The fifty-first Supplement to the AOU Check-list (still so quaintly spelled a century and a quarter after the first edition!) has been published.

In the US and Canada, we now have two whip-poor-wills, Mexican Whip-poor-will and Eastern Whip-poor-will, and the old “winter” wren is now recognized as three species, two of which–Pacific Wren and the poorly named Winter Wren sensu novo strictoque–occur in North America. “Our” black scoter is split from the Old World species and renamed Melanitta americana, vindicating good old Swainson a hundred seventy-five years after he described it; its English name is apparently uncertain, but will probably be Black Scoter in opposition to the Old World’s Common Scoter (the version of the Supplement at BioOne calls it American Scoter, but that is rumored  to be a typographic error).

While species determinations speak only to identity, genera are all about relationships, and this Supplement is full of new views about what belongs with what. Canyon, California, and Abert’s Towhees are moved over to Melozone, which they’ll be sharing with the tropical ground-sparrows; only the three rufous-sided and Green-tailed Towhees remain in the cheerful-sounding genus Pipilo.

There are some significant innovations in the warblers, too, both Old World and New. Here in North America, Vermivora is greatly diminished, now including, if I count right, only Blue-winged, Golden-winged, and the ghost of Bachman’s Warblers. The handsome old genus Oreothlypis is resurrected to contain all the other erstwhile Vermivora and two tropical “parulas,” Flame-throated and Crescent-chested Warblers; visually and intuitively, those latter two have always been thought of as intermediate between the parulas and the old-style Vermivora.

Another pair of warblers, the waterthrushes, have now got their own genus, Parkesia, bearing the name of one of the last century’s greatest museum men and warbler experts. Ovenbird stays behind to brandish its tail in Seiurus, no doubt to the posthumous frustration of Eliot Coues, who argued long and hard that it should by rights have been spelled Siurus.

It’s official now: Aimophila, that wonderful ragbag genus of wonderful ragbag sparrows, has been dismantled. In the US, only Rufous-crowned Sparrow is still an Aimophila, our others moved into the revived genus Peucaea. Five-striped Sparrow, always an uncomfortable nomenclatural fit, has gone back to Amphispiza, joining once again the visually similar Sage and Black-throated Sparrows.

The revisions don’t stop at the level of genus. There are eleven new families recognized, including the re-elevation of Osprey and the gnatcatchers to family status; the longspurs and white buntings also get their own family, Calcariidae (and McCown’s Longspur goes its own way generically once again).

The Old World “warblers,” a miscellaneous bunch if ever there was one,  are broken into many families: Cettiidae includes the bush warblers, Phylloscopidae the leaf warblers, Sylviidae the round-headed chattering warblers (now including Wrentit), and Acrocephalidae the reed warblers. Those new Eurasian families are followed in sequence by an American one, Donacobiidae, including the Donacobius.

Most far-reaching of all is the re-organization of a couple of non-passerine orders. Sunbittern and Kagu, two of the most extravagantly plumed birds anywhere, now get their own order, Eurypygiformes. The falcons and the other diurnal raptors are split into two orders, falcons and caracaras keeping hold of the old Falconiformes and the rest inserted into a new Accipitriformes.

And then there are the storks and pelicans. Ciconiiformes relinquishes everything but the storks themselves; the herons and ibises are now part of the order Pelecaniformes, where they sit alongside the pelicans to form the suborders Ardeae (herons and  bitterns) and Threskiornithes (ibises and spoonbills).

The committee giveth and the committee taketh away, and the old totipalmate swimmers are now split up into three orders: the pelicans and herons in Pelecaniformes, the Phaethontiformes (tropicbirds), and the Suliformes (frigatebirds, boobies, and cormorants).

And changes will continue. The committee rejected proposals to split the scrub-jays and the curve-billed thrashers, but watch the “pending” section of the committee’s web page for new proposals–and look forward to next July when the next Supplement will be published.

Birders interested in the taxonomy of South American birds will also want to keep up with the deliberations of the South American Checklist Committee.

Jon Dunn finished a very successful Second Spring tour Friday night–then, rather than hop on the plane for some well-deserved rest, got up early Saturday to meet a group of young Arizona birders in upper Madera Canyon.

Jon’s companions, boys, girls, and young adults, were all eager and enthusiastic birders, all of them poised to take maximum advantage of a relaxed morning afield with one of the continent’s–the world’s–most knowledgeable birders.

WINGS feels strongly that our commitment to the birding community doesn’t end when the tour comes to a close. Jon and other WINGS leaders regularly volunteer their time to local and regional birding groups, offering them the opportunity not just to rub shoulders with well-known birders but also, more importantly, to talk, to ask, to learn. And isn’t that what it’s all about?

Part of Saturday's group, with Jon Dunn and Rob Payne. Photo: Rick Wright.

If you know a young birder, why not encourage her or him to get in touch with the nearest Youth Birding Program? Here in southeast Arizona, Rob Payne (Jon’s co-leader Saturday morning) and Scott Olmstead are leading a group of young birders up Mount Lemmon on July 24.

Perhaps the most highly sought bird in all of Peru, the Long-whiskered Owlet is also among the most mysterious. Long known only from mist-netted specimens, it’s been seen a handful of times since 2007–most recently YESTERDAY by Rich Hoyer as he finished up scouting for this summer’s tour of Northern Peru. The images he sent on are among just a few photographs ever taken of this fancy-faced little owl.

