I see that clements has final swung its axe; the changes have been reflected on the bubo listing web site. Got off lightly, losing only siberian stonechat (now just stonechat along with afrian and eurasian) and eurasian teal (now green winged teal). others in the UK affected included lesser black back gull, caspian gull, herring gull and ruddy duck etc etc.

I notice Clements 6th edition is available from Amazon presently at about $37 as opposed to £40 from Birding World Books; though doubtless not the bargain it would have been several months ago. I'm out of love with Clements because of all the back- tracking so won't be getting it out of sheer "pique".
I didn't know the AOU hadn't recognised the original split of Green-winged Teal,- Clements and 20000 field birders in U.S. did though, so we have a parallel divergence in N. America to mirror that of G.B.
= Make up your own minds guys; set the pace and to hell with the nerds!

If memory serves me correct Eurasian Teal & US Green-winged Teal have never been split in the US. The just have Green-winged Teal just as we have Pied Wagtail for Pied/White. For the definitive US checklist go here http://www.aou.org/checklist/index.php3

cheers
jason



-- Edited by jason atkinson at 20:46, 2008-11-29

Geoff that it a very profound point, your list is yours and
for many year going back some time now I had always had Hooded crow as a separate tick long before it was split, and when the did split it I said Told you so

Now heres a points just because they may unsplit it as far as I am concerned it was a tick when you saw it so it should remain so,therefore as far as my yearlist goes its on and staying on, the fact that it may not be valid in future years should not detract from the fact that I saw it this year, and before you start about arm chair ticks anything that has been split after I saw it, I have in fact been to see that species again after it was split, just to be certain.

Keep birding

Dangerous ground here,but i,ll dip a toe in just as a gm lister enjoying building (slowly) a list of very nice birds which can be seen within the boundries.So here,s my twopenneth I went to twitch the green winged teal,stumbeled across a spoonbill, which at the time were perfectly good ticks,if someone at a later date decrees them unticked I don,t really care there staying on my list, after all it is 'my list'.

cheers geoff

Hi Ian,
John Rayner advised his circle of pals here in the North East about the latest Clements treatments. It has provoked quite a discussion.
As you know, American Herring Gull was established relatively recently by BOU as a full species, no doubt after thorough deliberation. Hardly has the ink dried on that one, when according to John, Clements has again lumped it.
As for Green-winged Teal, if memory serves me, part of the original rationale for splitting it was on the basis that its DNA differed from Common Teal to a greater extent than the DNA of Wigeon differs from American Wigeon. (I cannot envisage that "convergent evolution" has worked its wicked way and intervened sufficiently to alter this relationship in the space of a few years!).
I have over the years followed Clements, as it was one of the more conservative treatments and the basis for world and regional listings of the ABA, of which I am a member.
However, I am so cheesed off by the endless lumping/splitting/lumping antics applied to certain species, seemingly increased further since Clements' death, that I am receptive to adopting another basis for my British List, which is what I think John does (but I should have to check with him, on this point).
The unsatisfactory aspect to this is that I shall end up counting some species as "full" on one list and as "sub species" on another.
This latest nonsense only serves to bring Clements treatment into disrepute, which I do find rather sad.

Oooh, now that's going to hurt, it took me ages to find my own for my self-found list and now they're taking it off lets hope it takes BOU years to take off.

I've just noticed the latest Clements updates and loads of species now seem to be lumped. From a Greater Manchester perspective the most significant lumping seems to be Eurasian Teal/Green-winged Teal. But it usually takes some time for the BOU to accept such changes so we'll probably be able to hang onto GWT for a while yet http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/corrections