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By Bill Pranty, on July 2, 2016 Members of the ABA Checklist Committee (CLC) recently added Red-legged Honeycreeper to the ABA Checklist based on a juvenile photographed at Estero Llano Grande State Park, Texas, 27–29 November 2014. Seven members voted that the honeycreeper presumably represented a presumed natural vagrant from Mexico, while the dissenting member was concerned that the bird may have [read more…]
By Bill Pranty, on May 3, 2016 In recent weeks, members of the ABA Checklist Committee (CLC) have unanimously added three species to the ABA Checklist. These species, all vagrants from the Old World, are Common Scoter (Melanitta nigra), Blyth’s Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus dumetorum), and Pallas’s Rosefinch (Carpodacus roseus). Full accounts for these and other decisions made by the CLC since October [read more…]
By Bill Pranty, on June 14, 2015 The ABA Checklist Committee (hereafter, CLC) recently voted 8–0 to accept the Rufous-necked Wood-Rail to the ABA Checklist as a natural vagrant. As is well known, the wood-rail was observed by hundreds of observers at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico, 7–18 July 2013.
photo by Jeff Gordon
In October [read more…]
By Bill Pranty, on August 31, 2014 Earlier this week, the ABA Checklist Committee (CLC) unanimously (8–0) accepted the Common Redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus) as a natural vagrant based a record from St. Paul Island, Pribilofs, Alaska, on 8–9 October 2013 (Schuette and Gochfeld in prep.). The hatch-year bird was thought to represent the nominate subspecies. Common Redstart breeds from western Europe and [read more…]
By Bill Pranty, on August 27, 2014 Yesterday, the ABA Checklist Committee (CLC) unanimously (8–0) accepted the Egyptian Goose (Alopochen aegyptiaca) as an established exotic in southeastern Florida (Martin, Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties). The CLC vote was in response to a 6–1 vote by members of the Florida Ornithological Society Records Committee (FOSRC) to add Egyptian Goose to the official [read more…]
By Bill Pranty, on December 14, 2013 On 16 September 1995, Brian Patteson photographed a Pterodroma petrel off Hatteras, North Carolina. At the time Pterodroma taxonomy and identification were in their infancy. The identity of the bird remained unresolved for 17 years, until Steve Howell, in his 2012 book Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America, identified the bird as a Zino’s [read more…]
By Bill Pranty, on September 7, 2013 The News
Photo by © Billtacular via flickr
During August of 2013, the California Bird Records Committee (CBRC) ratified the Nutmeg Mannikin (Lonchura punctulata) as an established exotic in California. That action, recently reported to the ABA Checklist Committee (CLC) by CBRC Secretary Guy McCaskie, in turn spurred the ABA Checklist Committee to [read more…]
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