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Taxonomy

Agreeing on a taxonomy is not easy. Not only does bird taxonomy vary significantly from one authority to another, but it is in a state of constant change. New species are still being discovered, and subspecies are split and lumped based on ornithological studies.

Wikipedia's taxonomy for bird species, subspecies, genus, family and order pages follows that of the IOC, unless consensus determines there's a reason not to. The IOC World Bird List is now updated twice a year. The IOC is also the de facto standard for English bird names. This decision does not affect country, state or other regional lists that use a different, named, taxonomy, or other articles that discuss bird biodiversity or birds in general. Exceptions may be made in particular cases for either taxonomy or names. Where disagreement exists between the major taxonomic authorities, articles should note this.

Resources

World lists

  • IOC World Bird List
Frank Gill, David Donsker, and Pamela Rasmussen maintain an open access online world list of birds on behalf of the International Ornithological Committee. The list was at one time updated four times a year but beginning in 2018 the list is updated twice a year. Version 10.1 released in January 2020 included 10,928 species in 250 families. Gill, Donsker, and Rasmussen provide several Excel files including a comparison of their own list with other world lists.
  • Clements Checklist of Birds of the World
The sixth edition of The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World was published in 2007:
Clements, J.F. (2007). The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World (6th ed.). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-80144501-9.
Updates and corrections are posted online once a year in August by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The eBird database uses the Clements Checklist - see here. The Clements Checklist is also used by the Birds of the World website managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (subscription required) (see here.) The August 2019 edition of the Clements/ebird list included 10,721 species in 249 families.
  • Handbook of the Birds of the World
The Handbook of the Birds of the World was published in 16 volumes between 1992 and 2013. The work included 9,972 species. The text was available online with a subscription from the website HBW Alive. The descriptions of the individual species were updated to reflect changes in taxonomy, but the introductory articles which provided an overview of each family continued to contain the original printed text. The HBW Alive site closed on 11 May 2020 and much of the information was incorporated into a new subscription based site, Birds of the World, managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
In 2014-16 Josep del Hoyo and associates authored an illustrated checklist in two volumes:
del Hoyo, Josep; et al. (2014). HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World, Volume 1: Non-passerines. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. ISBN 978-84-96553-94-1.
del Hoyo, Josep; et al. (2016). HBW and Birdlife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World, Volume 2: Passerines. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. ISBN 978-84-96553-98-9.
The two volumes list 4,372 non-passerines and 6,592 passerines giving a total of 10,964 species. Compared with the printed edition of HWB, Volume 1 has 30 lumps and 462 splits while Volume 2 has around 41 lumps and 628 splits. The authors used a points based method to assess whether a taxon should be considered as a subspecies or species. This resulted in many taxa that have traditionally been classed as subspecies to be elevated to species level. At the same time a smaller number of species were demoted to the subspecies rank. The use of this procedure has been criticised by James Van Remsen, Jr.:
Remsen, J.V. Jr (2015). "Review of HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World Volume 1: Non-passerines". Journal of Field Ornithology. 86 (2): 182–187. doi:10.1111/jofo.12101.
Remsen, J.V. Jr. (2016). "A "rapid assessment program" for assigning species rank?". Journal of Field Ornithology. 87 (1): 110–115. doi:10.1111/jofo.12142.
The illustrated checklist was published jointly with BirdLife International who are the Red List authority for birds for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The taxonomy used by BirdLife International is based on the Illustrated checklist. Later updates initially followed HBW Alive but with the demise of this web site in 2020 changes are now decided by the "BirdLife Taxonomic Working Group". The BirdLife International/IUCN taxonomy is published annually as an Excel spreadsheet and as a pdf file here.
  • Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World
The fourth edition of the Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World was published in 2013-14 as two volumes:
Dickinson, E.C.; Remsen, J.V. Jr., eds. (2013). The Howard & Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World, Volume 1: Non-passerines (4th ed.). Eastbourne, UK: Aves Press. ISBN 978-0-9568611-0-8.
Dickinson, E.C.; Christidis, L., eds. (2014). The Howard & Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World, Volume 2: Passerines (4th ed.). Eastbourne, UK: Aves Press. ISBN 978-0-9568611-2-2.
The two volumes list 10,135 species and 2340 genera. An errata is available online from the publisher.
From 16 Aug 2018 the complete list is available to download as an Excel file from https://www.howardandmoore.org/

