Having recently received my copy of Bird Recorder, I have noticed the
preponderance of birds with the title "common", that are invariably European
or British birds. There are also a ton of Eurasian this or that. I think
we don't have many birds named after European countries because the bird
lists were apparently dominated by British or other European birders who, in
their Eurocentric view, felt that their birds were the "common" ones and did
not need to be given a more descriptive name! "Eurasian" seems to have
been tacked on to identify the English version of wigeon, robin, or whatever
to the rest of the world, since they *still* apparently don't use any
modifiers in their common terms for many of these birds (as evidenced by the
appendix listing common British birds).

On escapee status: I really appreciated the 5-part status list posted in an
earlier message. I'm one of the people who will go look at mute swans and
crimson-fronted parakeets, just to see them, even if they aren't native.
However, I don't really like using the term escapee for a bird that was
born and is thriving out of captivity. I have been wondering why these
birds are considered different from house sparrows or rock doves, that now
appear on all official lists (except Bird Recorder, which doesn't show these
in the Nearctic faunal zone!) It would make sense to have an intermediate
category for birds that have escaped or been introduced but are documented
to have bred and survived successfully, but whose populations are not yet
well-enough established to add them to the official lists.

One final question - "loons" are listed as "divers" on the world bird list
provided with Bird Recorder. Names with "loon" are added in red, which
means "pending" according to the manual. Does the rest of the world call
loons divers? If so, are they reconsidering and planning to call them
loons? What name do most people use to be consistent with the "official"
world lists? I'm also curious who creates these lists. Are there world
records committees?