are found in the “Listing Snapshot“. Other listing articles in this issue include details on a new world-record Big Year, an impressive Big Day effort in South America, and an update from ABA Checklist Committee chair Peter Pyle on the progress of incorporating Hawaiian species into the ABA Checklist.
Whether your passion is attending bird walks in a local park, competing in Big Days, or keeping up-to-date on the latest details of duck taxonomy, I hope you will find something of interest in this issue. Please take a moment to let us know what you did and didn’t like, and what was missing. Even better, write something for us! We look forward to hearing from you.
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You can easily download the entire issue, or just certain pages, allowing you to read Birder’s Guide on your Nook, Kindle, or other tablet, when offline. Or your laptop, if you’re old-fashioned. Just click on the fourth button from the right in the toolbar above the e-magazine. (See image below.)
