I upgraded from v3.6 to v3.7 and the 2010 AOU and Clements lists this evening.  

The new feature in v3.7 to Compare Taxonomic Lists is a neat feature, but it appears to have a major bug. 

If the name/species in the Older Taxonomy (Clements 2009 in my case) does not appear in the new taxonomy (Clements 2010), one can type the new name in the active green box on the right, click on locations, and then the new name appears in the Assign selected sightings bar at the bottom.  If you then select the sightings and click on the Assign sightings bar, the program asks you whether you want to change to the new name, etc. and everything looks good. 

However, what actually appears to happen is the name that is assigned is the one with the arrow beside it in the new taxonomy, and the sightings get hoplessly garbled.  I corrected a couple of the species manually and then gave up (because I could not remember every species changed) and reimported the last good database and reinstalled the 2010 AOU and Clements lists.  I will now use the Compare lists to identify species needing correction and then Edit in View/Edit sightings. 

A couple of species (White-browed Robin and Grey-headed Robin) appear as different in the 2009 and 2010 lists even though the Genus and species are identical (Grey is now spelled incorrectly as Gray and the White-browed Robin has a split so maybe that is what is happening). 

Spangled Drongo has disappeared from the Australia list in Clements 2010 and been replaced by some other Drongo I have never hear of. 

I have not noticed any other problems except that Grey has reverted back to Gray in all the names that I corrected using the Language feature.  The new program looks quite promising and I am sure that I will sort out the minor glitches. 

Thanks,

Mark

Hello Mark,

Thanks for the details above.

I cannot reproduce what you state above. The Assign... button will assign your selected sightings to whichever you did last: a) clicked on the 'locations' button, in which case it uses the name you entered in the SmartSearch field to the left, or b) selected an item from the upper-right grid. In either case, the Assign button shows the name it will assign sightings to. If you can reproduce this, please give an exact example that demonstrates this.

I am not sure if you are stating a problem or not in the final three paragraphs.

The Spangled Drongo complex was reorg'd by Cornell ...

in accord with RAOU, this subspecies is transferred from the Spangled Drongo (Dicrurus bracteatus) to the Hair-crested Drongo (Dicrurus hottentottus)

Let me know,

Jeff

Hello Jeff,

I am not sure what I did exactly, but I ended up with four or five species renamed to the name at the arrow in the upper box and not the name in the Smart Search field.  I will play with it a bit more over the next few days as I work my way through the list of missing species again. 

I do not know where you are looking to get the RAOU list (please include a url in your reply if you have one).  The bird is still listed as Spangled Drongo on the Christidis and Boles 2008 Checklist, which I understand is the current official Australia list, and there are no updates posted on the Birds Australia web site (as of today).  I have heard of Hair-crested Drongo, but the bird that appears if you view the Australia checklist is Tablas Drongo (Dicrurus menagei).  This is not a big deal since I am used to disagreement between checklists.  I was just surprised since the description of the Clements 2010 tax list said that it now matched the Australia list (and the checklist now says that I have not seen the bird). 

The last three paragraphs are problems, at least for me.  I will work through them over the next couple of days and let you know if I need help.

Thanks,

Mark

Hi Mark,

Here is the link to the Clements taxonomic list in Excel format, downloadable. It is what has the comments on the changes, that I used above.

Let me know if I can assist with anything further.

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

The Clements 20101 Excel spreadsheet gives the range of the Hair-crested Drongo as Asia Pacific (India through Solomon Is.), while the Tablas Drongo (the one listed in the Australia checklist) is Philippenes.  The latter Drongo is a recent split from Spangled Drongo.

The Spangled Drongo is the only Drongo whose range includes Australia. 

Is this something that I should fix in the checklist or will you issue a corrected version at some point?

I downloaded this spreadsheet a few weeks ago but had not looked at it.  It should be quite useful for sorting out where to put the orphaned sightings.

