OSME Region List of birds
A consultative document
Semi-collared Flycatcher/Gobemouche à demi-collier Ficedula semitorquata - an OSME speciality © Aurélien Audevarde
The Formal Edition of the OSME Region List of Bird Taxa – Version 2.3
The aim of the OSME Region List (ORL) is to provide a definitive list of bird taxa1 that have been recorded in the OSME Region. The Formal Edition is issued with a version number so that we* can implement amendments from the results of new research and from comments, corrections and suggestions we may receive. The ORL will be the basis of any country-by-country checklist for the OSME Region, a project that is being undertaken separately under the aegis of OSME Council in cooperation with the countries involved. A longer-term aim is to produce the ORL and country checklists in the languages of each country. However, before you examine the ORL for the first time, we suggest that you read its Ornithological basis , and the Explanation of the ORL. The ornithological basis provides the rationale for the Order, Sequence and Nomenclature adopted in the ORL. For ease of reference, the ORL comprises five sections: Part A is the list of Non-passerines, Part B contains the Non-Passerines References , Part C is the list of Passerines, Part D contains the Passerines References and Part E contains the Hypothetical list (species that are of unproven occurrence, those that are unlikely to occur and some perhaps that are both). We acknowledge here the help freely given and the interest expressed by so many people from throughout the Region and from the ornithological world – we believe that we have included their names in the Acknowledgements section below, but if you have been omitted, we apologise, and do let us know so that we can update it!
MIKE BLAIR*, RICHARD PORTER, STEVE PREDDY AND SIMON ASPINALL
* ORL correspondence coordinator; Listmaster, c ⁄ o The Lodge, Sandy, SG 19 2DL UK or via email
Version 2.0 to 2.2: summary of changes
The published results from a plethora of increasingly-refined DNA research projects are acknowledged and mostly incorporated; those not incorporated mostly await results of other research. They include repositioning complete genera in the sequence, re-sequencing species within genera, but the main change is the break-up of Sylviidae, the Old World warblers. New warbler families are Phylloscopidae and Acrocephalidae. , grassbirds, is extended to include Bradypterus and Locustella. There are also many smaller changes across numerous families, in part involving the erection of, or reversion to, separate families. v2.1 warns of the proposal (Fregin et al 2009) to split Acrocephalidae into 3 separate genera, introducing Calamodus and Notiocichla. We have aligned with the paper’s advice to wait until the outcome of the question of priority of these two names is known; one may have to be changed. Each potential change is in the ‘Notes’ column. Another major change, completed in v2.2, is updating the ORL from a review of back issues of OSME publications. Bird records from Iraq 1942-46 have been incorporated where relevant; the original notes have been located in Oxford and will be reviewed at a future date.
Version 2.3: summary of changes
The changes accepted from IOC v2.3 to v2.7 (relatively few for the Region) have been incorporated. Relevant papers and notes from Oriental Bird Club publications have been cited. DNA research papers have been numerous, but are often cited with caveats. The large grey shrikes are a case in point: our ‘treatment’ recognises the extent and scale of remaining uncertainties, but also our inability to endorse any current treatment. The conclusions of those papers that take into account a range of techniques, molecular and non-molecular, or warn of the need to do so, are in our opinion likely to be authoritative. Hence we commend the approach of Parkin & Knox 2010, where in most species accounts they provide a brief summary and assessment of recent taxonomic history. We recognise the implications of Sangster et al 2010 in resequencing families and genera, but we may delay implementation until we have data to resequence those ORL families and taxa not covered by that paper.
1 We use the word ‘taxon’ (plural ‘taxa’) rather than ‘species’ or ‘subspecies’ here because there are a number of cases where any definition of a species or subspecies is inadequate to describe the status of populations where a majority of, but not all, individuals can be identified through visual identification, morphology or DNA studies. The subtleties revealed through much modern genetic research indicate that many more taxa than previously thought are in dynamic states of evolutionary stability that defy simple definitions of ‘species’ and ‘subspecies’ (the Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava complex (qv) is a good example). Overlying this problem is that precise knowledge of taxa distribution limits and population numbers and densities is lacking over vast areas of the Region, which leads us to be cautious about even well-argued cases for ‘splitting’ and ‘lumping’. We therefore retain some taxa that we have not elevated to a higher rank and others that we have not ‘lumped’, but we note the cases for doing so.