By Mary Leigh
[from winter 2024 newsletter]

I noticed recently that my eBird life list bird count increased by 1 when I hadn’t added any new species. The explanation was the annual taxonomy update! Every year, based on new insights by ornithologists, species are split, lumped, and renamed. According to an eBird article (https://ebird.org/news/2024- taxonomy-update), the 2024 taxonomy update is complete, and there were 141 species gained through splits, 16 dropped due to lumps, and 3 new species added. The new total of bird species worldwide is 11,145.

The Herring Gull was split into four species. I’d seen one at home and in Ireland, so I checked to see that eBird now showed American Herring Gull and European Herring Gull on my life list. Over 7 million observations in eBird were impacted by the Herring Gull splits, which is the largest number impacted by a revision in eBird history!

The House Wren split into 7 species, so I now counted Northern House Wren and Southern House Wren. Thus, I gained 2 birds due to splits, but my total went up by 1, so did I also lose one to a lump?

Before the article led me to the answer, I read, “Three Redpolls Become One.” Inspired by Tony Moline’s program last year on winter wildlife watching in Sax Zim Bog, my husband and I went to Minnesota in January. I was thrilled to see many Common Redpoll, but we were unable to find a Hoary Redpoll in the mix. That disappointment now translates into dodging a lump! (My condolences to Tony and others who had counted a Hoary Redpoll.)

Here comes the part about “spuhs” and slashes. When entering an eBird checklist, when a birder is unsure of a bird but can identify the family, a “spuh” can be reported, such as gull sp. or duck sp., where “sp.” is short for “species” and is pronounced “spuh”. A “slash” can be used when a bird can be narrowed down to a certain pair of species, such as Trumpeter/Tundra Swan. These reports do not count towards your life list but are listed at the bottom in an “Additional Taxa” section. With the taxonomy update, if eBird is unable to reassign a bird to its new species, it may change it to a spuh or slash. Looking at my Additional Taxa, I saw a new slash. Fortunately, the new species choice was obvious based on my photo, so fixing it corrected my total, so now it was up by two.

The eBird website is automatically updated, but if you use the eBird mobile app, you will need to update it and any installed bird packs to see the changes. Similarly, if you use Merlin, you’ll need to update your bird packs. These taxonomy changes happen annually in October, so I plan to be ready next year (exporting my list from eBird before the update, to make it easier to see what changed)!