Dear Jeff,

A belated Happy New Year to you and yours.  Hope all's going well.

I'm sure you - and others - recall the lengthy discussion we had about sightings that are not recognized by different taxonomies.  The problem actually seems more pernicious than I had thought:  some of the sightings I entered using the previous version of the Clements list are no longer recognized when I use the updated list (6.3.2).  (I could easily give some examples if you like but they're all straightforward to understand and stem from the de-recognition of particular subspecies etc.)  I have been stumbling over a few of them by accident (when considering hit-lists for trips I'm thinking about, for example) but it would be great if there were a utility to detect them.  What I mean is a button that can be pressed that asks for a taxonomy to be selected and then scans through the entire sightings database and gives a list of the sightings that would not be recognized for the selected taxonomy.  This sounds potentially simple enough to implement, at least to a computer dummy like me, but I guess the devil lies in the details.  What do you think?  And do others think that such a utility might be useful?

Best wishes,

Graham

Hi Graham,

Such a utility is already in Beta testing for v3.7. It does exactly what you are asking for - and others have been asking for for a long time!

There are 55 things (mostly subspecies due to lumping) present in "Clements 2008" that are missing from "Clements 2008 6.3.2", for example

• Diglossa lafresnayii lafresnayii (glossy flowerpiercer)
• Sporophila insulata (tumaco seedeater)
• Poospiza whitii whitii (black-and-chestnut warbling-finch)
• etc

fyi and thanks for the post.

p.s. Also, this new utility will show you the missing things you have sightings for and help you to reassign them to the new things in the new tax list! among other things.

Jeff

Dear Jeff,

Thanks for this - this sounds like just what the doctor ordered.  I'm convinced I have 20-30 lifers hidden away somewhere in my database and if the new utility fishes them out for me I'll be delighted.  Much less hassle than taking a foreign trip!

Best wishes,

Graham