Mark

Hi Mark,

The attached import file will correct species and subspecies for Dicrurus bracteatus, D. menagei, and D. hottentottus.

Import with settings shown.

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

I did the import as instructed.  Spangled Drongo still did not appear as a seen bird on the Australia checklist using Clements 2010.  I searched for Spangled Drongo in View/Edit using Clements 2009, and 70 records appeared with scientific name Dicurus bracteatus.  Under Clements 2010 zero records appear (using either Spangled Drongo or Hair-crested Drongo as a choice for the Ambiguous entry). 

I did a careful search through the listed birds under Compare Taxonomic lists and Spangled Drongo Dicurus bracteatus appeared under both Clements 2009 and 2010.  When I updated Spangled Drongo 2009 to Spangled Drongo 2010 the bird appeared on the checklist and the sightings reappeared under View/Edit using Clements 2010.

Could you please explain why one needs to update a bird with the same Name and Scientific Name in both checklists.  If I understand what is happening it will help me deal with the other birds listed as "missing".

Thanks,

Mark

Hi Steve,

I am OK with the concept of requiring users to verify their sightings in light of splits which could possibly affect their species counts, as long as I know that that is what is happening.  I suspected that this might be what was driving the new Taxonomic list comparison tool, but I was not certain so I thought that I should ask specifically.  Now that I have this tool I can chase back through the various updates and catch the 10 or so orphaned sightings.  Which is great!

Australia currently takes a very conservative approach to species splits and this has resulted in the lumping of species which probably should be different (at least many of the more experienced birders that I have met there think so).  I suspect that if the same standard that goverened the recent Winter Wren split were applied in Australia there would be another 5-10 species on the list.  I am glad to see that Clements/Cornell is not completely in lock step, since the Restless and Paperbark Flycatchers and the Mallee and Port Lincon Ringnecks are still separate in Clements (but not on the current Australia) list.  The rearranging of Australasian families in 2009 in Clements, particularly for the Robins and Monarchs/Flycatchers, is fascinating and I am glad to see that Cornell is taking the initative. 

I still have not had time to work through everything, but there is at least one more glitch.  The Yellow and Adelaide Rosellas  are regarded as separate species in Clements 2009, but as subspecies of Crimson Rosella in 2010 (for the record, these birds all look very different).  The Adelaide Rosella appears in the Compare Taxonomy List but the Yellow Rosella seems to morph into Crimson Rosella without a mention (this is one of the reasons that I could not sort out what was happening). 

Thanks for the detailed explaination,

Mark

Back from  great weekend birding trip. Rested and ready to go.

I have nothing to add here. All looks good.

Jeff

Jeff and Steve,

I have finally had time to work through all the splits and I have a couple more species glitches for you. 

Grey-headed Robin Heteromyias albispecularis has been split into Ashy Robin from New Guinea with the same scientific name and Grey-headed Robin Heteromyias cinereifrons from NE Australia.  When I try to update Australia sightings to Grey-headed Robin Heteromyias cinereifrons using View/Edit this specific name is not listed under Clements 2010.  I can edit the sightings using the species name Heteromyias cinereifrons, but the sightings no longer appear if I type in Grey-headed Robin, but they do appear using Heteromyias cinereifrons.  Grey-headed Robin does appear as seen on the checklist though (it has just disappeared using View/Edit).  I also can not change the spelling in the name from Gray to Grey using an exceptions file in the Language/Region editor.

For splits of Blue-Crowned Motmot, Trinidad Motmot is not listed under Things in Newer Taxonomy while the other 4 splits are listed.  I mention this for completeness, since I can change this one with View/Edit.

This time when I updated my sightings to Clements 2010, I only used the Assign Selected Sightings feature in Compare Taxonomic Lists if the bird was listed specifically in Things in Newer Taxonomy (i.e. I used View/Edit rather than typing species names into the active green box).  When I was first trying to change sightings (the thing which started this post) and I ended up with 5-6 species with the wrong names, I think that I was typing the name into the green box and pressing Enter rather than clicking Locations.  I have avoided doing this because tracking down misassigned sightings is such a pain.  Jeff, maybe you can see if this would generate the error.  If so, then maybe you can change the feature to move the arrow beside the green box when anything is typed in, so that the missassignment can not occur. 

