On the heels of the AOU's latest pronouncement, there will be plenty of others who can go through the lists with you and massage that for you. I am here to hold your hand. I am the empathetic father who comforts you and defends your feelings that change is hard... while also pushing you back out into the field.
So take a hug and slap on the back - it is time to understand what is going on, and that there is going to be a Bunch More of this before we are finished chopping up field guides.
The AOU has made numerous changes in both taxonomy and nomenclature since I first picked up a field guide in about 1962. Two years earlier I had been lured into beginning birding and I had snapped at the bait.
Back then Peterson came in hardback and was THE field guide. In fact, it was the ONLY field guide I knew of. Roger TORY Peterson-please.
I think it was 1964, when the earth shattering Golden Guide came out with a range map placed with the bird, all color illustrations, and the most important foreshadowing in the field guide- sonograms. Although Roger had great poetic descriptions of bird songs ("Old Sam Peabody"), the buzzy trill of Clay-clored Sparrow could now be visually described in full non-anthropomorphic glory. The pacing of a song could be visually compared and the thin wispy call of Cape May Warbler was easily seen why many hearing impaired birders can not hear it at all.
Song was out of the closet, in terms of importance. It was obvious because of placement and design of the book itself. The importance of understanding the differences of songs, calls and even chip notes was being put right next to range and the key distinction of plumage and shape. This was and still is, a monumental shift. Chan Robbins put himself in the Birding Hall of Fame in one move. Checkmate.
But since those days, the names and placements have been up-rooted. Baltimore and Bullock's Orioles did a close dance, merged into one and then divorced so to speak- being moved back to full species. Thankfully, we lost a pitiful name like: Northern Oriole. The bad news is that we are going to be seeing the greatest changes ever in the next few years. Be ready, dear birders, to tear the pages out and shuffle. Mitochondrial DNA.
In most species, and especially true in birds, mtDNA is inherited solely from the mother. The sequences of the building blocks of DNA spells out a signature that closely defines a species and its distinctness. As genetic sequences are being unravelled, we are able to much more easily understand the relationship between species, because we can easily compare these sequences of this critical type of gene. That fact that mtDNA is faithfully passed along by one parent is critical. This is a tool which ornithologists simply did not have back in the day. This comparison of the DNA sequences has become a mainstay of modern Ornithology.
The examination of mtDNA allows a new generation of field ornithologists an unparalleled opportunity to examine the relatedness of disjunct populations- like never before. Now, a group of interbreeding birds that sing differently from another group, and live in relative isolation can be quite accurately be analyzed for genetic differences and then judged to the merits of how different is this group from the other? The accuracy of this new data is astonishing and will change the way we have looked at birds- again.
Coupled with behavior, including habitat use, and the songs and other sounds that birds make during their intense lives, mtDNA can really put the bird world into an order which can hopefully at least, then become a long standing stable phylogenetic order. Phylogeny simply allows biologists and Ornithologists to spell out the evolutionary relationships among the over 10,000 species of birds... and growing. So how growing you ask?
That is a reason for joy and also confusion.
The opening of this door into sequencing of mtDNA will give us a look like never before into the previous secrets of bird species relationship. Be prepared for an enormous increase in the number of species in South America, Africa, Asia and even smaller areas like island groups, where the effect of isolation has long been understood. I have been warned that an area like the Phillipines where isolated groups of many species have now been looked at- could almost double in numbers. So if you are a lister and love to travel keeping track of all those "field identifiable birds" and have paid closer attention to the forms which are distinct because of song and subtle differences, you may be ready to benefit.
The rest of us just have a lot of work to do, new names to learn, relationships to understand and who knows what 15,000 or even more birds might stimulate. This could be especially important in terms of bird conservation.
The Ornithologists should be thrilled having so many new names to brutally slaughter into blandness. I know it is work, oh fellow Ornithologists, to have to research the first use of a name applied to a taxonomic unit which is now understood to be a distinct genetic species. But please.... Northern Flicker?
We can all do better.
