The perils of bird nomenclature . . .

Found this nice little pic online . . .

lol

Forgot to say, the pic is by Albertonykus at deviantart.com

Here's the original, for anyone wanting more: http://albertonykus.deviantart.com/art/Never-Trust-Passerine-Nomenclature-427440361

Resin

I grow species orchids. Every so many years the RHS is compelled to rename and reclassify numerous species as well as add and subtract genera. There has been a big upheaval recently. Granted new species are being discovered but I am referring to known species. Orchid species are shuffled about and sometimes, eventually, moved back. Some growers refuse to make new plant tags or use the new names while others race to the head of the class with keeping up. The later enjoy frequently reminding the rest they are using dated nomenclature.

If you really want to confuse yourself have a look at the common names of Australian birds. Many are named for vaguely similar European birds and are not at all closely related.

Educational Humor, or is that humour? I wondered why (English) house sparrows weren't listed with the other sparrows.
I have avoided learning "correct" nomenclature of birds. Mastering the field marks for Common layman's names is enough work to put into a hobby.
BUT I do know my way around Botanical names. I have been around long enough to see names change, change again, and change back. Cactus must be like orchids, there is no consensus - you can pick an ID name based on what "expert" guide you prefer.

In theory I can key & ID yellow composites in Colorado. In practice, I tend to fall back on my mother's " One if them is Arnica, the others are not". Small dust brown birds are almost as bad around here, and I am glad I don't live where I have to sort out warblers from each other and tree leaves.

This is about where I am at. I know enough now to be able to find the area where a bird might be in the field guides, at least the older ones. I just learned the AOU moved parrots and falcons after woodpeckers. What??? Doesn't make any sense.

In a related story, one of my winter projects has been to retype the local Audubon checklist onto a spreadsheet, so I can re-sort it in an order that makes more sense to me. Out of the 432 birds for this area, 65 are common this time of year, make it an even 100 if I include "fairly common" - those will go to the top of my list. That jumps to 200 in March. Over 100 are never common at any time of year, they will go to the bottom. I still need to add preferred habitat. Since this area covers Alpine to plains & riparian to desert, I think this is very useful information.

I guess to sum it up, I'm changing the list from Families to when-&-where Habitat.

Trouble is, that's even more complex than changing classifications! Lots of species occur in the 'wrong' habitat from time to time, so the categories get very blurred ;-)

Resin

Yes, and to be able to "sort" them by habitat, I will have to assign different habitats different numerical values. I haven't figured out exactly how I am going to do it yet.
But already I have a more concise list of what common birds I'm NOT seeing, and I can start giving some thought to why not.