Now that Clements has adjusted names to conform to the RAOU most of the incorrect spellings in my Australia (and other International) lists relate to the word Gray rather than Grey.  I can fix this globally by changing to "European" common names, but this also alters some AOU names to the British version (which I definitely do not want).  I would find it very useful if there were a separate choice in the Language/Region list that changes all spellings of Gray to Grey but otherwise does not change the common names.  I expect that many users outside the USA would welcome this feature as well. 

Thanks,

Mark

Hello Mark,

I have no problem with Gray-headed Robin; it is grAy and not grEy, by the way. The internal thing for this bird is "gray-headed robin cinereifrons". If you are still having problems here, please give me specific details on reproducing it.

Concerning Trinidad Motmot - that bird does not appear in the "Newer Taxonomy List of things no present in the older taxonomy list" because it is indeed in Clements 6.4.1. It is Momotus momota bahamensis, common name of "Blue-crowned Motmot (Trinidad)". So, any sightings of this thing transfer automatically and do not need your attention.

Will put the Gray-to-Grey idea on the wishlist.

Thanks

Jeff

Jeff,

All my Blue-crowned Motmot sightings appeared in the list of Things in the older Taxonomy missing in the new taxonomy.  I had to use the full Clements list in the Excel file to sort out where each species was located and separate Trinidad and Brazil sightings into the correct species. 

There is something unusual with Grey/Gray-headed Robin.  I have a table in the Language/Region editor that I use to correct names.  For other birds with Grey in the name listed in the table, such as Grey Heron or Grey Whistler,  it does not matter whether I spell the name Grey or Gray in View/Edit -- the sightings are all listed properly.  For Grey-headed Robin I have to spell the name Gray not Grey to see the sightings in View/Edit.  I tried re-entering the Thing Gray-headed Robin and prefered name Grey-headed Robin and setting common names again for Clements 2010 and it made no difference to the behaviour in View/Edit.  It also is the only name that does not correct to Grey in the sightings list. 

By the way, yesterday I was having problems getting subspecies to display with the species in View/Edit for the the Crimson Rosella complex and I went back to just putting the sunspecies name in the comments column so I can sort it out at some future date if the complex changes. 

Today I noticed the check box beside the Name to show things under the name in the tree and I re-assigned the Adelaide and Yellow Rosellas their subspecies names.  The Yellow Rosella appears in the list of sightings for Crimson Rosella but the Adelaide Rosella does not, and I have to type in the full Genus-species-subspecies name to get the sightings to show up.  Is there a solution?

Thanks,

Mark

Hi Mark,

I am having a problem with the language region names editor that you describe above. I will be looking into this in more detail this week.

As for the final two paragraphs, I don't quite see the problem. Can you give me some specific steps for recreating the problem please?

Thanks

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

If I understand correctly, if the check box beside Name in View Sightings setup is checked, then all things under the named thing in the taxonomic tree (in my case subspecies) should be displayed. 

The Crimson Rosella complex includes Crimson Rosella Platycercus elegans plus Adelaide Rosella Platycercus elegans adelaidae and Yellow Rosella Platycercus elegans flaveolus.  All three were separate species in Clements until the 2010 edition. 

The problem is: if I have both the Adelaide and Yellow Rosellas sightings entered using their full Genus-species-subspecies names and I try to display all sightings for the Crimson Rosella complex (using either the Common or scientific names), then Yellow Rosella appears in the list of sightings for Crimson Rosella but the Adelaide Rosella does not.  I have to type in the full Genus-species-subspecies name for Adelaide Rosella to get the sightings to show up.   

Thanks,

Mark