Regional lists

  • North and Middle America - American Ornithological Society
The American Ornithological Society (formerly the American Ornithologists' Union) maintain a Checklist of North and Middle American Birds. A print edition was published in 1998:
American Ornithologists' Union (1998). Checklist of North America Birds (7th ed.). Washington DC: American Ornithologists' Union. ISBN 1-891276-00-X.
Updates to this list are published annually in July as open-access articles in the journal Ornithology (formerly The Auk). The book and the updates (Supplements) are available for download. The updates explain the rationale for the changes. A recent example is:
Chesser, R.T.; et al. (2016). "Fifty-seventh Supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-list of North American Birds". The Auk. 133 (3): 544–560. doi:10.1642/AUK-16-77.1.
The current AOS checklist is also available online and in CSV format. Proposed changes currently being considered by the Committee on Classification and Nomenclature of North and Middle American Birds (NACC) are posted online.
  • South America - American Ornithological Society
The South American Classification Committee (SACC) of the AOS maintain a main list as well as lists for each of the countries in South America. The discussion by the SACC on proposed changes to the taxonomy are also posted online.
  • Britain and the Western Palearctic - British Ornithologists' Union
The eighth edition of the British Ornithologists' Union (BOU) checklist of British Birds was published in 2013:
Harrop, A.H.; et al. (2013). "The British List: A Checklist of Birds of Britain (8th edition)". Ibis. 155: 635–676. doi:10.1111/ibi.12069.
Beginning in 2002 the BOU have published the recommendations of their Taxonomic Sub-Committee of the BOU Records Committee as open-access articles in the Ibis. A complete list of articles is available from the BOU website. A recent article is:
Sangster, G.; et al. (2016). "Taxonomic recommendations for Western Palearctic birds: 11th report". Ibis. 158 (1): 206–212. doi:10.1111/ibi.12322.
The updated BOU list of British Birds is available online. In January 2017 the BOU announced that from 2018 they would follow the IOC World Bird List for the taxonomy of birds on the British List.

Authorities for taxonomy

  • Check-list of Birds of the World published from 1931 to 1987 in 16 volumes gives the authorities for genera, species and subspecies. The early volumes were edited by James Lee Peters. Scans of all volumes are available from the Biodiversity Heritage Library
  • History and Nomenclature of Avian Family-Group Names is a monograph by Walter Bock published in 1994 that provides the authorities for bird families. It can be downloaded from the website of the American Museum of Natural History as a 48MB pdf file:
Bock, Walter J. (1994). History and Nomenclature of Avian Family-Group Names. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. Vol. Number 222. New York: American Museum of Natural History. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
Unfortunately this book is strewn with errors - both typographical and factual, see: Olson, Storrs L. (1995). "Reviewed Work: History and Nomenclature of Avian Family-Group Names. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, Volume 222 by W. J. Bock" (PDF). The Auk. 112 (2): 539–546. JSTOR 4088759.
  • Priority! The Dating of Scientific Names in Ornithology by Dickinson et al. published in 2011 provides information on publication dates. The complete text can be downloaded from Researchgate as a single pdf.
Dickinson, E.C.; Overstreet, L.K.; Dowsett, R.J.; Bruce, M.D. (2011). Priority! The Dating of Scientific Names in Ornithology: a Directory to the literature and its reviewers. Northampton, UK: Aves Press. ISBN 978-0-9568611-1-5.

Other resources

There are also a number of family monographs (such as the Hayman "Shorebirds" and Harrison's "Seabirds" in the Helm Identification Guides series); some are available on line at Amazon using the Search Inside feature. Although a mine of information, these books reflect the authors' idiosyncrasies and soon become dated.

Online resources

A number of useful free to view online resources exist that are useful in writing bird-related articles:

Referencing (free scientific articles from ornithological journals etc.)

  • Ornithological books online by Tommy Tyrberg
  • SORA Searchable online research archive, University of New Mexico. This site has archives of the American ornithology journals, such as The Auk, The Condor, Journal of Field Ornithology, Ornitologia Neotropical, Studies in Avian Biology Pacific Coast Avifauna, and the Wilson Bulletin. Coverage ends around 2000. The ability to search almost all journals and browse issues exists on the front page.
  • PALMM Textual Collections a State University of Florida project. Several monographs available via All Collections search, such as Pierce Brodkorb's "Catalogue of Fossil Birds".
  • Forktail - the journal of the Oriental Bird Club [de; nl]. Deals with South, East and Southeast Asia and surroundings. All except the most recent issues available.
  • Rothschild, Miriam; Clay, Theresa (1953). Fleas, Flukes and Cuckoos. A study of bird parasites. London: Collins. Useful for ectoparasites
  • New Zealand Journal of Ecology Often publishes bird-related articles. Like Notornis concerns itself with New Zealand and surrounding areas.
  • New Zealand Birds Online has book extracts on birds occurring in New Zealand including chapters from the Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds (HANZAB) listed above.
  • Marine Ornithology published by the numerous Seabird Research Groups, it is specific but goes back many years.
  • Notornis, the journal of the Ornithological Society of New Zealand. Covers New Zealand and the South Pacific.
  • Birds of the World, Cornell University's project collecting information on all bird species. It combines Cornell's earlier Birds of North America with the Handbook of Birds of the World Alive. The latter website was based on the 16 volume Handbook of the Birds of the World. It isn't free, but available for 40 USD a year. Access is sometimes available via university libraries.
  • Malimbus, The Journal of the West African Ornithological Society; as well as the even older Bulletin of the Nigerian Ornithologists' Society. Mostly covers bird distribution in sites across the area, but also notes on behaviour and ecology of obscure birds from a little studied part of the world. The Journal is bilingual and some articles are in French.
  • Biodiversity Heritage Library is a large database that includes scans of much of the older ornithological literature and is particularly useful for taxonomy. It includes scans of the 10th and 12th editions of Linnaeus' Systema Naturæ per regna tria naturae as well as all 16 volumes of Peters' Check-list of birds of the world.

Conservation status

  • BirdLife International The Data Zone has species accounts for every species, although only threatened species have any detail beyond status and evaluation.

Taxonomy

Images

Miscellaneous

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