We just returned from a trip to Mongolia, and while there and using a field guide for that area of the world, saw five species which when I enter by the name in the field guide, Birder's Diary won't accept the name.

The names of these species are:

Duarian Redstart, White Capped River Chat, Greater Rock Nuthatch, Eurasian Crow and Northern Raven.

Are there other names for the same bird that would be in Clements that I don't have?  What are the equivalents for Birder's Diary?

Thanks for any help you can provide

Bob Knapp

Hello Bob,

These are common issues with birding trips abroad and especially to remote places. Mongolia sounds like a fantastic place to bird!

What is key to this understanding is:

• What taxonomic system are the guides following? (e.g. Clements, etc) Usually they are following locally updated taxonomic treatments that do not agree with World wide standards (e.g. Clements). In many cases these treatments are ahead of Clements etc for local endemics especially in remote (e.g. Mongolia) areas; but in these instances, they need to provide mappings to more globally accepted taxonomic treatments.
• Common names are generally worthless! What are the scientific names of these things that you sighted according to the taxonomic treatments that the guides are using? Hopefully they provided you with a checklist that includes not only common names, but the scientific names (Family thru species/subspecies) as well.

With the scientific names in hand, now you are prepared to figure out the mapping from the local taxonomic treatment to what you have (Clements 2005 - you should upgrade to the latest Clements which may have these things). Birder's Diary has two essential tools that help you figure out what these things might map to in your Clements 2005.

• Tax Viewer
• Rosetta Stone

With the Tax Viewer, you can open Clements 2005 and browse to the Genus in question. Typically, the unknown bird you have with the local taxonomic treatment will have been a subspecies in Clements that was elevated to species status with the local treatment. For example, the bird you are trying to match may be known locally with the scientific name of Genus1 Species44. And in Clements, after examining Genus1 in the Tax Viewer, you will find Genus1 Species2 Subspecies44. So, in short, what Clements considers a subspecies, your local guide has elevated to a species. Record your sighting against this Clements subspecies.

Using the Rosetta Stone, you can search by scientific name in much the same way. I the Scientific Name field, enter "genus1*species44". The asterisk will match any scientific name that starts with genus1 and ends with species44. You can also search on common names also. Many times just the local name is different from clements 2005. So, entering the common name in Clements will match as an alias to some thing. By then choosing the thing, by double-clicking on it, you will see which tax lists reference that thing.

These two tools will help you find the matching thing in BD. But having the scientific name is usually essential to this task.

For example, by searching on the common names you provide above,

• Duarian Redstart - no match on anything "duarian"
• White Capped River Chat - matches on common name to White-capped Redstartin Clements 2005, Chaimarrornis leucocephalus. So log your sighting to that.
• Greater Rock Nuthatch - matches Eastern Rock Nuthatch, Sitta tephronota
• Eurasian Crow - matches on hooded crow, Corvus cornix
• Northern Raven - matches on Common Raven, Corvus corax

Rosetta Stone solved 4 out of 5. But to figure out the Redstart, we will need the scientific name.

Let us know please.

Jeff

Bob,

I wanted to add one more thing. These matches were based on the common names you provided. But without the scientific names, we can't be certain that these names were meant to apply to Clements species or if they were meant to apply to perhaps a subspecies.

Jeff

It's Daurian Redstart, and it looks like it's named as such in the Clements list.

Nick

Now that is funny.  Just transpose two letters and it can't be found.

Thanks Nick!

Gee - maybe you could add a fuzzy search to the SmartSearch,

Hi Bob,

I want to keep this discussion in the forums for other's valuable information.

From Bob

Jeff:

I have received from the field guide we used in Mongolia the following information regarding the two birds I have not been able to enter into Birder’s Diary.

The Latin name for the Greater Rock Nuthatch in the Russian bird book is Sitta tephronota.

The White-capped River Chat in Latin is Chaimarrornis leucocephala.

Your suggestions below are very helpful in finding the bird names, but ultimately I couldn’t enter either into Birder’s Diary with my understanding of the software.

I tried to enter the Latin name in Birder’s diary and it wouldn’t accept it, or I needed to do something else to make it recognize Latin, and I used the alternate names for the birds found on the web namely, Eastern Rock Nuthatch and White-capped Redstart.

Using the Taxonomy viewer, I found the Sitta Tephronota called a Persian Nuthatch but Birder’s diary wouldn’t accept this entry as an alternate name.

I couldn’t find Chaimarrornis in the Passeriformes in the Taxonomy viewer, but found in Rosetta Stone a bird that comes within two letters of it –phalus instead of –phala, and going to the internet, we were able to find a picture of the White-capped Redstart or White-capped Water Redstart, but found no entry for either of the above or simply Water redstart. 

I know this is a small thing, but I would like to be able to enter these into my life list if there is a way to do it.  In the meantime, your instruction on using the Rosetta Stone and tax view have been very helpful and will be useful in the future.

This is no small thing at all. And the solution is quite simple. The problem is that the BD data does not list either of the two things you are having trouble with as occuring in Mongolia. And, I bet you are using a Location Filter on your sightings entry setup window of Mongolia. Right? So, BD only shows you the things it thinks occur in Mongolia. There are over a million points of data associating all species and subspecies of birds with all the countries/states of the world. Sometimes we don't get them all right - or the ranges change as they do and we are constantly behind the curve. I am proud to say that I believe we are more than 98% current on the more than million data points!

There are many very easy things you can do in order to get these things sighted. Here are a few:

1. If using Keyboard Entry, select a broader Location Filter such as "Asia" or "Europe" and your birds will be included.
2. If using Checklist Entry method
   1. You can select a broader Location Filter as above in #1, or
   2. use the Add Name button on the Checklist Entry window to add a bird to the checklist that is not currently on the checklist. It will be added at the bottom and now you can check it off.
3. You can use the Checklist Editor (Advanced feature - only use if you are comfortable with the concepts) to assign these two birds to Mongolia.

I recommend #1 or #2 above.

Let me know please,

Jeff

There are many ways around this