Rich’s tour focuses on this and another spectacular Peruvian endemic, the Marvelous Spatuletail. We’ll keep you up to date as the tour begins later this month.

South Africa has apparently tightened up on yellow fever certificates for the world cup, wanting to see them from anyone arriving from another African country.

This has had a ripple effect throughout the continent, and apparently some countries are now insisting on seeing yellow fever certificates if you have arrived from another African country, even if you were only in transit.

Kenyan Airways flights to Tanzania, for example, stop in Nairobi; in theory, the border control at Kilimanjaro could ask to see the certificate.

If you are joining an Africa tour and your flights involve a transfer on the continent, or if you are going to be visiting another African country after your tour, this may mean that you should obtain a yellow fever certificate before starting your travels.

A Plain-capped Starthroat appeared Sunday at the Casa de San Pedro B&B in Hereford, AZ. Jon Dunn’s tour Arizona: Second Spring spends three nights here next month.

Will the starthroat still be there? No way to say, but historically, individuals of this species have lingered long and shown considerable “feeder fidelity” in southeast Arizona.

One of Canada’s most beautiful and most endangered ecosystems, British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley is a blindingly obvious choice to be the site of a new national park.

Gavin Bieber visits the Okanagan on his July 2012 tour of British Columbia in Summer. As Gavin writes, “The Okanagan Valley is a place of mesmerizing beauty, with huge rocky outcrops, large lakes, sagebrush, riparian woodland, and dry ponderosa pine forest at lower elevations, while there are spruce and fir forests higher up. Species of particular interest to birders  include Chukar, Northern Pygmy-Owl, Calliope Hummingbird, Lewis’s Woodpecker, Hammond’s and Dusky Flycatchers, Say’s Phoebe, Canyon and Rock Wrens, Lazuli Bunting, and such ‘eastern’ species as Veery and Bobolink.”

If you haven’t yet experienced Canada’s “Pocket Desert,” join Gavin next year. And if you have, consider registering your support for a new national park here.

Many thanks to Dick Cannings–

I’m always amused when birders fret about the way “the others” see us. In a new article in the Vancouver Sun, a Vancouver Island birder with a bit part in “The Big Year” muses that the movie may produce a more positive public image for birders.

I’m amused because I don’t think that birding has a public image. Those as yet unbitten by the bug don’t spend their time thinking about the rest of us and our curious hobby; ask the person on the street what she thinks about birds and birders, and she’ll look at you like you’re insane–not because you’re a birder, but because you’ve stopped her on the street to ask her such a bizarre question.

I suspect, too, that the enthusiastic extra hasn’t actually read the book on which the movie is based. It’s a good book, often funny, but I’d never say tha the light cast on its principal figures is anything but a black one. We’ll see. My prediction is that it will be a very good movie (at least the parts of it with Steve Martin–never heard of the other two principal actors), and that it will have as much effect on the “public perception” of birding as, say, a movie about crocheting or Studebaker collectors might.

What do you think?

Rick Wright e-mails from Rome:

It’s always tantalizing for a leader to show up the day before a tour begins. It’s essential, of course: there are always last-minute arrangements to attend to, always last-minute emergencies to fix. But once all that’s out of the way (and thanks to the yeoman work done by the Tour Managers back in Tucson, it never takes all that much time), then it’s time to go birding. A few hours to re-familiarize yourself with routes and sites, to gauge the progress of the season, or even, as I’ve done today, just to get your ear back in.

I’m staying at a very pleasant Holiday Inn between Rome and Fiumicino Airport, where Marco and I will meet up with the group tomorrow for the drive north into Tuscany. It was raining when I arrived, but it let up soon enough that I threw on my jacket and took a stroll around the neighborhood. It’s not exactly wilderness here in the middle of our industrial park, but I was amazed by what I saw. Among the thirty species I tallied in a two-hour stroll, never getting more than a quarter mile from the hotel’s parking lot, were Hobby, European Turtle-Dove, European Bee-eater, Rose-ringed Parakeet, Sardinian Warbler, Zitting Cisticola, Cetti’s Warbler, Firecrest, and (naturally) Italian Sparrow.

A good start, and all I could do to keep from asking the front desk to get all the other early arrivals downstairs so we could start birding!

What is the easternmost county with an accepted record of Varied Thrush?

The vagrancy range of Varied Thrush is vast, with accepted records in all but a couple of the US states and Canadian provinces.

The westernmost record seems to come from Wrangel Island, Russia, right on the 180th meridian. The easternmost record comes from November 1982 in the county of Cornwall in southwest Britain, a bird of unknown sex lacking any orange in the plumage.

Barry Rossheim was the first to identify that record as the easternmost–you’ll soon be able to recognize him in the field by the dapper WINGS cap atop his head.

The May question will appear this weekend in the newest edition of the WINGS e-newsletter. Will you win this time?

New rules will go into effect January 1, 2012, governing inter-island travel in the Galápagos.

Starting in January 2012, no vessel will be permitted to visit the same site more than once every 14 days. The brilliant week-long itineraries now in effect will no longer be possible; by visiting the best sites, those itineraries make them unavailable for the next week’s cruise. It seems certain that all cruise companies will now divide up the best islands so that each week’s cruise visits some–but of necessity not all.

The upshot for birders? If you want the best of the Galápagos in just a week’s time, plan to go this year or in 2011.  Rich Hoyer’s next cruise is scheduled for November 12-21, 2010, followed by another convenient, but different, itinerary in November 2012.